ePortfolio: Best Practices from Germany, Italy, Finland and the UK

© Nick Richards, UK, Wikimedia Commons

Five hundred medical students at Leeds University School of Medicine will be equipped with iPhones so that their skills can be assessed online. The large-scale project is one of several ePortfolio initiatives being presented at OEB 2010 by delegates from Germany, Italy, Finland and the United Kingdom.

All fourth and fifth year medical students at the Leeds School of Medicine will get iPhones as part of a project run by the school’s technology-enhanced learning team.

Scott Hennessy, C&IT Project Officer, says, “We are currently implementing a project using iPhone assessment and learning apps to support portfolio based learning for our medical students out on work placements.”

These students will be spending time away from campus, working in hospital wards and GP surgeries, and the iPhones will be loaded with reference information to help their training.

Real-time Assessment

Clinical assessors will assess students‘ skills using a specially created clinical assessment (Mini CEX) application on the iPhone. Once completed, the assessment is transfered into the student’s personal web-based ePortfolio system.

Students will also be provided with reference material supplied by Medhand International and have been directed to use NHS Evidence, an on-line information portal.

To achieve the project, Leeds School of Medicine worked with MyKnowledgeMap on the clinical assessment app development. Medhand International are providing a package of current medical text books, tailored for the Leeds Medical students.

Sharing Best Practices

Leeds School of Medicine has used mobile technology to support learning and assessment as part of a large scale five year deployment involving partner institutions. In a workshop at OEB, representatives from the School’s Technology Enhanced Learning Team will share their experiences and lessons learnt of scoping, managing and deploying e-learning projects with large cohorts of students and multiple stakeholders.

ePortfolios: A Scalable and Sustainable Tool

More examples of ePortfolios will be featured in session PED29 on Thursday, December 2nd. Ilona Buchem from Beuth University of Applied Sciences, Berlin, Germany, will present activities of the National ePortfolio Initiative Berlin, a bottom-up approach to a scalable and sustainable implementation of ePortfolios in schools, universities and training institutions. Another example comes from the Università degli Studi ‘Guglielmo Marconi’, Italy. Viviana Boccardi will present an electronic Europan Language Portfolio which has been designed and implemented by the university.

Timo Raatikainen from Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Finland, will present Mahara, the University’s new ePortfolio networking platform operating since October.

Workshop A5, Learning on the Move: Encouraging and Embedding the Use of Mobile Devices in Education Wednesday, December 1, 14:00 – 18:00

PED29 on Thursday, December 2nd, 14:00 – 16:00 ePortfolios: A Scalable and Sustainable Tool