Something I’ve noticed progress throughout my years of education has been the increase of technology in the classroom. From the early middle school transition from projector machines to smartboards technology is undeniably becoming a significant part of not only our educational experiences but in the work forces we will be joining. But, is this implementation a good thing and is it considered useful specifically in our small military school environment? While not all academic journals agree on this topic, I have found that a majority showed an overarching opinion of believing that by using technology to review and reflect upon our work we are better students and setting them up for success in their lives following school.
The two academic platforms I will be focusing on for this project will be VMI’s provided Eportfolio/ WordPress website and our online grading and communication platform, Canvas. The focal group for this project will be randomly selected seniors and Juniors where at Virginia Military Institute whose major is English. After further meetings and planning with Col McDonald I realized that by evaluating other majors I would not receive the same level of feedback based solely off of the fact non-liberal arts majors are stereotypically known for lack of writing and a. heavier focus on STEM minded concepts. The English majors’ responses provide me with the strongest base for my research based off of their extensive, mandatory use of both platforms.
Eportfolio is a platform whose lineage stems from what many would consider to be” old fashioned” paper portfolios. I feel as if the term “portfolio” is typically misunderstood as simply a collection of photographs or text, but it involves a step that many overlook, reflection and interaction. The idea of a portfolio is that it is typically “the product of a course or program assignment that requires students to collect evidence of and reflect upon their academic accomplishments.” (source) Without discussing the evidence collected and things such as, how it could be improved, or what worked well, a portfolio is unnecessary.
The concept for this assignment was no one that was easy for me. My interest in studying the Eportfolio platforms stems from my job at the Virginia Military Institute as an Eportfolio tutor. Unfortunately, despite how useful the writing center and Eportfolio sector is, I have noticed a low number of students making appointments each semester. Yet, despite the low number of appointment suggesting that students claim to not need assistance of any sort. This lead my initial belief to be that student’s do not find Eportfolio to be useful in the slightest. It appeared that students did not care about implementing this into their everyday academic lives which to me makes it appear that that maybe it is not being used in the most effective way. This is unfortunate because studies have shown that when used the “right” way, Eportfolio can be useful to students across all curriculums to include STEM. (source)
“An Eportfolio, as all technologies, is a tool; a took that, in the right hands, under the right direction, and with the right effort can transform a student’s understanding, agency and world view- in the wrong hand, under the wrong direction, and without effort, and Eportfolio is simply a Web page.”(source)
My own initial personal reaction for Canvas was initially more positive but in an entirely different way. From personal experience I can attest that I rarely use it for teacher response interaction, but more strictly for file sharing and grade updates. While that is one of the purposes of this technology, it is not the only purpose. Much like Eportfolio Canvas has the intention of helping to foster student’s relationship with their own writing. The site offers abilities such as posting your work, creating chat rooms, and receiving critical feedback, most of which I believe students are either unable to find, or do not know exist.
*insert canvas quote from source 3*
After discussing with 8 of my peers I found that my own personal realizations were not far from the overall opinion of platforms. All of the students spoken to agreed that they knew what both Eportfolio and Canvas are and that they have a strong understanding of how to use both. Nearly all of us are asked to post our assignments online so that it is easier for teachers to locate them and grant us with immediate feedback without needing to come into the office for an official meeting. Seniors in particular have found that canvas is a necessity when posting because of the senior showcase. For us, this grants us the capability of showering potential employers a easy to access compilation of our work. These were some of the more positive responses I received while others were not as enthusiastic about Eportfolio.
When sitting around a table discussing Eportfolio with people I received comments such as, “What is it even supposed to be used for?” and “it costs the school extra money but most of us don’t even use it. I don’t like spending the extra money in my tuition.” Comments such as these showed me a few things. First, that the majority of people are greatly misinformed, and that the younger ages aren’t as enthusiastic about the opportunities. I believe that in large part this has to do with our environment here at the Virginia Military Institute.
The situation is not necessarily that I think teachers are doing a bad job of using it with students, but I think that particularly at this school, where we have such personal relationships without teachers, we excel in face to face environments not using technology. When I chose to cme to VMI part of the appeal as the size of the classes. Upon my entering the school there was a 12 to 1 student teacher ratio. This is an impressively balanced ratio compared to much larger schools. Despite our small size we are still ranked among the top tiers with our educational programs. This being said, this technological disconnect may not be a problem specifically here but I worry that it may be in the “real world.”