TEACHING EXPERIMENT IN AUDIOVISUAL COMMUNICATION USING THE E-PORTFOLIO

Emilio Sez Soro, Francisco Javier Gmez Tarn

Departamento de Ciencias de la Comunicacin, Universitat Jaume I (SPAIN) soro@com.uji.es, fgomez@com.uji.es

Abstract
Over the last two years at the Universitat Jaume I, the use of the e-portfolio has been introduced as an experimental teaching method, through the Centre for Education and New Technologies (CENT). This tool has been gradually incorporated into the Hypermedia Production course forming part of the Audiovisual Communication degree. In the first academic year it was used with a group of twenty-two students and, in the second, with a group of more than seventy. In all cases, students created their own individual projects and e-portfolios. This contrast brought the opportunity to experience the potential of this methodology in very different scenarios. The interest in introducing the e-portfolio becomes one of the possibilities offered as an element for organising teaching work in complex, heterogeneous environments without rigidity, which would cause a loss of creativity. Experience shows that both objectives are achieved, as it has allowed students the opportunity to give better shape to their ideas and the content supporting them and to adopt a more original approach to presenting them. However, the incorporation has entailed initial difficulties, as it raises a new discourse. In this case, ideas are presented right from the start in the accumulation of pieces making up the projects. Students are given the opportunity of making a product based on creating an audiovisual project in which the learning process and generation of documents and examples that shape it make up a piece giving form to the idea, while its origins and the way it has been generated are visible. All this allows the teacher a better understanding of how the learning is developing and the specific difficulties being faced. In this case, it has been possible to use this methodology with a small number of students, as it is impossible to carry out detailed monitoring with the larger group. However, even with the larger group, this methodology offers students the opportunity for better self-assessment of the development of their work and the chance to ask specific questions to move forward with their studies. As for the experience in working with the contents of the subject taught, it has proved particularly appropriate in as far as it makes it possible to bring together great diversity in the same organisational and presentational format. This means that the hybridisation that is occurring in audiovisual formats and discourses finds a coherent teaching environment on platforms like this one, promoting the coexistence of all discourses and formats which, moreover, become communication and teaching tools. The challenge is that of culturally incorporating the use of these environments which, although they simplify work in creative subjects with great documentary complexity, also require more time and supervision. The evaluation of the teaching advantages is clear, which is why the intention in the Audiovisual Communication degree is to introduce this methodology as an element of crossdisciplinary coordination for practical work in subjects leading to final connected products. The underlying problem raised is whether such an effort can be made if the Bologna student ratio criteria are not actually adapted. Keywords: e-portfolio, creative methodologies, hybridisation of formats, self-assessment

This study has been carried out with the aid of the Research Project Nuevas Tendencias e hibridaciones de los discursos audiovisuales contemporneos (New trends and hybridisations in contemporary audiovisual discourse) financed by the National R+D+i Plan of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the period 2008-2011, code CSO2008-00606/SOCI, run by Dr. Javier Marzal Felici, as part of the ITACA research group.

Proceedings of EDULEARN10 Conference. 5th-7th July 2010, Barcelona, Spain.

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ISBN:978-84-613-9386-2

CONTEXT OF THE INTRODUCTION OF E-PORTFOLIO METHODOLOGY

A programme to introduce the use of the e-portfolio on different courses at the Universitat Jaume I was begun in the 2009-2010 academic year, through its Education and New Technologies Centre (CENT). Included in this initiative was the subject Hypermedia Production in an attempt to explore the opportunities for teaching it better using this innovation. The CENT's initial plan was to work with small groups in subjects for which the use of the e-portfolio would be relevant, either as a back-up tool or as an important element for including all the work done in the subject. Expectations were focused on the possibility of enriching the work done by dealing with the content and knowledge in an integrated way in order to streamline supervision by lecturers and provide students with tools to use to construct their knowledge. Beyond technical issues and possibilities, this experiment offered an option for seeking less rigid ways of accessing knowledge and autonomy in learning.

1.1

Technical support: e-portfolio Mahara

The tool provided by the university for developing students' e-portfolios was the Mahara [1] environment. The CENT began a training programme for the lecturers in the various subjects involved and also set up a group providing technical support and advice in the use of these media. This environment, developed with web 2.0 logic, makes it easy to publish all kinds of content. It is also a user community providing opportunities for mutual cooperation. The approach and possibilities of this environment actually go beyond the most demanding expectations of teaching work, because it provides the students with tools that are useful outside their studies. These options include: the capacity to organise professional curriculums that can be published on the Internet. Interesting possibilities were opened up for students approaching their work more creatively, autonomously and, at the same time, in a more orderly way. The introduction of this methodology involves students adopting a more autonomous view of their work. In many ways this connects with the Bologna directives concerning working methods. The use of Mahara involves a change of concept for students compared to other virtual teaching tools, like the Moodle-type Virtual Classroom [2], because in this case it was each student alone who controlled the content of their e-portfolio and showed only what they wanted in the form they wanted. In this way a change was made from a teaching model based on the virtual but controlled by the lecturer, to a model run by the students. This was something the students took time to accept, as it created much confusion for them about what their attitude to the tool ought to be.

1.2

Features of the subject Hypermedia Production

The subject in which this methodology was applied is called Hypermedia Production. It consists of learning the features of the multimedia products on the Internet, particularly the web as a communication tool. It also approaches product design learning in which this type of virtual element serves to meet specific communication needs. It is a compulsory subject taught in the fifth year of the Audiovisual Communication degree, so the students who come to it are more mature and capable of coping with more complex pieces of work. This was considered an advantage when it came to the decision to implement this new working method. Similarly, the nature of the e-portfolio tool means it adapts very well to pieces of work such as very diverse projects. Such diversity was desirable considering that the idea was for students to carry out very personal projects with which they felt identified and which, in some way, had great potential for actual implementation. In this context, the e-portfolio provided a tool that could be adapted to all kinds of formats very much in accordance with teaching requirements and students' work.

1.2.1

Type of content

On the other hand, the variety of content for the subject Hypermedia Production was an added difficulty for the students' work. The students had to work with text files to draw up technical reports, image files for graphics for browsing and content distribution, project management files, design files and, finally, multimedia files.

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The need to integrate this diversity into a comprehensible and easily displayed project had always proved particularly difficult to deal with. The subject's methodology has sought professional documentary forms and attractive presentation for hypothetical investors. The decision to experiment with the Mahara environment was a coherent one in the situation described, in the search for appropriate environments to be able to manage this diverse content more efficiently.

1.2.2

Type of work

The idea was that each project should correspond to the concerns and interests of the student in order to achieve two objectives: that the project carried out should be useful for students about to graduate and, secondly, that, because of this, they should be more involved with the project and, therefore, achieve a better result. The search for tools allowing students to develop projects in very different formats is entirely natural if it is considered that the design of the subject involves a high level of personalisation. On the other hand, it was also necessary to achieve a series of orderly steps to fill in descriptive documentation following some clear rules. So, the e-portfolio makes it possible to combine the incorporation of this documentation, help to give it shape and supervise it, while allowing the project to be a personal and original one. The problem, however, derived from the novelty of this type of environment for representing ideas in a non-linear format. This format is closer to the use of blogs and social network walls, but with greater freedom of choice in terms of the composition of elements, use of space and approach to the unity of the whole.

1.3

Opportunities arising from the use of the e-portfolio

One of the most important opportunities offered by the e-portfolio was the capacity to assimilate complex learning and working environments. Normal on-line working environments, such as the virtual classroom (Moodle), mean greater rigidity in the way the students develop their work. This rigidity is appropriate for organising a large quantity of homogeneous documentation, but it is not very useful for developing work that involves a considerable measure of creativity. Another value is the diversity of digital formats that can be used together. The fact that both textual elements, with the possibility of comments, and internal or external multimedia elements could be included in the so-called "views" offered potential without precedent in other educational tools. Taking into account that multimedia formats, many with external references, are used in the description of a project, the use of the e-portfolio meant the incorporation of a natural container for this type of work. Meanwhile, the tool allowed more personalised and detailed monitoring of the work. The great value involved in being able to monitor the work in a flexible, detailed way could and would become a problem because of the large amount of time necessary for this kind of supervision. A final element stimulating the incorporation of experimentation was that the work carried out by students in the e-portfolio should have the potential to be extended to other subjects. It is not a question of recycling work, but rather of connecting it together. In Audiovisual Communication the students produce a multitude of audiovisual content that needs to be linked to technical knowledge cutting across subject boundaries. The methodology, or certain parts of the work, can easily connect with the development of other tasks. The architecture of the Mahara environment, based on the arrangement of elements (files, texts, blogs, links to other sources, etc.) which could be linked to different views in a shared form, was a natural medium for this.

1.4

Initial problems with the implementation of the e-portfolio

One of the problems that arose during the experiment was a result of the fact that this environment required a type of attitude from students that they were not accustomed to: self-organisation and capacity to approach their work originally and creatively. It was desirable that they should overcome these difficulties to seek a higher level of maturity in creating and managing their own work. This format was also a new as a platform for developing and presenting pieces of work, but with the problem that it could lead to a "blank page" crisis due to the lack of references. One of the problems raised by the implementation of the e-portfolio was that it considerably limited the possibilities of teamwork. For the subject we are dealing with this was not a problem, as the projects

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developed were personal ones. However, with a view to expanding this working method to other subjects in which there is considerable content involving working in groups, this limitation was difficult to resolve. However, the restriction on group work was not absolute, as the system allows and promotes collaboration between users. There are broad possibilities for "social configuration", allowing access to people, groups and the public, defined more or less openly, so that they can display and comment on the views. Although it is not a matter of directly sharing work, it does allow support and some opportunities to combine resources through syndication.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE EXPERIMENT

The experiment of introducing the e-portfolio into the subject Hypermedia Production was carried out in two well-differentiated phases. This was unavoidable because of the different numbers of students registered for this subject. About thirty students registered for the 2008-2009 academic year, but in 2009-2010 the number was seventy-five. Clearly, this difference entirely conditioned the use of the eportfolio as an element for the progressive supervision of the work by the lecturer. In fact, during the first year it was used precisely because of the possibilities offered by the fact that the number of students was small. In the second year, an attempt was made to continue using the e-portfolio despite the fact that it is a methodology more suitable for working with small groups. Its use continued in order to achieve some of the advantages provided by the environment. Although lecturers were given training by CENT so that they could use the Mahara environment, the way the tool was adapted to each subject was up to each lecturer. Whether or not a subject could work with the portfolio, either materially or digitally, was, in itself, a challenge. The use of a 2.0 tool whose potential, as well as grouping content created and/or collected by the student, allowed lecturerstudent communication made this challenge a bigger one. The methodology was introduced, of course, before the start of the academic year, adapting the previous working plan to complement the new format coherently. It was therefore considered necessary to devote one of the first classes to introducing the use of the Mahara platform. This session, although it covered both the technical and conceptual components involved in using Mahara, was not sufficient to provide true comprehension of what was involved in using it. Subsequent revision work was necessary before students could achieve a clearer view of the possibilities of working with the e-portfolio.

2.1
2.1.1

First year: introduction of the methodology

Results of students' first steps with the e-portfolio

The architecture of the Mahara system, with elements and views, which has already been mentioned, was initially taken as if it were a passive container for files. Students initially tended to "put up" their documents and leave them there so they could see them. They could not grasp the approach they were given initially of presenting and relating different files to give the idea of an integrated project. Students evolved from a passive attitude to approaching their projects differently, so that the presentation of the different parts and the relations between them created a better whole piece of work. The characteristics of this subject require a more complex presentation of the project elements for two reasons: because they provide greater coherence and better comprehension and because good presentation, because it is clear and attractive, meant that it was more likely that these pieces of work would finally be carried out. The notion of presenting and explaining the project as part of the project itself, connected with the possibility of it being carried out, is something that is not often present in many subjects, but, in one concerning communication, it must exist. However, overcoming the tendency to use the e-portfolio as a container and making it a creative environment for presentation/representation required a greater effort.

2.1.2

Different strategies for students in developing and presenting their e-portfolio

Assessing the way in which the contents of the projects in the e-portfolio is problematic considering that, in principle, there are no relevant normative criteria. It would be reasonable to expect that there should be criteria for each subject. In our case, the criteria are the ones intended to achieve better comprehension and presentation of projects. But, in as far as each project was different, the

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presentation could also be different. What could be demanded was that the reasons for the choice of presentation and the degree to which it contributed to the better explanation of the project should be explained in the chosen format. We therefore find very different forms and styles of presenting e-portfolios. The most commonly recurring way of placing the content into the view space was to use a linear format, following temporal criteria in the appearance of the different elements making up the project. This approach to the use of the e-portfolio space was the one initially adopted in most cases, but it was often later abandoned in a search for other forms of composition. Students were given guidance on the best way of presenting projects with a simple idea: the one best adapted to the type of project. Because of this, many of the project views were gradually reorganised, attending to criteria such as the grouping of items depending on the nature or their information or because of some specific intention to strengthen the most important aspects. We can call this presentation by interest areas, although in this case an "interest area" remains a highly subjective idea. Another way that projects took shape could be called "formless", or simply a random, chaotic arrangement of the different elements. These cases might be considered to be due either to a lack of comprehension of what the use of the e-portfolio involved or simply poor work translating into all parts of the project carried out. Concerning the way the content of the project was approached, there were three possibilities, which could be combined in various ways: the most interesting involved linking access to the basic project documents, describing what they consisted of, extracting some kind of example so that each document's nature could be understood without the need to open it and, finally, showing examples of similar projects [3]. Such complex, extensive treatment of information occurred only in exceptional cases, and it was more normal to find an irregular combination of these elements in different parts of the work. A great variety of content could be used, both in terms of format and approach, argument and information. The way they were expressed in the e-portfolio was also very heterogeneous. The difference between students with experience with the web 2.0 was decisive. There were e-portfolios with a clear predominance of text [4] as a fundamental element and others with a great wealth of formats in which text served as a connection and guide [5]. The use of images and example videos ended up as the combination most often used, but blogs, sound and some specific gadgets were also incorporated. In the best cases, what was achieved beyond multimedia accumulation was the construction of an environment that helped to better explain what appeared as a better understood unit. A start was thereby made with the use of a media meta-language in which the connections and relationships were explained with objects coming from other sources. The final result in many e-portfolios was of a great concentration of information which, in the best resolved cases, was scaled using different levels of access. This exercise of summarising the content in the space helped the students to have a deeper awareness of the sense of their projects. We might say that the creation of a format for concentrating and representing it led them to the need to reveal the keys to their work with greater clarity. At the end of all this entire description, a reasonable doubt remains over whether there could be fairer criteria for comparatively assessing these pieces of work, given the diversity of forms and argument used in most cases. Initially, the experimental nature of the initiative allowed lecturers to free themselves of uncertainty which in other cases would prove highly problematic. It seems clear now that there is still a considerable amount of work to be done to establish some reasonable criteria about what was interesting and what was not when it came to creating and presenting an e-portfolio.

2.1.3

Communicative interaction using the e-portfolio

One of the first tasks that had to be done by the creator of the e-portfolio was to decide who would be allowed to see it. Clearly in the case that concerns us it was essential to authorise the lecturer. This was something which initially surprised students, who were used to lecturers controlling all their virtual working environments at university. In this case, though, they controlled access themselves. But apart from the need to authorise the lecturer, they could think about giving access to other people either classmates or people outside the teaching environment. This authorisation was also temporary, as it made it possible to monitor the progress of the work or leave access to it open until the last minute. A

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pre-existing culture in the use of 2.0 media was very important in explaining the use made by students of these opportunities. Some of them, then, shared their work with their closest classmates. Others gave access only to the lecturer and only then when expressly requested to do so. Access authorisation for the views was established. As the system allowed the sending of comments, it was used by the lecturer to assess the progress of the work. The e-portfolio was taken as the platform from which access was gained to the different documents completed in the project. In many cases, the comments were only brief lines of feedback giving a positive assessment of the progress of the work. In others, they made recommendations urging the student to make corrections or complete work as necessary. Each e-portfolio was supervised every week, generating comments at the project milestones coinciding with the schedule. This work was quite laborious, as well as the expectations of work for the review itself, each review had to check whether the work had been updated to include changes suggested at previous reviews. Sometimes, a single e-portfolio accumulated more reviews than many others put together. This work meant the lecturer had a deep knowledge of the development of the students' projects, but with the paradox that the worst projects and the ones that were most behind schedule generated a disproportionate amount of supervision time. The communication circulating internally among classmates to show their views was irregular and was not matched by visible comments. The fact that the lecturer was progressively commenting on each of the views might clearly have been a reason inhibiting students from adding their own. But it is clear that, in many cases, they used alternative ways of sharing communication about their work. Another possibility of the communicative use of the e-portfolio was to use the Mahara environment as a tool for exhibiting the students' projects externally. This is something that went beyond the intention of the subject but this option is noted in as far as it also made sense of the students' attitude in drawing up their e-portfolios.

2.1.4

Final results of work presented in e-portfolios

If we consider the criteria according to which the e-portfolio was to be used for presenting students' hypermedia projects, making them easier to understand and showing their most outstanding features we can say that in most of the pieces of work done this objective was achieved. However, it cannot be forgotten that, in such an experimental area, there is always uncertainty over whether things could have been done better another way. There is a lack of references, and not only general references, but also those linked to the use of these media for specific subjects. It must be repeated that the prior cultural introduction of the students to using this kind of tool was decisive for the final results obtained. The most complete, well-constructed e-portfolios, created more openly in terms of collaboration with classmates, corresponded to students who had carried out a degree of activity on the Internet, sharing information and multimedia material. This was because, however much technical and conceptual knowledge of certain tools was provided to students, this did not mean an immediate change in their mentality or how they approached their work.

2.2 Second year: review of the use of e-portfolio methodology. General contrast, common aspects to be highlighted
Before beginning the use of the e-portfolio in the second year, there was a discussion about the appropriateness of this new test due to the fact that the increase in student numbers made it likely that the supervision methodology would be much more laborious. However, the advantages of the Mahara environment for the subject were useful ones, even if the progressive review style of the previous year was dispensed with. The main difference from the previous year was the use of the e-portfolio as another product for helping to carry out the project, and not as a platform for the lecturer to observe it. This difference was imposed by the increase in student numbers we have mentioned, as it would have been absolutely impossible to assess so many projects using the same method. The features of the e-portfolio that let to continuing with it as a working model were: a. That as well as serving for the presentation of the work, it was very useful for organising its content and so that each student could visualise their project as a whole. b. The use of some of its features as a social tool, particularly the possibilities that students could share their views to support one another. It was also useful for students to be able to share

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these views with people outside the course, and for them to subsequently disseminate their project in this way if they wanted to reuse it. c. The fact that the students could have some of the best work done the previous year as an example. This possibility of making use of that earlier experience gave better guarantees for less closely supervised work achieving a better result. However, the existence of these references, as well as clearly being helpful in the creation of the new e-portfolios, involved a limitation on the area of creativity and on free experimentation in creating them. The final results of the creation of e-portfolios in the second year of the experiment were, overall, very acceptable, despite the methodological change. However, the differences between the best and the worst e-portfolios were more marked and the typological differences described above between those who created products with 2.0 logic and those who merely made adaptations were also more visible. It is not that e-portfolios created with a more traditional approach to giving the information were worse, but what was made clear is that best use was not being made of the advantages of internal and external information management or of the communicative and social potential of the tool.

CONCLUSIONS, EXPECTATIONS AND FUTURE PLANS

There is no doubt at all that the e-portfolio is established as one of the most useful tools for practical work involving a considerable variety and complexity of documents. The design of environments like Mahara makes it possible to present a wide variety of digital formats and for them to coexist coherently in the same environment. The result is that, in their final presentation, the pieces of work achieve greater internal consistency and a more effective approach. The initial investment of time in guiding students on how to use them is soon repaid. Students saved time in document management and structured their work better, both in terms of final organisation and presentation. However, in guiding students on how to use it, it is important to distinguish between those who have already internalised the use of 2.0 tools and those who have not. It would have been unfair for the lecturers to guide only students approaching the use of this tool based on this culture in media use and pay less attention to those who had not already internalised it. The tool's difficulties when it came to group work may have been compensated by the capacity brought by this methodology to students for organising and integrating large quantities of heterogeneous information in a common environment. The e-portfolio has great potential for articulating work in different subjects in which connected content is used. Developing a qualification e-portfolio in which all work done can be compiled and presented has considerable potential for making new use of students' work, as they can continue to make progress based on what they have done by improving and maturing it. Based on this potential, the incorporation of the Mahara environment as a working tool cutting across all Audiovisual Communication degree subjects at the Universitat Jaume I is being considered.

METHODOLOGY

This article as a teaching experiment is based on the work done during the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 academic years. A total of eighty e-portfolios were created in these two years. Apart from the logical participation in the learning process and the incorporation of this methodology together with students, two monitoring sessions were held each year. The first session was half way through the teaching period and the second at the end of it, to make a joint assessment of the results of using the methodology.

REFERENCES
[1] http://Mahara.org [2] http://moodle.org [3] Well-integrated e-portfolio. http://www3.uji.es/~soro/portafolios/completo.jpg [4] E-portfolio with predominance of text. http://www3.uji.es/~soro/portafolios/lostisland.jpg [5] E-portfolio with the use of text as a guide to the components. http://www3.uji.es/~soro/portafolios/fisio.jpg

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