Who owns an ePortfolio?

Building a strong brand or image for myself online has never been very important to me. The older I have gotten, the less I care to post on social media because I do need nor want to share personal thoughts and information with people I do not know very well. The larger social media world does not feel like a significant learning environment to me, and I would rather quietly skim from the sideline.

After reading, The Web We Need To Give Students by Audrey Watters, I think of an ePortfolio in a completely new light. First of all, whether I like it or not, I am being represented by my social media accounts by what I like and what I post. Facebook and Instagram are the most likely places people will look to find information about me. An ePortfolio can provide a space to celebrate our learning and accomplishments while giving students more opportunities and control to share ideas and content that are important to them. Watters references the Domain of One’s Own Initiative created at the University of Mary Washington that not only gives students their own domain but also the technical and instructional support in building it. “In developing this “personal cyberinfrastructure” through the Domain of One’s Own initiative, UMW gives students agency and control; they are the subjects of their learning, not the objects of education technology software. (Watters, 2015)”.

Andrew Rikard (2015) made an excellent point about the purpose of a domain not being about data possession but knowledge production. The domain should not be a holding place for assignments but a space where students can take risks and experiment and be part of a broader public discussion. Rikard argues that to make this possible, the audience has to change to involve the world beyond the classroom and the ownership has to be transferred to the students. Creating a domain for students has great potential benefits for students but will only truly be realized if the pedagogy changes as well.

References

Rikard, A. (2015, August 10). Do I own my domain if you grade it? EdSurge. Retrieved November 3, 2021, from https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-08-10-do-i-own-my-domain-if-you-grade-it

Watters, A. (2015, July 15). The Web we need to give students. Bright Magazine. https://brightthemag.com/the-web-we-need-to-give-students-311d97713713