I noticed your response on Jamin’s work. I, too have been involved in research into VLEs in the UK for several years now. – I started by installing single-room networks way back in 1982 and haven’t looked back since!

BTW – I use the term VLE in terms of remote or virtual access as opposed to an MLE which could be an internal learning platform with MIS.

You might be interested in my short report, now somewhat dated, at:
http://www.maximise-ict.co.uk/VLEs_Bill_Tagg_Report.pdf

However, whilst producing that report I came to understand something of the total confusion concerning e-Portfolios both in the UK and US.

I strongly warn against the thinking that the e-Portfolio can be embedded within a school’s VLE. From my studies into interoperability I do not think that an e-Portfolio will ever export/import perfecty and intact. – So what is the point of a student of say 7 yrs old having to rebuild their e-Portfolio? Or an adult worker changing jobs etc? I address this issue of transition in my blog:
http://efoliointheuk.blogspot.com/2009/02/when-do-we-start-with-e-portfolio.html

I agree with you completely on the point of teachers and back-end involvement. All my work over the last 46 years has been about “How can I make your job easier and more enjoyable?” I therefore see no reason to create an e-Portfolio system that adds to the workload of teachers!

The NZ school system in which we both work is based on a premise that school can and do make good decisions. The Ministry’s role is often to provide to schools good information, sometimes to provide funding subsidies, to develop standards and specifications, to mediate in disputes between schools and vendors, and to inform/educate school staff so even better outcomes can be made.

No decision process, whether run by 2500 schools individually with Ministry support or by the Ministry on behalf of all these schools can produce results that all school arer always happy with.

School satisfaction in jurisdictions where there is one system selected is no higher than here and introduces many other issues. In fact, officials in some of those areas wish they were permitted to take the sort of calculated risks that schools have allowed the SMS team to take. A standard tender and monopoly supply decision might be the safer option?

Therefore the LMS approach appears destined to produce the same kind of difficulties that some schools are experiencing in an SMS, relying largely on the vendor and word of mouth, and putting all of the risk onto Boards to make the informed decision while the Ministry practices a risk-averse approach.

There are a number of reasons for this approach:
- starting with the familiar and building on this has a lower risk profile;
- desire to make the activities manageable for teachers, where interaction is normally with a ‘class sized’ group;
- a store for data required to launch software supported learning activities (e.g. class/group membership, demographics, etc) that is entered once into the SMS and then slaved to the LMS; and
- focus on schools as an organisation being responsible to support the education needs of many individuals

It might be that a different term is required for LMS as they become this (c.f. a course structuring tool), so open to suggestions on what this might be. I am currently at the IDEA conference in Melbourne and right across Australia the same trend is evident.

Once through the tender process I am keen to open up the online space of the reference group to others and try to seed a wider participation.

As for the portfolio, I guess schools will always be able to make the use/not use decision. With the small number of consumers currently on NEN it is crucial to select the highest value providers early on, both the get some custom from the existing school client base to hopefully to attract new ones.

It may be worth assessing any responses on a concept maturity / time-to-market vector. We could get lots of great ideas, but the ability of schools to actually pick them up is important. A portfolio approach?

DC