Month: July 2008

Mahara open source e-portfolio

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My friend Benoit Brosseau told me about Mahara, which seems to fill a growing demand for e-portfolios in education. I like their approach:

What makes Mahara different from other ePortfolio systems is that you control which items and what information (Artefacts) within your portfolio other users see.

In order to facilitate this access control, all Artefacts you wish to show to other users need to be bundled up and placed into one area. Within Mahara this compilation of selected Artefacts is called a View.

You can have as many Views as you like, each with a different collection of Artefacts, and intended purpose and audience. Your audience, or the people you wish to give access to your View, can be added as individuals or as a member of a Group or Community.

Learner control over content access would be one of my essential criteria in selecting an e-portfolio system. More innovation from New Zealand!

Collaboration versus Teamwork

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In his Valence Theory of Organizations, Mark Federman identified “several specific forms of valence relationships that are enacted by two or more people when they come together to do almost anything; these are economic, social-psychological, identity, knowledge, and ecological.”

Recently Mark has posted on why bureaucracy and collaboration are mutually exclusive, showing the limited nature of Teamwork …

… in comparison to the more balanced aspect of Collaboration which brings all valence relationships into play.

As much as organisations advertise for “team players”, what would be best are workers who can truly collaborate by connecting to each other in a more balanced manner with all the facets of their lives. Of course that would mean that the blunt stick of economic consequences would have less overall significance.

Learning professionals as first responders

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When I was in the Canadian Forces Medical Services much of my work was in preparation for mass casualty situations, such as would happen in a conflict. Hospitals and medical personnel train for mass casualty situations because the rules are a bit different from the standard admission process. You are overwhelmed with casualties and the system cannot treat everyone as they would like or need. Priorities are set. An important role is that of triage [from the French verb “to sort” – Processus de prise de décision utilisé sur les lieux d’une urgence et servant à classer les victimes selon les priorités de soins – Grand dictionnatre terminologique].

I was thinking that triage is good metaphor for learning today. We are inundated with information and sources of knowledge. Learning professionals can help sort the signal from the noise by understanding the current circumstances of the organisation and do an initial triage. Of course the situation will be changing so what was important yesterday may not be important tomorrow. Only by constantly looking outside and inside will the learning professional provide a valuable service.

So if anyone asks why you’re reading 100 Web feeds and checking out the chat on Twitter and Facebook, tell them you’re doing triage.

I am a Canadian

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John Diefenbaker, Prime Minister of Canada, in 1960, while referring to the Canadian Bill of Rights:

“I am Canadian, a free Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship God in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, free to choose those who govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.”

I was only one year old at the time. Of course, each generation has to keep fighting for its rights and freedoms and ensure the rights of those who cannot.

It’s a great country — Happy Canada Day!