Adult Migrants embrace e-portfolios

Newly arrived migrants have participated in an e-learning project
that provided them with a method to record their learning and employment experiences.

The project was conducted by AMES (Adult Multicultural
Education Services) piloted the use of e-portfolios by adult cultural
and linguistically diverse (CALD) learners.

As Australia celebrates Adult Learners Week, theE-Portfolios for
adult ESL learners project provides a good example of the importance
of proving training for all age groups.

Four learner groups and several distance learners who were studying the Certificate I or III in Spoken and Written English created e-portfolios which incorporated resumes, work samples and digital recordings.

Project coordinator Dora Troupiotis said the “learners participating in this project are developing a better understanding of the benefits of e-portfolios, while also improving their employability skills“.

“And all of this will occur in the context of completing assessment tasks for their course,” Ms Troupiotis said.

The learners used several technologies in the process of making the e-portfolios:

• Mahara (e-portfolio application)
• flip video camera for learner generated digital videos
• mp3 player/digital recorder for learner generated audio files
• digital cameras and photo editing software.

Six participating trainers also received ongoing mentoring and support as they integrated e-portfolios into their courses. In addition the trainers used the following to support students and their own learning network:

• Snag It (screen capture)
• Wikispaces wiki
• Elluminate (web conferencing).

More information on the e-Portfolios for adult ESL learners project