Abstract:

ePortfolios are not a new concept and there have been studies from different perspectives related, such as a professional learning design, development planning, technology and a reflective tool. This study focuses on more detailed way what kind of competences vocational student teachers have made visible in their ePortfolios and how. The interest focuses on exploring what kind of pedagogical and digital competences are visible in ePortfolios. The study explored what kind of artifacts and sections are ePortfolios composed of and what kind of digital and content quality ePortfolios represented. The main artefacts that were studied were learning designs, development work report and a general use of ePortfolio tools. The pedagogical competence was studied by using a framework of the Technology Enhanced Pedagogical Infrastructure that is formulated with four components: technological, social, epistemological and cognitive. These four components are the basic, and at the same time, very general frame for creating learning designs or evaluating them. The framework was used to create a more detailed and practical evaluation frame that was drawn from vocational student teachers’ learning designs presented in their ePortfolios. The Concept of the Digital Competence was used to evaluate student teachers’ digital competence. Even there is no overall consensus of the digital competence there is a need to find a common ground for using it in different educational practices. Technology is not a specific content to learn but more a didactical approach to be implemented in substance and to be consider as a wide concept. The Concept of the Digital Competence that was used in evaluating ePortfolios includes definitions of technical skills, ability to use and apply digital technology for working and studies, critical use of various technologies and understanding of computational thinking and robotics, and motivation to participate and engage in digital culture.

The study reveals that there is a lot of variation of student teachers’ ePortfolios; some of them were left unfinished and some of them represented a high quality of pedagogical and digital competence. Making individuals competence transparent in a digital format is complicated. More guidance and scaffolding are required regarding how to create an ePortfolio and store competences in a digital format. Student teachers’ motivation to use ePortfolio in their learning activities and competence demonstration was also studied in order to discover what kind of scaffolding they require. Finally the study presents some ideas how to scaffold ePortfolio activities in a way that motivates student teachers to use ePortfolios in their learning processes and with their own students after their teacher studies. This finding relates to the discussion of the continuing learning that occurs through an individual’s career and life.

Keywords:

EPortfolio, teacher competence, scaffolding, pedagogical competence, digital competence.