Abstract:

Over the last two years at the Universitat Jaume I, the use of the e-portfolio has been introduced as an experimental teaching method, through the Centre for Education and New Technologies (CENT). This tool has been gradually incorporated into the Hypermedia Production and Creation course forming part of the Audiovisual Communication degree. In the first academic year it was used with a group of twenty-two students and, in the second, with a group of more than seventy. In all cases, students created their own individual projects and e-portfolios. This contrast brought the opportunity to experience the potential of this methodology in very different scenarios.

The interest in introducing the e-portfolio becomes one of the possibilities offered as an element for organising teaching work in complex, heterogeneous environments without rigidity, which would cause a loss of creativity. Experience shows that both objectives are achieved, as it has allowed students the opportunity to give better shape to their ideas and the content supporting them and to adopt a more original approach to presenting them.

However, the incorporation has entailed initial difficulties, as it raises a new discourse. In this case, ideas are presented right from the start in the accumulation of pieces making up the projects. Students are given the opportunity of making a product based on creating an audiovisual project in which the learning process and generation of documents and examples that shape it make up a piece giving form to the idea, while its origins and the way it has been generated are visible.

All this allows the teacher a better understanding of how the learning is developing and the specific difficulties being faced. In this case, it has been possible to use this methodology with a small number of students, as it is impossible to carry out detailed monitoring with the larger group. However, even with the larger group, this methodology offers students the opportunity for better self-assessment of the development of their work and the chance to ask specific questions to move forward with their studies.

As for the experience in working with the contents of the subject taught, it has proved particularly appropriate in as far as it makes it possible to bring together great diversity in the same organisational and presentational format. This means that the hybridisation that is occurring in audiovisual formats and discourses finds a coherent teaching environment on platforms like this one, promoting the coexistence of all discourses and formats which, moreover, become communication and teaching tools. The challenge is that of culturally incorporating the use of these environments which, although they simplify work in creative subjects with great documentary complexity, also require more time and supervision. The evaluation of the teaching advantages is clear, which is why the intention in the Audiovisual Communication degree is to introduce this methodology as an element of cross-discipline coordination for practical work in subjects leading to final connected products. The underlying problem raised is whether such an effort can be made if the Bologna student ratio criteria are not actually adapted.

Keywords:

e-portofolio, creative methodologies, hybridisation of formats, self evaluation.