Abstract:

One of the important goals of social networking is about knowledge sharing. In education, Web 2.0 social networking has transformed the notion of sharing and gave a new meaning to it - knowledge sharing and resources. This paper investigates a group of ESL teachers' efforts in becoming technology-proficient through the building of their teacher e-portfolio. It intends to highlight how the aspect of knowledge sharing and resources led the participants to design and develop effective and efficient learning tool, the teacher e-portfolio. Through content analysis, reflections and open-ended questionnaire, this study attempts to explore these two research questions, i) to what extent is the sharing of knowledge and resources achieved when the ESL teachers' are building their teacher e-portfolios and ii) in what way does the experience of building the teacher e-portfolio make them technology-proficient? The participants were ESL teachers doing postgraduate in M.Ed TESL enrolled in Computer Assisted Language Learning class. Building the teacher e-portfolio was one of the class assignments to be done in 3 weeks during the semester. The teacher e-portfolio conceptualized for this study is an information management learning tool, a compilation of teaching and learning resources designed to be shared with other teachers and students. It allows the participants to showcase themselves as professional teachers unlike the commonly known teaching e-portfolio which mainly contains reflections and growth of the teacher over time. Findings for this study show that despite the lack of technical knowledge, the participants managed to incorporate multimedia in their teacher e-portfolio apart from the static pictures, and study notes, power point slides, worksheets and test papers. They incorporated youtube videos, their own videos, slideshare, music, sounds and animations. The study suggests that the aspect of sharing knowledge and resources with other teachers and students gave the teachers a sense of freedom and creativity in designing and developing their own professional website such as the teacher e-portfolio, projecting themselves as technology proficient teachers.

Keywords:

Knowledge sharing, teacher e-portfolio, technology-proficient, ESL teachers, Computer Assisted Language Learning, teacher education.