This document discusses using ePortfolios with Mahara to support employability for adults. It provides an overview of how Mahara can be used to help adults build career portfolios containing work experience, skills assessments and credentials. The document outlines current initiatives in Manitoba, Canada using Mahara for workplace education, skills recognition and career development. It also discusses future directions, such as improved mobile access and interoperability with other online systems to create a community for lifelong career development and learning.
3. Manitoba & Canada
Small province in a small country
• Challenging geography
• Diverse demographics
– French/English, Aboriginals, Immigrants
• Federal political structure
• Manitoba: “Canada’s social science laboratory”
5. Applications for Adults
• Employability
– Getting hired
– Performance Management
• RPL
– Athabasca
• Professional registration and CPD
• Knowledge portfolios
• Life portfolios
6. Career Portfolio Manitoba
Current stakeholders: WEM & WPLAR
• Nonprofit partnerships of Government,
Business and Labour
• WEM: workplace education in Essential Skills
• WPLAR: workplace Recognition of Prior
Learning
wem.mb.ca
wplar.ca
7. Adults in Transition
Use cases
• Immigrants
• Twenty-somethings
• Return to workers
• Displaced workers
• Career shifters
• Mature workers
8. Different learning needs of
adults?
• Relevance
• Assessment, accreditation
• Intervention window
• Urgency
• Vulnerability
9. Canada’s Essential Skills
Contextualized by workplace occupation…
1. Reading text
2. Document use
3. Writing
4. Numeracy
5. Computer skills
6. Oral communication
7. Thinking skills
– Problem Solving, Decision Making, Critical
Thinking, Job Task Planning and Organizing,
Significant Use of Memory, Finding
Information
8. Working with others
9. Continuous learning
10. Essential Skills ePortfolio
Program overview
• Adapt an existing
paper curriculum
• Leverage the “e” factor
• Embed authentic ICT skills
– Useful software, accessible hardware
– Digital identity literacy
11. Vision for Career Portfolio Manitoba
Career development for life
• For all Manitobans
• Learner owned
• Lifelong
• Lifewide: home, community, school, work...
• Based on (not restricted to) Essential Skills
• Built through partnerships of stakeholders, with
WEM and WPLAR as “anchor tenants”
• Globally aware, locally relevant
13. Features
• Portfolio building course
– Video tutorials, support
• Templates
– Pages (soon collections)
– Documents
• Fictional exemplar
• Extensive use of Web 2.0
– esp. YouTube, Screenr, LinkedIn
– Audio vs. video
– Embed.ly as the glue
• Multimedia “clinics”
14. Next steps
• Migrate to 1.5
• Add MaharaDroid and PortfolioUp
• Drop Google Apps
• Look at reintegrating Moodle
15. Improving Outcomes
Areas for improvement
• Better user content
– More than scanned certificates
• More reflection
– More artefact curation
– Learning Journal
• Better formative assessment
– Industry advisors
• Ongoing use
– Adding to the archive
– Using as a Personal Learning Environment
16. On the horizon
• Gap training case management
• After school program for at-risk youth
• Online workbook?
• Job marketplace
17. Frustrations
• Usability
– Content/Portfolio silos
– Lack of wizards
• Fragility of Web 2.0 connections
– Google, LinkedIn
• Accessibility
18. Wishlist
• Mahara Wizards
• Direct editing
– Like Notes blocks now – precedent?
– 1.6: direct journal entry
• Accessibility
• Better Mobile
• Dynamic interoperability with other
systems
– Making use of Web Services?
19. Community of communities
“Small pieces, loosely joined”
Government Student
Information Records
Portals
Employer HR
LMS Management
Moodle, Systems
D2L, etc.
Online Localized
Credential ePortfolio Labour Market
Verification Information
Web 2.0
YouTube Job Boards,
LinkedIn Recruitment
Twitter… Sites
Online Personal
Mentoring Networks,
Services Communities
20. Useful links
• Career Portfolio Manitoba
– http://careerportfolio.mb.ca
– http://bit.ly/eP_example
• Workplace Education Manitoba
– http://wem.mb.ca
• WPLAR
– http://wplar.ca
• Mahara User Group Canada
– http://mahara.org/group/view.php?id=1008
• This presentation
– http://bit.ly/maharauk12_dp
Federal corporation, HQ in Manitoba Multimedia learning resources for career development, workplace learning and professional development Specialty: facilitating, packaging & disseminating insights of learners, practitioners and subject matter experts Producer of “Career Destination” solutions through community partnerships since 2001 Opened Learning Agents eStudios in 2007 multimedia & video facility for learning resource production, ePortfolio development and webcasting Active voluntary role in community Career Trek and “Let’s Get to Work” conference Don Presant: Chair of Manitoba PLA Network (MPLAN) Community Telecentre COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT: technology literacy, engagement, expression, work Video-conference (in development) job interviews , online learning e.g. classes for prospective immigrants overseas, workplace training Other community learning events (subscribe to other networks) Collaborative Workshop Environment Hands-On ePortfolio and related workshops Digital Production Studios Photos, objects, actions, interviews, simulations Images, audio, video, text Quick set-up, quick turnaround (photo vs. scan, permanent lighting setup, direct to disk recording, etc.) Multimedia Post Production Facility : career profiles, ePortfolio resources, training videos Production and Facilitation Support Services: staff, freelance & partners
A small (but mighty) place where people have mostly learned how to work together Spring is flood season on the prairies -25% of fresh water in North America thru MB Manitoba’s economy is multifaceted with strong sectors in aerospace, mining and hydroelectric generation, agriculture and agricultural equipment, food processing, transportation equipment, pharmaceuticals, film and sound, commercial printing, transportation and distribution, and information and communication technologies Services: 72% GDP Mfg: 12% Primary: 7%
3,000,000 citizens ePortfolio for the country Start in HS, take through life
Ie NOT an educational institution…community-based learning funds are flowed to this committee for projects annually Coordinated by Industry Training Partnerships, Manitoba Competitiveness Training and Trade – Sandi Howell
Like functional skills... 17 page reports 300+, more coming In 1994, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada launched a national research study, the Essential Skills Research Project (ESRP), to examine how the essential skills were used in various jobs. More than 3,000 interviews have now been conducted across Canada with people working in some 180 occupations. The ESRP initially focused on occupations requiring a secondary school diploma or less and on-the-job training.
Like Careers Wales Online, eFolio Minnesota Inspiration from MOSEP
Exemplar portfolio: Rommuel Paragas VM Immigrant – young male (life story). Many skills, but lacks qualifications Profile Page: Professional Page Drafts and documentation Multimedia Recently themed Logged out content Logged in: enter course (Group) Course layout: -Orientation/5 steps -Content types: presentation, survey/quiz, (building) task, optional enhancement Demonstrating capabilities as part of course: -Views, navigation blocks, images -Embeds: YouTube, Screenr, Slidecast Connections to Moodle: survey, quiz, glossary, Help -under construction -moving away from Mahara Users book
However this idea reflects a growing movement in technology generally… ePortfolio doesn’t have to be one big thing, can be an aggregate made up of pieces of other systems, e.g.: Learning Management System Job Referral Service Credential information Multifunctional, flexible, can serve needs of different communities, stakeholders Enables customization to particular needs