Workshop in Florence

On the 16th of October 2012, the second workshop about ePortfolio was delivered in Florence. In order to ascertain the usability of this instrument in vocational training courses aimed at unemployed people, which are a huge part of those implemented in Tuscany and Italy, we decided to experiment with the participants in a course for care givers. Participants were mostly unemployed people, most of them of foreign origin. In spite of some language-related hindrances, the workshop succeeded in delivering the meaning and the purpose of the ePortfolio.

Meeting Mapped in Ostrava (Czech Republic)

Mapped's last meeting was held in Ostrava the 10th and 11th of September 2012. The meeting served for a general check of the activities carried out during two years' cooperation and of the achieved results, pointing out the remaining tasks to perform in order to complete the foreseen program. Monitoring procedure and reporting were discussed as well.

ePIC 2012

The pedagogical approach of the course was the focus of the presentation of project Mapped at Epic 2012. Overall, the conference was a very good opportunity to disseminate Mapped's results and also to discuss with other experts ways to improve the course and promote it to learners and educational institutions. Useful contacts were established as well, offering the opportunity for additional translations of the course. The conference was focused on Open Badges and ePortfolios. Open Badges are a very interesting artifact, especially for their potential/theoretical capability of "proving" skills acquired in non formal or informal settings and soft skills.

MAPPED at ePIC 2012 - 10th ePortfolio and Identity Conference

Project Mapped will be presented at ePIC 2012. See https://www.epforum.eu/2012 for more information on the event, which will take place in London from 9 to 11 July 2012. This is the abstract of the presentation:

"Involvement in learning in lifelong perspective creates a demand for learners’ support in a different sense. Independent and mostly self-directed adult learner needs on the one hand clear guidelines and flexibility on the other hand that will make his/her learning journey more effective.
In response to the demand for support and facilitation of learning for adults professionals ‘Mapped’ open e-learning course has been created and successfully piloted in 4 EU countries. Its aim was to give a short introduction to eportfolio for adults who take up various learning opportunities and further guide them towards creation of their professional eportfolio. The starting point is raising awarness about on-line professional presence and gaining control over one’s online activities, especially these presented and performed online. The course guides the learners further on to create their own e-portfolios and maintain them within the community.
The article will outline the measures taken to implement the course and draw on findings from Competence Surveys conducted parallely to the course piloting. It will also justify the choice for the modules selection and shortly describe the lessons learnt from their implementation.
The analyse will also include the revision of eportfolio practice in Poland, Italy, Czech Republic and Turkey in order to create a map for further developments of eportfolio.
The article will showcase the development of professional e-portfolios in 4 countries in different settings and for different adults - freelancers, corporate professionals, teachers, vocational adult students. The common denominator is their involvment in learning that takes place concurrently to their professional life and work. As such it can be demonstrated as additional asset and a way to promote oneself in a work place."

MAPPED courses open (April/May 2012)

Italian and Polish versions of the Mapped course are open.

Workshop in Poland (23 May 2012)

After the first exploratory workshop in Mielec (12 January 2012) a full workshop was held in Warszawa at OEZIK centre for supporting development in ICT. Agnieszka Chrząszcz led the workshop aimed at 20 participants: employees of OEZIK - educators, head of the Centre, head of departments, trainers and consultants.
The workshop was led according to the scenario. Generally people were interested, involved and critical in a positive sense. Some of them enrolled to the course.

Workshops in Ostrava (6 April and 14 May 2012)

The workshop in April 2012 has been focused to unemployed people. RPIC-ViP collaborates with local Labour offices and provides trainings of soft skills to improve employability of unemployed people. All participants (8) approached actively to the workshop and engaged in tasks. Workshop acknowledged the fact that in many cases it is not easy to distinguish the difference between knowledge, skills, competence, personal attributes. At the end of the workshop participants evaluated the workshop - they filled in the questionnaire. All of them expressed that workshop was useful or "new for me..."

During the second workshop a new group of six unemployed people was invited. The schema has been the same as in the previous workshop. The feedback from participants was positive - they heard and learnt something new and interesting and they stated that the workshop was useful.

Mapped meeting in Florence (27-28 February 2012)

During the meeting in Florence the second stage of the survey about e-portfolio was planned. The course was completed and the validation tools were discussed. A short questionnaire for evaluation of the e-portfolio workshop was prepared as well.
This last questionnaire was immediately tested after the workshop held at Scuola Superiore di Tecnologia Industriali, with 12 students in a vocational training course. The workshop was composed by two parts: an highly interactive introduction to the concepts of social networks, e-portfolio, competencies and evidences, and a more formal presentation of the same concepts.

Course development (May 2011)

The development of the mapped courses has started in May 2011, according to a general structure agreed in face to face meetings and videconferences.
The course will include fours modules:
- Your online presence
- Introduction to e-portfolio
- Starting your e-portfolio (tools, structure and plan)
- Artifacts: creating and adding to your e-portoflio
From a general understanding of the implications of being "present" in the Internet from the professional point of view, the course will lead the students to the creation of a full featured e-portfolio, complete of digital artifacts showing the owner's skills and competencies.
The course will the translated, localized and made available to participants in the four countries represented by project's partners.

Mahara translation (May 2011)

Mahara is a dedicate software for creation and management of e-portfolios. Developed in English, the Mapped project team thought that a translation into the project's languages might be helpful to students. An international installation for participants in the Mapped courses is available at www.mapped.cel.agh.edu.pl/mahara

Mapped meeting in Konya (26-27 April 2011)

Form 26th to 27th of April 2011 the second Mapped meeting took place in Konya (Turkey). During the meeting the results of research carried out about ePortfolio in vocational training in the four countries represented by the partners were discussed. The partners also agreed on the structure of the course about how to use ePortfolio in vocational training, which will be the main result of the project. The meeting ended with a careful planning of future project activities.

Research phase started (April 2011)

As agreed in the first meeting, in April 2011 the four partners carried out interviews to expert informants about the use of ePortfolio in their respective countries. The experts include responsible for human resources in private enterprises, managers of public job services, principals/directors of vocational training institutions, etc. overall, around 35 people were interviewed, giving the basis for a well grounded qualitative analysis about ePortfolio diffusion and usage in each country.

Kick-off meeting in Krakow (9-10 December 2010)

Form 9th to 10th of December 2010 the kick-off meeting of Mapped took place in Krakow (Poland). The partners discussed their tasks and a detailed schedule was worked out. The research activity needed to define the context of the course in each country and to assess the target group competences and initial skills was carefully planned, deciding to carry it out in the form of interviews to expert informants.

Schedule/Project overview

Mapped project is divided in two phases: the "preparatory phase", which started in 2010 and will continue until the end of 2011, focuses on eP practice in target countries and provides background for course development.
The implementation phase will start in 2012 and will consist in the implementation of open courses about ePortfolio.

The following chart shows the activities that Mapped is made of:



The first workpackage, ePortfolio competence framework, aims at defining the context of the course in each country, mapping existing ePortfolio practices in each country in order to build a sustainable course model
that can be fit into national educational frameworks.

In the second workpackage, Open e-learning course on e-portfolio, an e-learning course in English will be designed and implemented, and made available for individuals' self-learning, on Moodle e-learning platform. The course will be open, that is available for all and downloadable according to the Open Content policy. Additionally, a learners' manual will be developed to support individual learning on-line, with guidelines and supporting procedures.

The third workpackage, Translation of the course, is devoted to the translation of the course into Polish, Italian, Czech and Turkish.

The Validation workpackage aims at providing a validation framework. The courses will be validated by the learners in a two step process: evaluation of the content and validation in practice through individual ePortfolio
developments.

The project is made whole by two transversal workpackages, Dissemination and sustainability, and project management. Dissemination will be a key issue for MAPPED, to guarantee the sustainability of the outcomes and a wide integration into national VET systems after the project duration. The aim of project management is to deliver project results on-time and within the budget framework, to maintain high-quality of the results and to ensure effective collaboration and communication within consortium.