The EDLD Program at Lamar University uses the COVA model to promote deeper learning.  COVA stands for Choice, Ownership, Voice, and Authentic learning experiences.  One of the ways this model takes form is through the creation of a digital e-portfolio, which students own and will maintain after graduating from the EDLD program.

In my 16 years as a teacher, I have seen education move from mostly paper and pen to digital form, and I’ve seen changing attitudes about what digital education should look like. I’ve seen administrators who would rather lock down students’ digital interactions in the name of safety, and I’ve seen administrators who want to use more liberal digital sharing of ideas as a means to provide students with more opportunities to learn and grow.  It’s been interesting to see how my own school district has evolved as education becomes more digital and student-led learning rules the day.  “Choice and voice” is a mantra that I hear quite a bit in my own, forward-thinking school district — but even within my own district, there are competing ideas about how to move forward.

As I progress in my own studies at Lamar University, I am starting to see that, while “choice and voice” are extremely important ways to empower students to get the most out of their learning experiences, ownership might be the missing element that many educational programs are lacking.  It is the ownership of our work that gives it life beyond the course and the grade.  Doing work with a relatively short lifespan is less satisfying, and doesn’t lend itself to working with the future in mind.

In Audrey Watters’ article, “The Web We Need To Give Students,” the author discusses the “Domain of One’s Own” initiative at the University of Mary Washington, in which students are given their own web domain to create an e-portfolio website to house their “scholarship, data, and digital identity.”  This initiative, named after Virginia Woolfe’s 1929 A Room of One’s Own, argues that students need ownership and control of their work and their process, and that it needs to belong to the students, even after graduation.  Much like Virginia Woolfe’s plea for a place in which to write, students need a digital place to work, and the ownership of that creative space and its contents.  While many school systems are embracing digital education and the sharing of student work, students are still submitting work to Learning Management Systems or similarly controlled online collaborating systems like Google Apps for Education, which house their work while they are in the program, but do not easily follow students when they leave.  Oftentimes, work must be downloaded and then stored elsewhere, which may be an obstacle for students without the means or knowhow to purchase storage space online, or opportunity to retrieve their work.

In my work so far at Lamar, creating this digital portfolio has already made me start seeing my work in a different way.  Instead of turning in assignments with the goal of earning a grade, I see my work as a living, breathing thing.  It lives on the web, where it hangs out with other people’s ideas, and it grows as I experience new things.  The e-portfolio is not designed to be something that is ever “finished.”  It is always evolving as I add more things to it, and it will continue to change as I experience new things and learn and grow.  The e-portfolio is the embodiment of the Japanese concept of “kaizen,” which means to constantly improve and revise.  And since it belongs to me, it is up to me to decide how it will best represent my work and my personality.

 

1.  Watters, A.  (July 15, 2015). The Web We Need to Give Students.  Retrieved from https://medium.com/bright/the-web-we-need-to-give-students-311d97713713#.gntfhysu6