This paper will explore how a portfolio approach to teaching and learning can help the educator incorporate unique forms of reflective practice into his or her daily work. By being able to express ideas more clearly to himself, the educator can better promote the relational construction of knowledge in his educational communities. This paper, as part of a larger body of research asks, how can a portfolio approach to teaching and learning help the educator develop unique forms of reflective practice that will help him express his ideas more clearly, first to himself and then secondly to his educational communities? Research methodology is primarily participatory action research and includes an autoethnographic review of the author's work, reviews, interviews, observations, and focus groups with student teachers and professional teachers in the United Arab Emirates. The research concludes that in consideration of McLuhan's (1964) notion that the "medium is the message," the interactions that arise through the use of new media tools can lead us to relational, co-constructed ideas that are not those simply passed on from other texts. By making our thinking visible, the portfolio approach allows the educator to capture the contextual relationship between the author, the audience or community, and the knowledge being created.
This chapter explores qualitative career assessment as an identity learning process where meaning-oriented learning is essential and distinguished from conditioned or semantic types of learning. In order to construct a career identity in the form of a future-oriented narrative, it is essential that learners are helped through cognitive learning stages with the help of a dialogue about concrete experiences which aims to pay attention to emotions and broadens and deepens what is expressed.
IGNITION (European Digital Literacy Coalition for Inclusion, Collaboration and Inclusion in Higher Education) is an Erasmus funded Cooperation Partnership and its main goal is to enhance digital literacy and inclusion for teachers, faculty staff, students and life-long learners in external organizations that partners collaborate with. IGNITION aims to increase awareness of and competence development in digital literacy of all people involved in digital transformation of higher education institutions through the project’s outcomes: A Common Digital Agenda that gives direction to our activitiesan Online Self-assessment tool to learn from and with each other; the Digital Challenge Innovation Learning Lab (DChiLL),the transnational Community of Practice for Digital Literacy and Inclusion (CoP), and the Toolkit for engaging with external stakeholders through digital mediaPartners are Hanze University of Applied Sciences (The Netherlands), South East Technological University (Ireland), Hochschule Bremen (Germany), Polytechnic Institute of Braganza (Portugal).