Professor Dr Michael Sankey from Charles Darwin University in Australia has been involved in the ePortfolio practice for more than 25 years. He started out writing HTML pages, then used various portfolio platforms throughout his university career, and transitioned to a non-institution owned site now that he is retired.
In this conversation Michael emphasises the role of the portfolio to support emerging professionals. He advocates for institution-operated portfolio platforms to provide a space where employers looking at student portfolios can be assured that they are dealing with real students. Michael also makes the case for programmatic assessment as the next evolution in assessment and the key role that the portfolio plays in it.
Connect with Michael
Resources
- Michael's website
- ePortfolios Australia
- Keynote at the Eportfolio Forum 2024: 'Making visible the "human" side of learning and celebrating one’s achievements through ePortfolio practice
- University of Sydney's two-lane approach to artificial intelligence in assessment tasks
- What to do about assessments if we can’t out-design or out-run AI?
- Program level assessment design and the two-lane approach
- Artificial intelligence and academic integrity: A conversation between Prof Dr Danny Liu and Prof Dr Stephen Marshall
- Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University; resources on programmatic assessment:
- Nieminen, J. H., & Boud, D. (2024). Placing authenticity at the heart of student self-assessment: an integrative review. Teaching in Higher Education, 30(3), 640–662.
- Tree, D., Harvey, A., & Rand-Weaver, M. (2025) Integrated Programme Assessment: 10 years on. (2025). Open Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 4(1).
- CRADLE Seminar Series 2025 #1: Programmatic Assessment. Insights from Theory and Practice with Dr Liesbeth Baartman
Related episodes
- Kate Mitchell: Deliberate and programmatic design
- Mark Glynn: Take a programmatic approach to assessment with portfolios
Subscribe to the monthly newsletter about Mahara and portfolios.
Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kristina Hoeppner (00:05):
Welcome to 'Create. Share. Engage.' This is
the podcast about portfolios forlearning and more for educators,
learning designers, and managerskeen on integrating portfolios
with their education andprofessional development
practices. 'Create. Share.
Engage.' is brought to you bythe Mahara team at Catalyst IT.
(00:25):
My name is Kristina Hoeppner.
Today I'm speaking withProfessor Dr Michael Sankey from
Charles Darwin University inAustralia. He's been a member of
the ePortfolios Australiacommunity and quite a few other
communities for many years. So Iwanted to talk with him to get
his perspective on portfolios,in particular also look at the
(00:48):
future of them. Welcome to thepodcast, Michael, it's so good
to have you here.
Michael Sankey (00:53):
Thank you so much, Kristina, for having me.
Kristina Hoeppner (00:55):
Many of our community members will know you
because you have been a stablefigure, especially in the
southern hemisphere. Still, canyou please tell us a little bit
about yourself?
Michael Sankey (01:06):
Sure. So I've been in higher education for 35
years. Prior to that, I wasactually a photographer for 20
years, but over the time, I'veemerged into more the multimedia
side of things and that got meinto instructional design, and
then I ended up doing a wholelot of research about that, and
I ended up with my doctorate,and all of a sudden I'm working
(01:26):
as an academic and directors ofunits and things like that.
That's been quite a fun time tosee the whole evolution of my
career, but also the evolutionof the technologies that have
gone along with it. Technically,really, I'm just a specialist
now in technology enhancedlearning and all the things that
go with that. Have enjoyed it alot. I recently retired and am
working semi retired now, bitbusier than I wanted to be
(01:48):
anyway, that's all right[laughs].
Kristina Hoeppner (01:50):
That would be really sad if we lost you
immediately to retirementbecause especially last year,
you've given your goodbyekeynote at ePortfolios Australia
(Eportfolio Forum), where youhave been looking back quite a
bit at your life, especially inacademia, and your portfolio
thinking and making somepredictions, especially also
around AI and how that has beeninfluencing the field lately. So
(02:12):
it's good to still have youavailable and thinking about all
of these aspects. Michael, whenhave you been introduced to
portfolios?
Michael Sankey (02:21):
Along with the evolution of technologies,
ePortfolios came into myexperience just at the very end
of when I was being aphotographer. So about year 2000
I set up my first website beforeePortfolio technologies came
along as an online presence, asan online CV for myself. From
there, it's evolved throughdeveloping HTML pages to then
(02:45):
getting ePortfolio softwares andsystems up and running. Because
we saw the need for that at thetime we were getting our
students to do a collection ofHTML pages and things like that
to represent what they weredoing. Then, of course, it was
really nice that the ePortfoliotechnologies came along that
linked it so nicely withlearning management systems and
things like that.
I was at the very early stagesof the ePortfolio movement, was
(03:08):
involved with the researchprojects that were happening out
of QUT at the time, and at veryearly times when Mahara was
kicking off and PebblePad werenascent and just coming into
being; been fascinating watchingthat and some of the newer tools
and newer techniques that we'vehad emerging along the way to
support that.
Kristina Hoeppner (03:26):
You mentioned that you've set up your
portfolio for yourself, mainlyto showcase what you have been
working on as a photographer.
Was that then also the reasonwhy you started using portfolios
with your students once you wentinto The academic space?
Michael Sankey (03:40):
Yeah, that was the evolution between me leaving
photography. I'd done up to mymaster's study at that point and
focusing on instructional designby that stage. So the thought of
the internet and representingoneself, one's ideas, one's
outputs, in a place that otherpeople could get to without you
having to post them a CV andthings like that, was very
(04:03):
appealing.
At that time it was very earlyuse of the internet in schools
as well. So we wanted ourstudents to start to experiment
with that. When I say students,they were mostly post-graduate
education students I was dealingwith. How to represent and to
create meaningful learningexperiences in the online space,
part of which, of course, is howyou represent yourself and your
(04:24):
ideas and reflections and thingsin that online space. I was
getting my students to set up inthe very early stages web pages.
I was teaching web design andmedia in the Master's course,
getting them to set that up sothey could represent their
professional self in the space,and then link that professional
self to their lesson plans andthings like that so they could
(04:44):
share them in an open sense.
Kristina Hoeppner (04:46):
I think we do need to acknowledge, when you
talk about 2000 that at thattime, the technology was not
what it is these days.
Michael Sankey (04:55):
That's right.
Kristina Hoeppner (04:56):
We have written HTML at that time and
don everything by hand. So verydifferent and very early on in
the world of internettechnology. So it's fantastic to
see that you had started withyour students at that time and
made it possible for them tocreate portfolios online and
(05:16):
enter that space.
Michael Sankey (05:18):
That's right.
The university I was working atthe time, was University of
Southern Queensland, UniSQ, theycall themselves now, and they
were predominantly a distanceeducation institution. In those
days, of course, that distanceeducation was packages of
readings and books and thingslike that that were sent out to
students. But they were veryearly on in the internet space.
Would have been UniSQ andCharles Sturt (University) and
(05:38):
people like that were reallypushing quite hard to get into
that online space for studentsas well. So it was a natural
consequence that we also lookedat ways in which students could
use this electronic environmentto represent themselves as well.
Kristina Hoeppner (05:53):
Why have you stuck with the practice for all
these years and continue toadvocate for portfolios,
Michael?
Michael Sankey (06:01):
I see portfolios as being a great tool to help
our students come to a metaunderstanding of who they are
within the space in which theywork. As an education student,
it's fine to be there in theclassroom with your students and
things like that, but also wantthem to reflect on their wins
and their losses, and also toprovide them an opportunity to
(06:23):
build their professionalprofile. That profile may not be
publicly viewable. It could beprivately viewable. This is one
of the beauties when newportfolios came along that you
could have hidden spaces andspaces that people could find
very easily through searches andthings like that. The ability
for ePortfolios to have multipleinstances of what you want to
represent was really a greatinnovation for this type of
(06:46):
practice.
So we wanted our students tolink what they were doing to
what they were studying, andthen once in the workplace, that
they could continue that torepresent themselves. It's about
motivation. It's about intrinsicand extrinsic motivations.
Myself, I mean, as an academic,I want to keep a collection of
(07:07):
those things I do, which I thinkare important to me as a
professional, but I also want tokeep a collection of things that
I find interesting for my ownaggrandisement, but also for the
aggrandisement of others.
Now my ePortfolio has emerged asbeing both one around my
professional practice as anacademic but also my emerging
practices as I get back into myphotographic art and things like
(07:30):
that. It's still evolving. Itstarted being a portfolio of my
art and photography. It emergedto being more around my academic
practice, and now it's kind ofgoing down two different tracks,
and it's allowing me torepresent myself and to be seen
as a holistic person, as aprofessional and as a practising
(07:51):
artist at the same time.
Kristina Hoeppner (07:53):
That's wonderful to see that
combination and also bring thatcreativity, and especially when
you talk about photography, tohave those photos and then
reflect on them as well. How areyou helping your students to get
started with their portfolios?
Do you then share exemplars withthem or give them templates or
give them questions on hand?
What do you use?
Michael Sankey (08:14):
First of all, we get them to just play with the
technology, so to play withlinking pages so they can start
to see the power of that asopposed to just having a single
page CV or a couple of pages ofCV, the ability to link to
extended bits of information. IfI'm a student and I might have a
TikTok site or a YouTube site orsomething like that, how they
(08:35):
can simply link on a page, talkabout something, link to
something else or bring it in,and then talk about it again.
You start to see the lights turnon in their heads and think,
'Oh, there's some possibilitieshere for me to represent my
ideas differently.' Once we getthose lights turned on and they
think, 'Oh, yeah,' then we canstart to expand in the ways in
(08:56):
which we want to see them useit, and that is through
representing their learning andto represent their practice.
Particularly now in highereducation, as we're dealing more
with the notion of skills, youknow, if you're a nursing
student or an architecturestudent or a business student,
we've had for a long time,graduate attributes, but you
also now have graduatecapabilities and skills that you
(09:18):
want your future employer toknow about.
The more you can link whatstudents are doing in their
studies to what those futureskills requirements are, and
they can start to representthat, that's where they start to
make that meta cognitiveconnection in the brain, 'Oh,
okay, this is important. This isimportant to my career. It's
obviously important to thecourse. Otherwise they wouldn't
(09:40):
ask me to do it, but ah, yes, Isee the linkages.'
Particularly where we can startto get them to link those things
to what's happening out there.
So it's not just about what theydo in their studies, but how
they link to examples of what'shappening in practice, out in
industry, what might behappening in the nursing
profession, what might be someof the leading thinking in that
space and being able to link tothat and bring that into your
(10:01):
place of representation isactually very important for them
to make those connections.
EPortfolio, and of course, webpages do that too, but
ePortfolio is doing thatparticular way because you can
keep stuff to yourself if youwant to, just my collection for
me, but also here's mycollection for my future
employer to see if need be. Andyou can swap and match between
(10:23):
them or link between them andthings like that, which is
something that you can't do acourse in a standard paper based
CV that you might send.
We link them to examples ofthat. So good practice examples
from wherever in the world wemight find them to provide them,
and importantly, in thisparticular case, it's also the
use of multimodal environments.
The HTML, the web pages we havein ePortfolios allows them to
(10:45):
incorporate other elements intotheir representations, whether
it be a podcast, a short audio,might be a video, might be an
image of themselves doingsomething. If you go through my
portfolio, you see quite a fewimages of me in different
scenarios. It's importantbecause the online space,
particularly, if all you'represented with is text, can get
very boring. You've got a screenin front of you, a white screen
(11:08):
with black text on it, and youcan just scroll and scroll and
scroll. So it's really importantto break up that visually to
allow people who are viewingthat to have a bit more of an
experience.
Kristina Hoeppner (11:20):
Yeah, I find it interesting how you really
front the work that the studentsdo by giving them the tools on
hand first and say, 'This iswhat you can do. Here are the
technical possibilities. Keepthem in mind,' and then you're
going into the why you'reworking with portfolios so that
they understand what it meanswhen you talk about, this is a
(11:40):
link, or this is how you canmake the connection, so that
they immediately know, 'Ah, thisis how I can do it.'
Yes. As we know, not everybody'san extrovert. I mean, I'm bit of
an extrovert [both laugh]...
Just a little bit.
Michael Sankey (11:52):
... but there are a lot of introverts around,
and they don't necessarily likerepresenting themselves out
there. But we have found thatthose introverts that see the
purpose in that - introvertswill see extroverts as being
just out there and fluffy andthings like that, not
necessarily dive underneathwhat's there to find that there
is some basis to that. Once theintrovert can see that there is
(12:15):
a purpose to ePortfolio, we thenstart to see them dabbling a lot
more, getting in them, saying todo it because they find a
purpose.
I've seen some magnificentportfolios by what would be
classified as an introvert, butnot necessarily out in the
public domain, but certainly forthem, that's the important
thing. The ePortfolio is aboutme as a professional being able
(12:37):
to provide myself with a senseof clarity around what I do and
about what I can offer to otherpeople. Particularly in
academia, it's all about others.
It's about the student, unlessyou're full time in research,
but even then, it's about othersand promoting research that will
extend humanity. It's providingyourself with that, I suppose,
solid foundation which to build.
(13:01):
If you don't have thatfoundation, you start to waver.
So it's really good to have thatfoundation for me. I mean, I've
had a portfolio now for 25-30,years. So having that solid
foundation gives me a platformto work from.
Kristina Hoeppner (13:15):
And it also shows that you have a growth
mindset because you see thatevolution of how you have done
things in the past, where you'reat right now.
Michael Sankey (13:24):
Yeah.
Kristina Hoeppner (13:25):
And it makes that learning visible and how
you have grown.
Michael Sankey (13:29):
Indeed, the more we can promote that thinking
amongst our students, and themore we can provide examples to
them of how others have donethat to expand their minds in
terms of what else they can do.
So it's really important toprovide a good suite of examples
for these students in theirparticular disciplines. There is
no point sending an art studentoff to a nursing portfolio.
We've got to have enough artsportfolios or nursing portfolios
(13:52):
to supply a good range of ideasfor our students. And that won't
all happen from the oneinstitution.
Kristina Hoeppner (14:00):
Yeah, and that's very good when you're a
member of the community becausethen you know with whom to get
in touch, whom to ask, maybe fora sample portfolio because you
might be able to look at astudent's private portfolio in a
class session with that studentor a lecturer going through it,
but it would never, ever bepublicly available.
Michael Sankey (14:18):
Indeed. When I left UniSQ, I'd had a portfolio
for 10-12, years, maybe evenlonger than that, probably 20
years. And so many people hadlinked to that portfolio, I
couldn't get rid of it [bothlaugh]. I had to maintain that
portfolio in Mahara, which UniSQwas using. And then also I went
to university using PebblePad.
So then I had two portfolios allof a sudden.
Kristina Hoeppner (14:40):
I think you've recreated one of your
portfolios in differentplatforms also...
Michael Sankey (14:44):
Yeah, yeah.
Kristina Hoeppner (14:44):
... to explore the tools and then use
the one that...
Michael Sankey (14:47):
Yeah, absolutely.
Kristina Hoeppner (14:47):
... at your current university that was
available.
Michael Sankey (14:50):
That's right.
Now I have an ePortfolio inPebblePad, but also have my
WordPress site, which hasprobably evolved. Many years ago
when I was a Director at UniSQ,I had leadership coach, and they
asked me to set up a blog siteso I could blog about my
leadership and things like that.
I got so many blogs happeningand so many people connecting
(15:10):
that I thought, 'Oh, hang on,there are more people getting to
that site than there are gettingto my ePortfolio site.' So I
then started to emerge myWordPress site as more of my
ePortfolio. And once now I'veretired, I'm now transitioning
most of that practice over to myWordPress site. When I was at
Griffith University, that'sstill an example of how to use
ePortfolio at Griffith, so Ican't lose that site either.
Kristina Hoeppner (15:30):
Your digital footprint is quite large [both
laugh]. Michael, do you have amemorable experience with
portfolios that you'd be willingto share?
Michael Sankey (15:41):
My most memorable experience is with my
students just seeing thoselights turn on. At the time I
was teaching them in ourcomputer lab how to do it, and I
could see that just the lightbulbs go off in their heads. It
was just amazing to see, 'Oh,wow. This is amazing.' And we're
going back quite a few yearshere, but at that point, it was
like a revelation to them thisworld existed, that they can do
(16:02):
this. I mean, in the age ofTikTok and things like that,
it's not as big a deal, but itis because TikTok is only a very
transitory thing. You've put upsomething that's gone within
whatever it is, and it gets lostin that wealth of stuff that's
on there. Whereas with anePortfolio, you've always got
something back to link to, andit's that foundation that sits
underneath all that I do.
(16:23):
I have my ePortfolio site, Ihave my LinkedIn side. I have
what was Twitter, now I'm not onX, but I'm on Bluesky. So I can
link to all those other thingsfrom my ePortfolio site, but
also then the profiles of allthose sites, it all points back
to my ePortfolio.
Once I'm working with mystudents, and they start to see,
obviously, I've taken throughsome of the things I do and show
(16:44):
them what I do. Once they startto see that light go off, it
allows us to then get into somereally good planning activities
around that, even with bits ofsticky papers. Where am I seen
in this world, and I'm seen onFacebook, I've seen on that.
Well, do you want people in theprofessional sense, to see a
Facebook? Oh no, no, I don'twant that. So you might not put
(17:05):
that there. You might put thatsomewhere else or not put it in
your ePortfolio site. So it'shelping them to understand the
intricacies of the internet andwhat some of the downfalls of
that are. But once you turn themon to that, those lights just
start flashing away likeChristmas lights, and you can
start to get really excited withthem as you start to experiment.
Kristina Hoeppner (17:26):
We still see the portfolio then as the
aggregator...
Michael Sankey (17:29):
Yeah.
Kristina Hoeppner (17:30):
... where we are pulling all of these
different bits and pieces fromthe sites because, of course, a
lot of social media doesn'tallow easy embedding, so you
might put a link there, or youmight want to include a video,
but it's actually living on thatoriginal site, but you're
bringing all of that together inthe portfolio so that with whom
you are sharing that has onespace to go to.
Michael Sankey (17:50):
Yes, that's right. Not only is it allowing
for them to have private pagesand public pages, but it's also
allowing them to have multiplerepresentations of how they want
to represent themselves fordifferent audiences, which you
can't do necessarily through astandard website without having
multiple URLs to go to. So theportfolio allows that multiple
representation of yourself todifferent audiences, which is
(18:13):
really important, too.
Kristina Hoeppner (18:14):
Yeah, that's very good point, besides the
private and the public aspectthere that you can tailor the
portfolio to the context thatyou're operating in. Be that for
that CV or be that also for anassessment activity. Now
Michael, over the last threeyears and a bit, we've been all
looking into working with andtrying to figure out what
(18:36):
artificial intelligence is, andin particular, of course,
generative AI. And last year, aspart of your ePortfolios
Australia keynote, you made anumber of observations of how
artificial intelligence impactsportfolios or can impact
portfolios. Have you changedyour mind a bit on that aspect,
(18:57):
or do you still think thatthere's these many different
ways of how AI can be used withportfolios?
Michael Sankey (19:05):
Fundamentally, AI is becoming ubiquitous. So
it's everywhere we go. It'severywhere we see things. I
mean, on my Facebook side, on myInstagram site, I see AI images
all the time. I see on LinkedInpeople are using AI images all
the time. They're generatingtext. Most tools have now
incorporated some form ofartificial intelligence in them.
(19:25):
It's part of the role ofacademia to provide students
with a solid understanding ofwhat is appropriate and what is
inappropriate in terms of theuse of AI because, as we know,
AI can fantasise. It doesn'talways give us the truth, not
that necessarily all Academicarticles give us the truth,
either they give usperspectives. But I won't go
(19:47):
there right now.
AI in the short term, and ifit's for an assignment or
something like that, can be usedand can be used quite happily. I
tend to work towards theUniversity of Sydney's two lane
approach in terms of assessment.
Because that's where rubbermeets the road through
assessment. Here's 'Go for it.
Knock yourselves out and use AIas much as you want,' or 'Don't
use it. We can't allow you touse it in this particular case
(20:09):
because you've got to representsomething from your head, not
from ChatGPT's massive brain.'
Kristina Hoeppner (20:15):
That's a really nice concept that you're
mentioning that Danny Liu andhis team developed, and he's
recently talked about that in awebinar with Stephen Marshall
here from Victoria University.
So we'll also have someresources around that then.
Michael Sankey (20:30):
Yeah, cool.
Fundamentally though, if we'retalking about assessment, we've
talked for the last couple ofyears about ramping up
programmatic assessment. That isassessment that goes across a
programme or course of study sothat you're making linkages
between units of study orcourses of study that you do
along the way to build yourdegree, and of course,
ePortfolio is the naturalpartner for that to represent
those ideas and to see theprogression of those ideas.
(20:55):
As we link the skills associatedwith a course of study with the
ideas that we're engaging withthrough that course of study, so
the students make thatconnection. It's important to
see that connection build tocreate a castle, rather than
just sand on the ground. Inrepresenting that castle, you
need to be able to make thelinkages. You need to have the
(21:15):
mortar that sits in betweenthose bricks and stones, and the
mortar is very much your ideasthat hold those bigger ideas
together. Because as a student,you're pulling ideas from other
academics, other researchers,and you're putting your thoughts
in between those stones. That'swhat's helping you build your
house.
So the ePortfolio is reallyimportant for that mortar that
sits between them to providethose links. Now ChatGPT is not
(21:40):
great at that. No gen AI tool isgreat at that. It'll pull in the
research from other people, butit won't provide the connections
that you need to make towardsyour profession. As we link
those skills with the knowledgethat's out there and the
reflections of those knowledgesinto your way of constructing
yourself as being an emergingpsychologist or nurse or
(22:02):
whatever it might be, that'swhen we can start to see the
growth in the students, andthat's the parts of the things
that we want to see assessed.
Having said that, programmaticassessment is not an easy thing
to achieve because we've got 24academics wanting to get their
piece of the pie into theirstudents. They don't necessarily
want to accommodate otheracademics in that process. What
(22:24):
they're selling that minute isthe most important thing for
that student, and to somedegree, that's true, but there
needs to be some rethinking ofthe way in which we do things in
higher education.
The analogy I have in that orthe metaphor I have for that, is
climate change. So climatechange is with us. Recently, we
had some big floods here inQueensland and a cyclone and
things come in. Because the seahas risen so much, the houses
(22:46):
that sit near the sea arestarting to fall into the ocean.
And you think, ah, what do I doabout that? Well, I can build a
wall. I can put a sea wall in,and that will stop the sea for a
while. Or I can build my houseon high ground. We saw that in
Queensland here. There's a towndown in the Lockyer Valley, and
they had some big floods hereback in Toowoomba, back in 2011,
(23:07):
and the town was essentiallywiped out because of the floods
that came down the rivers andthings that.
I was down there last weekend.
All the houses in that town arenow up on the hill above the
town. So the government boughtthe land back, and they made
land available for the people tobuild their house on high
ground, and they're happily nowon high ground above the floods.
Another flood happened only acouple of weeks ago. Much as we
want to hold on to that stuffthat we've held so dear for so
(23:30):
many years, the fact is, thewater has just risen, and we
have to build our house on highground.
So my encouragement to those inhigher education is to start to
think about what it means tobuild your house on high ground,
not necessary to hold on to thatthing that you've held on to so
dearly for 30-40 years, maybe.
But it's now time to think aboutwhat's next. In terms of
(23:51):
generative AI, it's everywhere.
Like the two lane model (23:55):
use it, don't use it. But even then,
there's no guarantee they can'tuse it. If I put my piece of
assessment through two or threedifferent AI apps, no AI
detection tool on this planetwill pick it up. The more tools
are out there that are emergingevery week, the more we have to
bite the bullet and build ahouse on the high ground.
Kristina Hoeppner (24:16):
Still also be mindful about where you're
building on that higher groundbecause that entire ground might
come with a high wind speed,just thinking about living here
in the Wellington region, andmight have other problems come
with it. Be mindful about whereyou're building and how you're
using it.
You had put up six scenarios,really, in which to use AI in
(24:36):
portfolios. And so just verybriefly because people can look
at the details in yourpresentation. There are lots and
lots of use cases there forcreation, for the assessment of
portfolios, for the validationof portfolios, for
personalisation, for theintegration, and then also for
the innovation. Not everythingwould have been anything
(24:58):
necessarily with a largelanguage model, but could also
be around accessibility,improving that, improving the
visual aspect.
Michael Sankey (25:06):
Absolutely. With the advent of generative AI, I
mean, we had COVID, everybodywent online very quickly, and
that was the solution for that.
Then AI came along and everybodygot back into the classroom
because that's the solution forthat. It's not the solution. I
think ePortfolio hastransitioned through both those
very nicely, actually, and itcan provide us a great grounding
for the way we represent ourknowledges, but also the way in
(25:29):
which we pull together thoseexperiences around that
programmatic assessment. AndI'll repeat, it's not an easy
thing, but it's actually soessential in terms of the way
forward that we can representthose ideas in such a way that
it comes back to the individual.
It's about building theindividual and building an
individual's house, and how wecan facilitate the building of
(25:50):
that house. It's about workingwith them and their motivations
behind who they are and seethemselves as emerging
professionals.
When I started university wayback in the dark ages, I started
university because that's whatyou did. You went to university.
I hadn't necessarily made thoseconnections to my profession
that I was hoping to make. If wecan start very early and
(26:13):
particularly throughprogrammatic assessment to help
our students see themselves asemerging professionals that
gives them a much stronger baseto work from, instead of wasting
a year or two in studies notfully understanding where
they're going. If they can makesome decisions early on in their
studies, 'Okay, this is probablynot where I want to go,' then
that gives them the opportunityto look at other things before
(26:33):
it's too late.
I'm very strong in terms ofgetting people into ePortfolios
from year one, from the verybeginning of their studies, so
they can start to get that senseof who they are, and if they
don't like what they'rebecoming, they have a chance to
do something else. Given thatvery, very, very solid
foundation to start that workwith. So they're not meandering
around for a couple of yearswaiting till the third year
(26:55):
lecturer decides that anePortfolio is a good idea in
their final year course.
Kristina Hoeppner (27:00):
Also because if they are studying early, they
get into the practice ofreflecting, of getting feedback
from fellow students, fromlecturers, and therefore develop
all of those skills that we dowant them to have once they are
leaving university.
Michael Sankey (27:13):
Absolutely.
Kristina Hoeppner (27:14):
... able to practice them for four years or
longer, depending on what degreethey are going with. It goes
hand in hand with the graduateattributes that you had
mentioned earlier that we arenot having those silos, but also
show them how they can transfertheir skills and their knowledge
and all the insights thatthey've had.
Michael Sankey (27:32):
Yeah.
Kristina Hoeppner (27:33):
Where do you then think will the portfolio be
in the future or what might itlook like for you in the future?
Michael Sankey (27:42):
One of the things that AI has brought
about, and even before that, somany deep fakes, ePortfolio
provides us an opportunity tobuild one's profile in a safe
space, one that's associatedwith the institution. There
needs to be a safe place so thatthose employers can know that
what they're looking at is realand safe.
Kristina Hoeppner (28:04):
So that it's also verified in a way?
Michael Sankey (28:06):
Absolutely. It's a verified environment. Exactly
right. As an individual, I canset up a WordPress site or any
other site and represent myselfas anything. If it is an
institutional space, and theinstitution is taking some
responsibility for that space,employers can actually feel more
satisfied that how the studentis representing themselves is
actually what they are. I thinkthere is a future for
(28:28):
ePortfolios that is around thevalidated individual, which
isn't necessarily what you seeon websites. I could make up
anything about myself on myWordPress site, no one would
know any different. ChatGPTwould grab it, and there would
be false information out there.
But it's not that easy on anePortfolio site. I don't think
they've harvested ePortfoliosites yet.
Kristina Hoeppner (28:48):
They would be, the public one.
Michael Sankey (28:50):
The public pages. That's right.
Kristina Hoeppner (28:52):
You're raising a really interesting
point with the verification ofthe student so that there's also
put - in the past, we've talkedabout microcredentials, so
verifying the skills and makingsure that employers also know
what it means when they see abadge or a microcredential, and
now applying that to theportfolio gives the university
(29:14):
also the possibility, but alsothe opportunity to continue
having access to the alumni andgiving the alumni that space to
continue having theirverification available...
Michael Sankey (29:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Kristina Hoeppner (29:27):
... in future, and then come back to
the university, but also ensurethat employers know, yes, this
is a real student that you'retalking to.
Michael Sankey (29:35):
Indeed. We saw for a number of years recently
that universities are movingaway from the more traditional
ePortfolio sites to things likeWordPress, Wix, and things like
that. I think that's been aretrograde step. That was
happening before generative AIcame along and the deep fakes. I
think there's now a place forePortfolio to re emerge as that
(29:58):
safe space, the place that canbe linked to, which is a
verified space. That requiresinstitutions, though, to
maintain those spaces and to bevery proactive in terms of their
alumni.
One of the universities I was atused a tool and decided not to
use that tool any more, but partof their policy was that once
you were a student, you wouldkeep your ePortfolio for life.
(30:19):
They then changed the tool. Wewould have to then change all
our stuff over onto another toolor just forget about the fact
that you had any portfolio,which is not very fair. So
institutions, in the short termcan't forget the long term. They
need to be true to what theysaid they were going to do,
which some institutions have notbeen. That's sad, and I think
(30:39):
it's symptomatic of the factthat there is so much change in
higher education at the moment,particularly amongst management
and senior management.
The truths that were part of thefoundation of that university
are lost. But I think we canmove forward still, though, if
we are asking our students tobuild in these other sites, I
don't know how we could validatethat. So I think there is still
(31:01):
a place for the tool that isvalidated by the institution.
This is the thought you had interms of linking that with
microcredentials. I mean, youcould have a credential from
your ePortfolio. Here's myvalidated page in my ePortfolio,
and here's the badge associatedwith my validated skills in my
ePortfolio. Doesn't necessarilyhave to be a short course. It
could be a 'here's my badge,linkable back to my ePortfolio
(31:24):
site.'
Kristina Hoeppner (31:25):
Yeah. I think those linkages would be good to
explore more in the future sothat we can verify that
information more easily andassure the institution, but also
the employers, yep, this wasactually one of our students.
Michael Sankey (31:39):
That's it.
Kristina Hoeppner (31:40):
Maybe through that we will be able to
resurrect the alumni portfoliobecause lately, we've seen a
decline in organisations eventhinking about that because IT
says, well, we need to removethem from our single sign on and
legal says, well, we can't havethem creating content in a
space, but the students notreally being associated with the
(32:01):
institution any more. So there'slots of overlapping
conversations to be had.
Michael Sankey (32:06):
Absolutely.
Kristina Hoeppner (32:07):
Michael, is there anything that you'd like
to be able to do withportfolios, but currently can't?
Michael Sankey (32:13):
There's an ePortfolio tool that I've used
that doesn't allow for morecustomisable URLs. I think
that's really important forstudents to be able to customise
the URLs to be more personal tothem.
If ePortfolio vendors wouldprovide some more thoughts
around programmatic assessmentor tools to help the institution
develop programmatic assessment.
I don't think there's anybodyreally other than the
(32:36):
institutions themselves, and wesee institutions running with
that in their own sense. So wesee Deakin running with
portfolio thinking recently andvery well and very good
programmatic thinking. CRADLEjust brought out a recent
article about that, which wasexcellent. That's the research
side of assessment at Deakin.
The vendors play an importantpart here, and I don't think
(32:59):
they've been given enoughcredence in terms of the
opportunities. The programmershave the understanding of how
the tools work. If they can linkthat with some work from
universities in terms of howprogrammatic assessment works, I
think the two of them could worktogether to create some really
good tools to help with that,the way in which you plan out
(33:19):
the curriculum. There'scurriculum management tools and
things like that, butessentially they just store the
data. You need to be able tohelp create that data.
Years ago, we had the LAMSsystem, the learning activity
management system, which cameout of Macquarie University.
That's old technology now. Thatwas around the planning of a
course and things like that. Butif there can be some tool to
(33:40):
help plan the programme throughand the assessments that are
going with the programmes, andwhat things would be appropriate
for ePortfolio, what things areappropriate for essays or exams
and things like that.
There needs to be an expansionof the thinking of the
ePortfolios providers to thinkin terms of, 'okay, here are the
other forms of assessment, buthere's where we fit ourselves
into this and we see ourselvesin this programmatic space. We
(34:01):
see ourselves as helping ourstudents become emerging
professionals. Here are thetools to help you institution to
help create that environment foryour students.' It's a big ask,
and not that easy without somelinkages across technology
providers and pedagogyproviders.
Kristina Hoeppner (34:20):
Yeah, it's those linkages and making those
connections visible so that youknow where to go and how they
all fit together. We are comingto the end of our chat today,
Michael, and so the last threequestions for you are in our
quick answer round. Which wordsor short phrases do you use to
(34:40):
describe portfolio work?
Michael Sankey (34:43):
From an institution's perspective, it's
facilitating programmaticassessment. For an individual,
it's facilitating the emergingprofessional, and it's the tool
that facilitates it. It's thecombination of the academic and
the tool that facilitates. It'snot just a tool. It's not just
the academic. It's having thetool that the academic can use
to do that with.
Kristina Hoeppner (35:03):
What tip do you then have for learning
designers or educators whocreate portfolio activities?
Michael Sankey (35:09):
Be fully aware of the portfolio practice
themselves. I've advocated for along time that an instructional
designer should have their ownePortfolio. There's no point
trying to sell it to somebody ifthey haven't done it themselves.
You've got to walk the talk.
There's the three words. You'vegot to walk the talk.
Kristina Hoeppner (35:24):
We'll add that as another short phrase.
What advice do you then have forportfolio authors, for your
students, but also for yourstaff? You've just mentioned the
learning designers.
Michael Sankey (35:35):
Keep it succinct and meaningful. When dealing
with a website, having too muchtext becomes a scroll of death.
Particularly on mobile devices,you don't want to be scrolling
through screens and screens andscreens of information. There
was a thought five, six yearsago that, yeah, the scroll of
death is back because of mobiledevices. I think we've moved
away from that thought againback to the thought that you
(35:57):
can't have everything on onepage unless it's linked some way
within the page, so advancednavigation within the page.
Be mindful of the people you arewriting this for. I've reviewed
dozens and dozens of CVs ofinstructional designers,
directors, people like that, whoare going for other jobs, and
the amount of time they justhave too much text and try and
(36:18):
get everything out in that shortspace, you'll be succinct in
what you say and link to otherthings. Link to that other
evidence. So that's where yourePortfolio becomes really
important that you can link tothat other evidence. Keep it
simple and keep it concise andlinkable.
Kristina Hoeppner (36:33):
Yeah, and then also curated, so that
you're not presenting everybodywith all the things that you
have done over your 27 years ofbeing a portfolio advocate...
Michael Sankey (36:42):
Absolutely.
Kristina Hoeppner (36:43):
...but the most salient points there.
Michael Sankey (36:46):
Yeah, that's it.
Kristina Hoeppner (36:47):
Thank you so much for the chat today,
Michael, it's always goodhearing from you, learning from
you, and seeing what you'recurrently thinking about in this
space, and I look forward tofuture conversations.
Michael Sankey (37:01):
Wonderful. Thank you so much. Kristina.
Kristina Hoeppner (37:04):
Now over to our listeners. What do you want
to try in your own portfoliopractice? This was 'Create.
Share. Engage.' with ProfessorDr Michael Sankey. Head to our
website, podcast.mahara.org,where you can find resources and
the transcript for this episode.
This podcast is produced byCatalyst IT, and I'm your host,
(37:25):
Kristina Hoeppner, Project Leadand Product Manager of the
portfolio platform Mahara. Ournext episode will air in two
weeks. I hope you will listenagain and tell a colleague about
our podcast so they cansubscribe. Until then create,
share, and engage.
Welcome to 'Create. Share. Engage.' This is
the podcast about portfolios forlearning and more for educators,
learning designers, and managerskeen on integrating portfolios
with their education andprofessional development
practices. 'Create. Share.
Engage.' is brought to you bythe Mahara team at Catalyst IT.
(00:25):
My name is Kristina Hoeppner.
Today I'm speaking withProfessor Dr Michael Sankey from
Charles Darwin University inAustralia. He's been a member of
the ePortfolios Australiacommunity and quite a few other
communities for many years. So Iwanted to talk with him to get
his perspective on portfolios,in particular also look at the
(00:48):
future of them. Welcome to thepodcast, Michael, it's so good
to have you here.
Michael Sankey (00:53):
Thank you so much, Kristina, for having me.
Kristina Hoeppner (00:55):
Many of our community members will know you
because you have been a stablefigure, especially in the
southern hemisphere. Still, canyou please tell us a little bit
about yourself?
Michael Sankey (01:06):
Sure. So I've been in higher education for 35
years. Prior to that, I wasactually a photographer for 20
years, but over the time, I'veemerged into more the multimedia
side of things and that got meinto instructional design, and
then I ended up doing a wholelot of research about that, and
I ended up with my doctorate,and all of a sudden I'm working
(01:26):
as an academic and directors ofunits and things like that.
That's been quite a fun time tosee the whole evolution of my
career, but also the evolutionof the technologies that have
gone along with it. Technically,really, I'm just a specialist
now in technology enhancedlearning and all the things that
go with that. Have enjoyed it alot. I recently retired and am
working semi retired now, bitbusier than I wanted to be
(01:48):
anyway, that's all right[laughs].
Kristina Hoeppner (01:50):
That would be really sad if we lost you
immediately to retirementbecause especially last year,
you've given your goodbyekeynote at ePortfolios Australia
(Eportfolio Forum), where youhave been looking back quite a
bit at your life, especially inacademia, and your portfolio
thinking and making somepredictions, especially also
around AI and how that has beeninfluencing the field lately. So
(02:12):
it's good to still have youavailable and thinking about all
of these aspects. Michael, whenhave you been introduced to
portfolios?
Michael Sankey (02:21):
Along with the evolution of technologies,
ePortfolios came into myexperience just at the very end
of when I was being aphotographer. So about year 2000
I set up my first website beforeePortfolio technologies came
along as an online presence, asan online CV for myself. From
there, it's evolved throughdeveloping HTML pages to then
(02:45):
getting ePortfolio softwares andsystems up and running. Because
we saw the need for that at thetime we were getting our
students to do a collection ofHTML pages and things like that
to represent what they weredoing. Then, of course, it was
really nice that the ePortfoliotechnologies came along that
linked it so nicely withlearning management systems and
things like that.
I was at the very early stagesof the ePortfolio movement, was
(03:08):
involved with the researchprojects that were happening out
of QUT at the time, and at veryearly times when Mahara was
kicking off and PebblePad werenascent and just coming into
being; been fascinating watchingthat and some of the newer tools
and newer techniques that we'vehad emerging along the way to
support that.
Kristina Hoeppner (03:26):
You mentioned that you've set up your
portfolio for yourself, mainlyto showcase what you have been
working on as a photographer.
Was that then also the reasonwhy you started using portfolios
with your students once you wentinto The academic space?
Michael Sankey (03:40):
Yeah, that was the evolution between me leaving
photography. I'd done up to mymaster's study at that point and
focusing on instructional designby that stage. So the thought of
the internet and representingoneself, one's ideas, one's
outputs, in a place that otherpeople could get to without you
having to post them a CV andthings like that, was very
(04:03):
appealing.
At that time it was very earlyuse of the internet in schools
as well. So we wanted ourstudents to start to experiment
with that. When I say students,they were mostly post-graduate
education students I was dealingwith. How to represent and to
create meaningful learningexperiences in the online space,
part of which, of course, is howyou represent yourself and your
(04:24):
ideas and reflections and thingsin that online space. I was
getting my students to set up inthe very early stages web pages.
I was teaching web design andmedia in the Master's course,
getting them to set that up sothey could represent their
professional self in the space,and then link that professional
self to their lesson plans andthings like that so they could
(04:44):
share them in an open sense.
Kristina Hoeppner (04:46):
I think we do need to acknowledge, when you
talk about 2000 that at thattime, the technology was not
what it is these days.
Michael Sankey (04:55):
That's right.
Kristina Hoeppner (04:56):
We have written HTML at that time and
don everything by hand. So verydifferent and very early on in
the world of internettechnology. So it's fantastic to
see that you had started withyour students at that time and
made it possible for them tocreate portfolios online and
(05:16):
enter that space.
Michael Sankey (05:18):
That's right.
The university I was working atthe time, was University of
Southern Queensland, UniSQ, theycall themselves now, and they
were predominantly a distanceeducation institution. In those
days, of course, that distanceeducation was packages of
readings and books and thingslike that that were sent out to
students. But they were veryearly on in the internet space.
Would have been UniSQ andCharles Sturt (University) and
(05:38):
people like that were reallypushing quite hard to get into
that online space for studentsas well. So it was a natural
consequence that we also lookedat ways in which students could
use this electronic environmentto represent themselves as well.
Kristina Hoeppner (05:53):
Why have you stuck with the practice for all
these years and continue toadvocate for portfolios,
Michael?
Michael Sankey (06:01):
I see portfolios as being a great tool to help
our students come to a metaunderstanding of who they are
within the space in which theywork. As an education student,
it's fine to be there in theclassroom with your students and
things like that, but also wantthem to reflect on their wins
and their losses, and also toprovide them an opportunity to
(06:23):
build their professionalprofile. That profile may not be
publicly viewable. It could beprivately viewable. This is one
of the beauties when newportfolios came along that you
could have hidden spaces andspaces that people could find
very easily through searches andthings like that. The ability
for ePortfolios to have multipleinstances of what you want to
represent was really a greatinnovation for this type of
(06:46):
practice.
So we wanted our students tolink what they were doing to
what they were studying, andthen once in the workplace, that
they could continue that torepresent themselves. It's about
motivation. It's about intrinsicand extrinsic motivations.
Myself, I mean, as an academic,I want to keep a collection of
(07:07):
those things I do, which I thinkare important to me as a
professional, but I also want tokeep a collection of things that
I find interesting for my ownaggrandisement, but also for the
aggrandisement of others.
Now my ePortfolio has emerged asbeing both one around my
professional practice as anacademic but also my emerging
practices as I get back into myphotographic art and things like
(07:30):
that. It's still evolving. Itstarted being a portfolio of my
art and photography. It emergedto being more around my academic
practice, and now it's kind ofgoing down two different tracks,
and it's allowing me torepresent myself and to be seen
as a holistic person, as aprofessional and as a practising
(07:51):
artist at the same time.
Kristina Hoeppner (07:53):
That's wonderful to see that
combination and also bring thatcreativity, and especially when
you talk about photography, tohave those photos and then
reflect on them as well. How areyou helping your students to get
started with their portfolios?
Do you then share exemplars withthem or give them templates or
give them questions on hand?
What do you use?
Michael Sankey (08:14):
First of all, we get them to just play with the
technology, so to play withlinking pages so they can start
to see the power of that asopposed to just having a single
page CV or a couple of pages ofCV, the ability to link to
extended bits of information. IfI'm a student and I might have a
TikTok site or a YouTube site orsomething like that, how they
(08:35):
can simply link on a page, talkabout something, link to
something else or bring it in,and then talk about it again.
You start to see the lights turnon in their heads and think,
'Oh, there's some possibilitieshere for me to represent my
ideas differently.' Once we getthose lights turned on and they
think, 'Oh, yeah,' then we canstart to expand in the ways in
(08:56):
which we want to see them useit, and that is through
representing their learning andto represent their practice.
Particularly now in highereducation, as we're dealing more
with the notion of skills, youknow, if you're a nursing
student or an architecturestudent or a business student,
we've had for a long time,graduate attributes, but you
also now have graduatecapabilities and skills that you
(09:18):
want your future employer toknow about.
The more you can link whatstudents are doing in their
studies to what those futureskills requirements are, and
they can start to representthat, that's where they start to
make that meta cognitiveconnection in the brain, 'Oh,
okay, this is important. This isimportant to my career. It's
obviously important to thecourse. Otherwise they wouldn't
(09:40):
ask me to do it, but ah, yes, Isee the linkages.'
Particularly where we can startto get them to link those things
to what's happening out there.
So it's not just about what theydo in their studies, but how
they link to examples of what'shappening in practice, out in
industry, what might behappening in the nursing
profession, what might be someof the leading thinking in that
space and being able to link tothat and bring that into your
(10:01):
place of representation isactually very important for them
to make those connections.
EPortfolio, and of course, webpages do that too, but
ePortfolio is doing thatparticular way because you can
keep stuff to yourself if youwant to, just my collection for
me, but also here's mycollection for my future
employer to see if need be. Andyou can swap and match between
(10:23):
them or link between them andthings like that, which is
something that you can't do acourse in a standard paper based
CV that you might send.
We link them to examples ofthat. So good practice examples
from wherever in the world wemight find them to provide them,
and importantly, in thisparticular case, it's also the
use of multimodal environments.
The HTML, the web pages we havein ePortfolios allows them to
(10:45):
incorporate other elements intotheir representations, whether
it be a podcast, a short audio,might be a video, might be an
image of themselves doingsomething. If you go through my
portfolio, you see quite a fewimages of me in different
scenarios. It's importantbecause the online space,
particularly, if all you'represented with is text, can get
very boring. You've got a screenin front of you, a white screen
(11:08):
with black text on it, and youcan just scroll and scroll and
scroll. So it's really importantto break up that visually to
allow people who are viewingthat to have a bit more of an
experience.
Kristina Hoeppner (11:20):
Yeah, I find it interesting how you really
front the work that the studentsdo by giving them the tools on
hand first and say, 'This iswhat you can do. Here are the
technical possibilities. Keepthem in mind,' and then you're
going into the why you'reworking with portfolios so that
they understand what it meanswhen you talk about, this is a
(11:40):
link, or this is how you canmake the connection, so that
they immediately know, 'Ah, thisis how I can do it.'
Yes. As we know, not everybody'san extrovert. I mean, I'm bit of
an extrovert [both laugh]...
Just a little bit.
Michael Sankey (11:52):
... but there are a lot of introverts around,
and they don't necessarily likerepresenting themselves out
there. But we have found thatthose introverts that see the
purpose in that - introvertswill see extroverts as being
just out there and fluffy andthings like that, not
necessarily dive underneathwhat's there to find that there
is some basis to that. Once theintrovert can see that there is
(12:15):
a purpose to ePortfolio, we thenstart to see them dabbling a lot
more, getting in them, saying todo it because they find a
purpose.
I've seen some magnificentportfolios by what would be
classified as an introvert, butnot necessarily out in the
public domain, but certainly forthem, that's the important
thing. The ePortfolio is aboutme as a professional being able
(12:37):
to provide myself with a senseof clarity around what I do and
about what I can offer to otherpeople. Particularly in
academia, it's all about others.
It's about the student, unlessyou're full time in research,
but even then, it's about othersand promoting research that will
extend humanity. It's providingyourself with that, I suppose,
solid foundation which to build.
(13:01):
If you don't have thatfoundation, you start to waver.
So it's really good to have thatfoundation for me. I mean, I've
had a portfolio now for 25-30,years. So having that solid
foundation gives me a platformto work from.
Kristina Hoeppner (13:15):
And it also shows that you have a growth
mindset because you see thatevolution of how you have done
things in the past, where you'reat right now.
Michael Sankey (13:24):
Yeah.
Kristina Hoeppner (13:25):
And it makes that learning visible and how
you have grown.
Michael Sankey (13:29):
Indeed, the more we can promote that thinking
amongst our students, and themore we can provide examples to
them of how others have donethat to expand their minds in
terms of what else they can do.
So it's really important toprovide a good suite of examples
for these students in theirparticular disciplines. There is
no point sending an art studentoff to a nursing portfolio.
We've got to have enough artsportfolios or nursing portfolios
(13:52):
to supply a good range of ideasfor our students. And that won't
all happen from the oneinstitution.
Kristina Hoeppner (14:00):
Yeah, and that's very good when you're a
member of the community becausethen you know with whom to get
in touch, whom to ask, maybe fora sample portfolio because you
might be able to look at astudent's private portfolio in a
class session with that studentor a lecturer going through it,
but it would never, ever bepublicly available.
Michael Sankey (14:18):
Indeed. When I left UniSQ, I'd had a portfolio
for 10-12, years, maybe evenlonger than that, probably 20
years. And so many people hadlinked to that portfolio, I
couldn't get rid of it [bothlaugh]. I had to maintain that
portfolio in Mahara, which UniSQwas using. And then also I went
to university using PebblePad.
So then I had two portfolios allof a sudden.
Kristina Hoeppner (14:40):
I think you've recreated one of your
portfolios in differentplatforms also...
Michael Sankey (14:44):
Yeah, yeah.
Kristina Hoeppner (14:44):
... to explore the tools and then use
the one that...
Michael Sankey (14:47):
Yeah, absolutely.
Kristina Hoeppner (14:47):
... at your current university that was
available.
Michael Sankey (14:50):
That's right.
Now I have an ePortfolio inPebblePad, but also have my
WordPress site, which hasprobably evolved. Many years ago
when I was a Director at UniSQ,I had leadership coach, and they
asked me to set up a blog siteso I could blog about my
leadership and things like that.
I got so many blogs happeningand so many people connecting
(15:10):
that I thought, 'Oh, hang on,there are more people getting to
that site than there are gettingto my ePortfolio site.' So I
then started to emerge myWordPress site as more of my
ePortfolio. And once now I'veretired, I'm now transitioning
most of that practice over to myWordPress site. When I was at
Griffith University, that'sstill an example of how to use
ePortfolio at Griffith, so Ican't lose that site either.
Kristina Hoeppner (15:30):
Your digital footprint is quite large [both
laugh]. Michael, do you have amemorable experience with
portfolios that you'd be willingto share?
Michael Sankey (15:41):
My most memorable experience is with my
students just seeing thoselights turn on. At the time I
was teaching them in ourcomputer lab how to do it, and I
could see that just the lightbulbs go off in their heads. It
was just amazing to see, 'Oh,wow. This is amazing.' And we're
going back quite a few yearshere, but at that point, it was
like a revelation to them thisworld existed, that they can do
(16:02):
this. I mean, in the age ofTikTok and things like that,
it's not as big a deal, but itis because TikTok is only a very
transitory thing. You've put upsomething that's gone within
whatever it is, and it gets lostin that wealth of stuff that's
on there. Whereas with anePortfolio, you've always got
something back to link to, andit's that foundation that sits
underneath all that I do.
(16:23):
I have my ePortfolio site, Ihave my LinkedIn side. I have
what was Twitter, now I'm not onX, but I'm on Bluesky. So I can
link to all those other thingsfrom my ePortfolio site, but
also then the profiles of allthose sites, it all points back
to my ePortfolio.
Once I'm working with mystudents, and they start to see,
obviously, I've taken throughsome of the things I do and show
(16:44):
them what I do. Once they startto see that light go off, it
allows us to then get into somereally good planning activities
around that, even with bits ofsticky papers. Where am I seen
in this world, and I'm seen onFacebook, I've seen on that.
Well, do you want people in theprofessional sense, to see a
Facebook? Oh no, no, I don'twant that. So you might not put
(17:05):
that there. You might put thatsomewhere else or not put it in
your ePortfolio site. So it'shelping them to understand the
intricacies of the internet andwhat some of the downfalls of
that are. But once you turn themon to that, those lights just
start flashing away likeChristmas lights, and you can
start to get really excited withthem as you start to experiment.
Kristina Hoeppner (17:26):
We still see the portfolio then as the
aggregator...
Michael Sankey (17:29):
Yeah.
Kristina Hoeppner (17:30):
... where we are pulling all of these
different bits and pieces fromthe sites because, of course, a
lot of social media doesn'tallow easy embedding, so you
might put a link there, or youmight want to include a video,
but it's actually living on thatoriginal site, but you're
bringing all of that together inthe portfolio so that with whom
you are sharing that has onespace to go to.
Michael Sankey (17:50):
Yes, that's right. Not only is it allowing
for them to have private pagesand public pages, but it's also
allowing them to have multiplerepresentations of how they want
to represent themselves fordifferent audiences, which you
can't do necessarily through astandard website without having
multiple URLs to go to. So theportfolio allows that multiple
representation of yourself todifferent audiences, which is
(18:13):
really important, too.
Kristina Hoeppner (18:14):
Yeah, that's very good point, besides the
private and the public aspectthere that you can tailor the
portfolio to the context thatyou're operating in. Be that for
that CV or be that also for anassessment activity. Now
Michael, over the last threeyears and a bit, we've been all
looking into working with andtrying to figure out what
(18:36):
artificial intelligence is, andin particular, of course,
generative AI. And last year, aspart of your ePortfolios
Australia keynote, you made anumber of observations of how
artificial intelligence impactsportfolios or can impact
portfolios. Have you changedyour mind a bit on that aspect,
(18:57):
or do you still think thatthere's these many different
ways of how AI can be used withportfolios?
Michael Sankey (19:05):
Fundamentally, AI is becoming ubiquitous. So
it's everywhere we go. It'severywhere we see things. I
mean, on my Facebook side, on myInstagram site, I see AI images
all the time. I see on LinkedInpeople are using AI images all
the time. They're generatingtext. Most tools have now
incorporated some form ofartificial intelligence in them.
(19:25):
It's part of the role ofacademia to provide students
with a solid understanding ofwhat is appropriate and what is
inappropriate in terms of theuse of AI because, as we know,
AI can fantasise. It doesn'talways give us the truth, not
that necessarily all Academicarticles give us the truth,
either they give usperspectives. But I won't go
(19:47):
there right now.
AI in the short term, and ifit's for an assignment or
something like that, can be usedand can be used quite happily. I
tend to work towards theUniversity of Sydney's two lane
approach in terms of assessment.
Because that's where rubbermeets the road through
assessment. Here's 'Go for it.
Knock yourselves out and use AIas much as you want,' or 'Don't
use it. We can't allow you touse it in this particular case
(20:09):
because you've got to representsomething from your head, not
from ChatGPT's massive brain.'
Kristina Hoeppner (20:15):
That's a really nice concept that you're
mentioning that Danny Liu andhis team developed, and he's
recently talked about that in awebinar with Stephen Marshall
here from Victoria University.
So we'll also have someresources around that then.
Michael Sankey (20:30):
Yeah, cool.
Fundamentally though, if we'retalking about assessment, we've
talked for the last couple ofyears about ramping up
programmatic assessment. That isassessment that goes across a
programme or course of study sothat you're making linkages
between units of study orcourses of study that you do
along the way to build yourdegree, and of course,
ePortfolio is the naturalpartner for that to represent
those ideas and to see theprogression of those ideas.
(20:55):
As we link the skills associatedwith a course of study with the
ideas that we're engaging withthrough that course of study, so
the students make thatconnection. It's important to
see that connection build tocreate a castle, rather than
just sand on the ground. Inrepresenting that castle, you
need to be able to make thelinkages. You need to have the
(21:15):
mortar that sits in betweenthose bricks and stones, and the
mortar is very much your ideasthat hold those bigger ideas
together. Because as a student,you're pulling ideas from other
academics, other researchers,and you're putting your thoughts
in between those stones. That'swhat's helping you build your
house.
So the ePortfolio is reallyimportant for that mortar that
sits between them to providethose links. Now ChatGPT is not
(21:40):
great at that. No gen AI tool isgreat at that. It'll pull in the
research from other people, butit won't provide the connections
that you need to make towardsyour profession. As we link
those skills with the knowledgethat's out there and the
reflections of those knowledgesinto your way of constructing
yourself as being an emergingpsychologist or nurse or
(22:02):
whatever it might be, that'swhen we can start to see the
growth in the students, andthat's the parts of the things
that we want to see assessed.
Having said that, programmaticassessment is not an easy thing
to achieve because we've got 24academics wanting to get their
piece of the pie into theirstudents. They don't necessarily
want to accommodate otheracademics in that process. What
(22:24):
they're selling that minute isthe most important thing for
that student, and to somedegree, that's true, but there
needs to be some rethinking ofthe way in which we do things in
higher education.
The analogy I have in that orthe metaphor I have for that, is
climate change. So climatechange is with us. Recently, we
had some big floods here inQueensland and a cyclone and
things come in. Because the seahas risen so much, the houses
(22:46):
that sit near the sea arestarting to fall into the ocean.
And you think, ah, what do I doabout that? Well, I can build a
wall. I can put a sea wall in,and that will stop the sea for a
while. Or I can build my houseon high ground. We saw that in
Queensland here. There's a towndown in the Lockyer Valley, and
they had some big floods hereback in Toowoomba, back in 2011,
(23:07):
and the town was essentiallywiped out because of the floods
that came down the rivers andthings that.
I was down there last weekend.
All the houses in that town arenow up on the hill above the
town. So the government boughtthe land back, and they made
land available for the people tobuild their house on high
ground, and they're happily nowon high ground above the floods.
Another flood happened only acouple of weeks ago. Much as we
want to hold on to that stuffthat we've held so dear for so
(23:30):
many years, the fact is, thewater has just risen, and we
have to build our house on highground.
So my encouragement to those inhigher education is to start to
think about what it means tobuild your house on high ground,
not necessary to hold on to thatthing that you've held on to so
dearly for 30-40 years, maybe.
But it's now time to think aboutwhat's next. In terms of
(23:51):
generative AI, it's everywhere.
Like the two lane model (23:55):
use it, don't use it. But even then,
there's no guarantee they can'tuse it. If I put my piece of
assessment through two or threedifferent AI apps, no AI
detection tool on this planetwill pick it up. The more tools
are out there that are emergingevery week, the more we have to
bite the bullet and build ahouse on the high ground.
Kristina Hoeppner (24:16):
Still also be mindful about where you're
building on that higher groundbecause that entire ground might
come with a high wind speed,just thinking about living here
in the Wellington region, andmight have other problems come
with it. Be mindful about whereyou're building and how you're
using it.
You had put up six scenarios,really, in which to use AI in
(24:36):
portfolios. And so just verybriefly because people can look
at the details in yourpresentation. There are lots and
lots of use cases there forcreation, for the assessment of
portfolios, for the validationof portfolios, for
personalisation, for theintegration, and then also for
the innovation. Not everythingwould have been anything
(24:58):
necessarily with a largelanguage model, but could also
be around accessibility,improving that, improving the
visual aspect.
Michael Sankey (25:06):
Absolutely. With the advent of generative AI, I
mean, we had COVID, everybodywent online very quickly, and
that was the solution for that.
Then AI came along and everybodygot back into the classroom
because that's the solution forthat. It's not the solution. I
think ePortfolio hastransitioned through both those
very nicely, actually, and itcan provide us a great grounding
for the way we represent ourknowledges, but also the way in
(25:29):
which we pull together thoseexperiences around that
programmatic assessment. AndI'll repeat, it's not an easy
thing, but it's actually soessential in terms of the way
forward that we can representthose ideas in such a way that
it comes back to the individual.
It's about building theindividual and building an
individual's house, and how wecan facilitate the building of
(25:50):
that house. It's about workingwith them and their motivations
behind who they are and seethemselves as emerging
professionals.
When I started university wayback in the dark ages, I started
university because that's whatyou did. You went to university.
I hadn't necessarily made thoseconnections to my profession
that I was hoping to make. If wecan start very early and
(26:13):
particularly throughprogrammatic assessment to help
our students see themselves asemerging professionals that
gives them a much stronger baseto work from, instead of wasting
a year or two in studies notfully understanding where
they're going. If they can makesome decisions early on in their
studies, 'Okay, this is probablynot where I want to go,' then
that gives them the opportunityto look at other things before
(26:33):
it's too late.
I'm very strong in terms ofgetting people into ePortfolios
from year one, from the verybeginning of their studies, so
they can start to get that senseof who they are, and if they
don't like what they'rebecoming, they have a chance to
do something else. Given thatvery, very, very solid
foundation to start that workwith. So they're not meandering
around for a couple of yearswaiting till the third year
(26:55):
lecturer decides that anePortfolio is a good idea in
their final year course.
Kristina Hoeppner (27:00):
Also because if they are studying early, they
get into the practice ofreflecting, of getting feedback
from fellow students, fromlecturers, and therefore develop
all of those skills that we dowant them to have once they are
leaving university.
Michael Sankey (27:13):
Absolutely.
Kristina Hoeppner (27:14):
... able to practice them for four years or
longer, depending on what degreethey are going with. It goes
hand in hand with the graduateattributes that you had
mentioned earlier that we arenot having those silos, but also
show them how they can transfertheir skills and their knowledge
and all the insights thatthey've had.
Michael Sankey (27:32):
Yeah.
Kristina Hoeppner (27:33):
Where do you then think will the portfolio be
in the future or what might itlook like for you in the future?
Michael Sankey (27:42):
One of the things that AI has brought
about, and even before that, somany deep fakes, ePortfolio
provides us an opportunity tobuild one's profile in a safe
space, one that's associatedwith the institution. There
needs to be a safe place so thatthose employers can know that
what they're looking at is realand safe.
Kristina Hoeppner (28:04):
So that it's also verified in a way?
Michael Sankey (28:06):
Absolutely. It's a verified environment. Exactly
right. As an individual, I canset up a WordPress site or any
other site and represent myselfas anything. If it is an
institutional space, and theinstitution is taking some
responsibility for that space,employers can actually feel more
satisfied that how the studentis representing themselves is
actually what they are. I thinkthere is a future for
(28:28):
ePortfolios that is around thevalidated individual, which
isn't necessarily what you seeon websites. I could make up
anything about myself on myWordPress site, no one would
know any different. ChatGPTwould grab it, and there would
be false information out there.
But it's not that easy on anePortfolio site. I don't think
they've harvested ePortfoliosites yet.
Kristina Hoeppner (28:48):
They would be, the public one.
Michael Sankey (28:50):
The public pages. That's right.
Kristina Hoeppner (28:52):
You're raising a really interesting
point with the verification ofthe student so that there's also
put - in the past, we've talkedabout microcredentials, so
verifying the skills and makingsure that employers also know
what it means when they see abadge or a microcredential, and
now applying that to theportfolio gives the university
(29:14):
also the possibility, but alsothe opportunity to continue
having access to the alumni andgiving the alumni that space to
continue having theirverification available...
Michael Sankey (29:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Kristina Hoeppner (29:27):
... in future, and then come back to
the university, but also ensurethat employers know, yes, this
is a real student that you'retalking to.
Michael Sankey (29:35):
Indeed. We saw for a number of years recently
that universities are movingaway from the more traditional
ePortfolio sites to things likeWordPress, Wix, and things like
that. I think that's been aretrograde step. That was
happening before generative AIcame along and the deep fakes. I
think there's now a place forePortfolio to re emerge as that
(29:58):
safe space, the place that canbe linked to, which is a
verified space. That requiresinstitutions, though, to
maintain those spaces and to bevery proactive in terms of their
alumni.
One of the universities I was atused a tool and decided not to
use that tool any more, but partof their policy was that once
you were a student, you wouldkeep your ePortfolio for life.
(30:19):
They then changed the tool. Wewould have to then change all
our stuff over onto another toolor just forget about the fact
that you had any portfolio,which is not very fair. So
institutions, in the short termcan't forget the long term. They
need to be true to what theysaid they were going to do,
which some institutions have notbeen. That's sad, and I think
(30:39):
it's symptomatic of the factthat there is so much change in
higher education at the moment,particularly amongst management
and senior management.
The truths that were part of thefoundation of that university
are lost. But I think we canmove forward still, though, if
we are asking our students tobuild in these other sites, I
don't know how we could validatethat. So I think there is still
(31:01):
a place for the tool that isvalidated by the institution.
This is the thought you had interms of linking that with
microcredentials. I mean, youcould have a credential from
your ePortfolio. Here's myvalidated page in my ePortfolio,
and here's the badge associatedwith my validated skills in my
ePortfolio. Doesn't necessarilyhave to be a short course. It
could be a 'here's my badge,linkable back to my ePortfolio
(31:24):
site.'
Kristina Hoeppner (31:25):
Yeah. I think those linkages would be good to
explore more in the future sothat we can verify that
information more easily andassure the institution, but also
the employers, yep, this wasactually one of our students.
Michael Sankey (31:39):
That's it.
Kristina Hoeppner (31:40):
Maybe through that we will be able to
resurrect the alumni portfoliobecause lately, we've seen a
decline in organisations eventhinking about that because IT
says, well, we need to removethem from our single sign on and
legal says, well, we can't havethem creating content in a
space, but the students notreally being associated with the
(32:01):
institution any more. So there'slots of overlapping
conversations to be had.
Michael Sankey (32:06):
Absolutely.
Kristina Hoeppner (32:07):
Michael, is there anything that you'd like
to be able to do withportfolios, but currently can't?
Michael Sankey (32:13):
There's an ePortfolio tool that I've used
that doesn't allow for morecustomisable URLs. I think
that's really important forstudents to be able to customise
the URLs to be more personal tothem.
If ePortfolio vendors wouldprovide some more thoughts
around programmatic assessmentor tools to help the institution
develop programmatic assessment.
I don't think there's anybodyreally other than the
(32:36):
institutions themselves, and wesee institutions running with
that in their own sense. So wesee Deakin running with
portfolio thinking recently andvery well and very good
programmatic thinking. CRADLEjust brought out a recent
article about that, which wasexcellent. That's the research
side of assessment at Deakin.
The vendors play an importantpart here, and I don't think
(32:59):
they've been given enoughcredence in terms of the
opportunities. The programmershave the understanding of how
the tools work. If they can linkthat with some work from
universities in terms of howprogrammatic assessment works, I
think the two of them could worktogether to create some really
good tools to help with that,the way in which you plan out
(33:19):
the curriculum. There'scurriculum management tools and
things like that, butessentially they just store the
data. You need to be able tohelp create that data.
Years ago, we had the LAMSsystem, the learning activity
management system, which cameout of Macquarie University.
That's old technology now. Thatwas around the planning of a
course and things like that. Butif there can be some tool to
(33:40):
help plan the programme throughand the assessments that are
going with the programmes, andwhat things would be appropriate
for ePortfolio, what things areappropriate for essays or exams
and things like that.
There needs to be an expansionof the thinking of the
ePortfolios providers to thinkin terms of, 'okay, here are the
other forms of assessment, buthere's where we fit ourselves
into this and we see ourselvesin this programmatic space. We
(34:01):
see ourselves as helping ourstudents become emerging
professionals. Here are thetools to help you institution to
help create that environment foryour students.' It's a big ask,
and not that easy without somelinkages across technology
providers and pedagogyproviders.
Kristina Hoeppner (34:20):
Yeah, it's those linkages and making those
connections visible so that youknow where to go and how they
all fit together. We are comingto the end of our chat today,
Michael, and so the last threequestions for you are in our
quick answer round. Which wordsor short phrases do you use to
(34:40):
describe portfolio work?
Michael Sankey (34:43):
From an institution's perspective, it's
facilitating programmaticassessment. For an individual,
it's facilitating the emergingprofessional, and it's the tool
that facilitates it. It's thecombination of the academic and
the tool that facilitates. It'snot just a tool. It's not just
the academic. It's having thetool that the academic can use
to do that with.
Kristina Hoeppner (35:03):
What tip do you then have for learning
designers or educators whocreate portfolio activities?
Michael Sankey (35:09):
Be fully aware of the portfolio practice
themselves. I've advocated for along time that an instructional
designer should have their ownePortfolio. There's no point
trying to sell it to somebody ifthey haven't done it themselves.
You've got to walk the talk.
There's the three words. You'vegot to walk the talk.
Kristina Hoeppner (35:24):
We'll add that as another short phrase.
What advice do you then have forportfolio authors, for your
students, but also for yourstaff? You've just mentioned the
learning designers.
Michael Sankey (35:35):
Keep it succinct and meaningful. When dealing
with a website, having too muchtext becomes a scroll of death.
Particularly on mobile devices,you don't want to be scrolling
through screens and screens andscreens of information. There
was a thought five, six yearsago that, yeah, the scroll of
death is back because of mobiledevices. I think we've moved
away from that thought againback to the thought that you
(35:57):
can't have everything on onepage unless it's linked some way
within the page, so advancednavigation within the page.
Be mindful of the people you arewriting this for. I've reviewed
dozens and dozens of CVs ofinstructional designers,
directors, people like that, whoare going for other jobs, and
the amount of time they justhave too much text and try and
(36:18):
get everything out in that shortspace, you'll be succinct in
what you say and link to otherthings. Link to that other
evidence. So that's where yourePortfolio becomes really
important that you can link tothat other evidence. Keep it
simple and keep it concise andlinkable.
Kristina Hoeppner (36:33):
Yeah, and then also curated, so that
you're not presenting everybodywith all the things that you
have done over your 27 years ofbeing a portfolio advocate...
Michael Sankey (36:42):
Absolutely.
Kristina Hoeppner (36:43):
...but the most salient points there.
Michael Sankey (36:46):
Yeah, that's it.
Kristina Hoeppner (36:47):
Thank you so much for the chat today,
Michael, it's always goodhearing from you, learning from
you, and seeing what you'recurrently thinking about in this
space, and I look forward tofuture conversations.
Michael Sankey (37:01):
Wonderful. Thank you so much. Kristina.
Kristina Hoeppner (37:04):
Now over to our listeners. What do you want
to try in your own portfoliopractice? This was 'Create.
Share. Engage.' with ProfessorDr Michael Sankey. Head to our
website, podcast.mahara.org,where you can find resources and
the transcript for this episode.
This podcast is produced byCatalyst IT, and I'm your host,
(37:25):
Kristina Hoeppner, Project Leadand Product Manager of the
portfolio platform Mahara. Ournext episode will air in two
weeks. I hope you will listenagain and tell a colleague about
our podcast so they cansubscribe. Until then create,
share, and engage.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.