(Lif)e-portfolio: listening and sharing

I am reading lots of blogs at the moment.
Students on the Sport Coaching Pedagogy unit at the University of Canberra have submitted their blogs as part of the assessment for their course.
It has been fascinating seeing their take on the unit and on their experiences as teachers and coaches.
It was very timely, therefore, that Stephen Downes pointed to Lee Ballantyne’s post about (lif)e-learning and Jenny Mackness’s post about the First Steps in Higher Education MOOC.
Another link, shared with me by my wife Sue, alerted to me Anna Salleh’s post about listening. Anna reports work by Imran Dhamani that indicates that:

Some children find it hard to listen to conversations in a noisy environment because they are slow at switching their attention between different speakers.
… such children can fail to understand instructions, perform badly in subjects where class noise levels are high and quickly become the “black sheep” of the class.

Imran’s colleague Pia Gyldenkaerne has investigated the brain activity of children with listening difficulties, Auditory Processing Disorders (APD). These children had different brain activity when compared to children with no listening difficulties.
I was interested to read a summary of Lee’s conclusions about e-portfolios:

e-portfolio adoption must form part of a strategic approach and requires new practice due to their disruptive nature. Implementation has been planned for and with continued management should realise tangible benefits although it is acknowledged that this is a slow, iterative process and understanding will develop with experience and over time.

I am profoundly interested in the use of e-portfolios as a way of sharing life experiences as well as being an exciting assessment option. Today’s feeds have reminded me that listening is a fundamental issue I must address particularly if I use lecture theatres and SlideCasts as fora to share information and experience.
Photo Credit
Listening to Mystery

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