The future of the e-portfolio?

Sarah Stewart has been writing about her experiences of using an e-portfolio for her Midwifery Standards Review and this has got me thinking about how Social Workers in Australia can use an e-portfolio to collate and organise their professional development activities to demonstrate the requirements for accrediation.    But are Social Workers in Australia ready to hear about e-portfolios?

I think Social Workers (and other health professionals) are happy to use the paper versions of a portfolio or record of training and development activities because they think they don’t have any other real choice. And I wonder if they are really happy with the paper version, or do they sometimes wonder if there must be a better way to do this?



We are all looking for something simple, easy to learn how to use, easy to maintain and easy to send off to our professional association when the time comes for review of our registration or accreditation. I see the enormous potential of the e-portfolio for professionals who need to keep a record of learning and development activities for their annual or bi-annual registration or accreditation review. In particular, I would like to see the Australian Association of Social Workers host e-portfolios - and I am preparing a paper to make this suggestion more formally.

E-portfolios are not something new that has been designed to make our life more difficult. The Australian ePortfolio Project released their stage 2  report in December 2009 and it makes interesting reading.  There is a lot money being invested in Australia to develop e-portfolios.  It’s not something that is going to fade away overnight. E-portfolios are a way to keep track of our activities and reflections – our learning and development and e-portfolios have enormous potential to do even more for us, things we haven’t thought of yet. So I say let’s get involved now, and influence the design so it works for us. And when the new students come along, we can dazzle them with our insight and fresh ideas.

I’m interested in what other people think. How do you keep track of your professional development and learning activities? Do you see a future in e-portfolios? Do you have an e-portfolio?

The 'Can Do' Initiative

I have recently discovered the ‘Can Do’ Initiative. This is an initiative funded by the Australian Government and promoted by the Australian General Practice Network. I think this is a fantastic example of an innovative approach to flexible learning.

The 'Can do' initiative encourages health professionals to focus on education, training and networking to learn about dual diagnosis of mental health and substance abuse problems.
The program offers an interactive on-line education program where you watch short lectures, read notes and consider a case study, then there are questions to answer to complete the module. The overview explains that it is a six-hour clinical education module that "provides comprehensive education and training in the recognition, management and review of service users presenting with co occurring mental health and substance use disorders. Many other training packages are available that address alcohol and drug issues or mental health issues but few address the combination of the two and their management in the general practice setting. "

The program is accredited and for me, as a Social Worker, I can count the time towards my Professional Development requirements. And it's free. So it is pretty easy and a flexible and interactive way for busy health professionals, especially people working and living in rural and remote areas to be able to access quality education and training.

I'm about half way through and really enjoying the program. Do you know of any other programs like this that offer a similar program?