I am now beginning to think of portfolios in a different way. It seems that their success or failure largely depends on peoples understanding of what they are trying achieve as opposed to what tools they should select. It's probably fair to say that we already have a wide selection of tools to pick from and this list will continue to grow as the whole online medium matures. Therefore the skill will be in combining these tools and data sources in such a way as to make using portfolios an interesting and beneficial experience. Perhaps we need to create new kind of education professional - in the web world information architects are becoming quite a common within the development team - perhaps now is the time for the Portfolio Architect?

E-Portfolios or digital portfolios mean different things to different audiences. Opinions on what actually constitutes an e-portfolio vary as well as exactly what an e-portfolio is expected to deliver. Nothing too surprising here as you could argue that the same level of ambiguity is generated when people suggest developing a portal in the hope it will magically solve some inextricably complicated social or cultural issue.

No, what concerns me is that a wide range of e-portfolios are currently being investigated and rolled out within secondary schools without many of the key stakeholders having a full understanding of why they are actually doing it. Here are just a few common things storing information within a portfolio is intended to support:

• presenting portfolios for assessment;
• supporting reflection;
• facilitating review;
• enabling planning;
• supporting evidencing;
• enabling representation;
• configuring for audience;
• assessing educational needs;
• configuring educational systems;
• connecting to other systems

This is all fine but from what I have seen so far I think developers could benefit from thinking differently and dare I suggest a bit more radically. Having robust scaleable and secure server architecture is very important and ensuring portfolios adhere to interoperability and transfer standards is all very grown up and demonstrates strategic joined up thinking but lets face it’s not very interesting.

Its students imaginations we need to capture so it is the non-functional requirements we need to focus on as any half way competent software development firm will be able to derive the functional requirements based on what is freely available on the internet already. It’s embedding usage into the daily routine of student. After all if students don't use their e-portfolios voluntarily then it is a total waste of time spending millions on implementing them. And I mean really use them - not just login within a classroom environment - I mean use them at night and weekends to share thoughts, jokes, gossip, pictures, music, ring tones, hopes, aspirations whatever. It is only if we can establish a peer to peer network within the world of e-portfolios that we will see the unquestionable benefits a compelling portfolio application can deliver. Another danger is that students perceive the e-portfolio as intrusive to much part of the establishment and treat it with suspicion as they seek their own personal web space or blogging platform – just look at the success that myspace.com is enjoying maybe we should working with these companies so we can learn from their success?.

So let’s start thinking differently - let’s seek out game developers, TV producers, musicians, film directors, cartoonists whoever to help us with the interface design and to produce rich engaging content. People need to value the experience of using the tools not just be directed to use them because an elaborate requirements definition has prescribed the need for a digital platform that enables recording, assessing, reflecting, planning, validating and evidencing of all kinds of learning. Maybe we should think about dropping an “E”? Forget the electronic portfolio and welcome the emotional portfolio.