Article Preview
TopBackground
Global literature reveals that e-portfolios are defined differently based on the various academic environments and their use, but that they convey common features (Bhattacharya & Hartnett, 2007; Hallam & Creagh, 2010; Henrich, 2008; Morze & Buinytska, 2015). E-portfolios are defined differently because they are used in different contexts for different purposes (Dunbar-Hall, Rowley, Bennett, Blom & Hitchcock, 2016; Heinrich, 2008). An e-portfolio was introduced as an alternative way of assessment because higher education is transforming from a paper-based teaching and learning approach to an e-learning approach as mentioned earlier. This change calls for a re-think of pre-service teachers’ pedagogy from traditional to digital. According to Boulton (2014), an e-portfolio is a multi-modal evidence-based assessment method currently introduced in most teacher education programmes at higher education institutions locally and globally. Van Wyk (2017) refers to an e-portfolio as an alternative assessment strategy for student-teachers’ self-directed learning empowerment that afforded them an opportunity to use various types of information technology (IT) tools such as podcasts, blogs, PowerPoint presentations and e-discussion forums. Transformation in higher education in terms of the use of technologies in teaching and learning as well as assessment is a global trend, meaning that there should be a re-think in terms of preparing pre-service teachers’ pedagogy. This is the reason for exploring how the use of an e-portfolio as an alternative method of summative assessment enhances pre-service teachers’ technological pedagogy in an environmental education (EE) module.
Smolyaninova and Shilina (2011) argue that teacher education programmes do not satisfactorily prepare pre-service teachers in terms of technological competency. Technological competency in this context means competency in digital pedagogy. An e-portfolio should, as Van Wyk (2017) mentions, provide pre-service teachers with in-depth understanding of digital pedagogy or TPCK.