1. Exploring the use of Google Drive
for support and interaction in the
development of teaching portfolios
Arona Dison
University of the Western Cape

2. Background
• UWC’s teaching and learning policy
• Teaching portfolios
• Workshops on developing a teaching portfolio

3. Purpose of the portfolio workshops:
• To inform academic staff in the faculty
about teaching portfolios and how to
develop them.
• To provide a supportive structure to
facilitate the development of lecturers’
teaching portfolios.
• To provide a space for writing, feedback
from participants and discussion about the
T&L issues reflected on in the portfolios

4. Series of workshops 2012
Month Topic No of participants
September Introduction to teaching portfolios and
discussion of UWC guidelines
35
October Writing a teaching philosophy 15
November Compiling your portfolio in relation to UWC
guidelines.
8
December Sharing your draft portfolio with other
participants
Cancelled due to time
of year

5. Changes made in 2013
• One introductory workshop of one hour open to
all lecturers in the faculty
• 3 sessions of 3 hours each offered on a monthly
basis
• More explicit requirement that participants were
committed to developing a teaching portfolio
during the time period of the workshop
programme
(Only 4 participants)
• The introduction of a technological tool to
encourage writing in between sessions and
interaction by participants about the writing.

6. Why Google Drive? (Affordances)
• It enables multiple authors to share their writing and
make comments on documents.
• It allows readers to comment on particular parts of the
text and the writer (or other readers) to respond in the
block.
• This is in contrast to blogs where feedback can only be
given generally on the blog which has been posted.
• allows for a network of people to interact with each
other in relation to their writing outside of the
constraints of time and place (asynchronous
interaction)

7. Google Drive cont.
• It also allows authors to work together in real
time (synchronous interaction)(Rowe et al,
2013)
• It has access-control affordances – permission-
ability and share-ability (Bower, 2009).
• Easy to use without much instruction
• Writers work with one copy of the document
(Garner, 2010) so comments and feedback are
all on one document

8. I introduced the intervention of using Google
Drive with the following goals in mind:
• to extend the interaction between participants in
relation to portfolio writing beyond the workshop time
and space;
• To use the technology to provide a motivating structure
to assist participants to draft manageable chunks of the
portfolio;
• To use the tool to enable participants’ to give feedback
on each other’s writing in addition to the facilitator
giving feedback;
• To support the development of a small community of
practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger 1998)
engaged in the project of portfolio development

9. Activities
• Shared teaching portfolio folder created in
Google Drive with shared sub-folders for each of
the participants
• Resource folder included
• Short training session given by one of participants
• Tasks negotiated with participants which were to
be done between sessions
• Participants expected to comment and give
feedback on each other’s writing before the next
session

10. Integration of technology into workshop programme
Workshop 1: Open introductory workshop on Developing a Teaching Portfolio
Workshop 2: Writing a teaching philosophy. First hands-on
workshop with 4 committed participants.
Workshop activities:
Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) activity, using drawing to
stimulate thoughts about teaching philosophy.
Drafting and then group discussion on writing.
Between workshop activities:
Write a draft of your teaching philosophy on Google Drive
Give feedback on each other’s drafts

11. Workshop 3:
Engaging with the UWC guidelines
Workshop activities:
Discussion about participants’ teaching philosophies.
Brief discussion of UWC’s Teaching Portfolio Guide.
Individual writing under categories of the Guide and in response to
questions.
Sharing of writing and discussion.
Between workshop activities (as agreed on by
participants):
Continue writing in response to the UWC Guidelines
Give feedback on each other’s writing by a certain date
Start making a list of evidence for your portfolio and store it on
Google Drive
As you collect evidence store the documents on Google Drive if
you’d like to.

12. Workshop 4:
Relating claims to evidence
Workshop activities:
Discussion about participants’ draft portfolio narratives.
Discussion about relating claims made in portfolio to
evidence.
Relating evidence (collected or to be collected) to sections
of draft teaching portfolio
Discussion about follow-up to workshop.

13. How have I formatively evaluated my
intervention so far?
• My own reflections (intensified by this course)
• Responses of facilitators and participants on
this course
• Feedback from workshop participants

14. One participant responded:
• ‘As with all these things, it is the lack of time available to
DO the work!! As a system, [Google Drive] is a good idea
and provides opportunity to share information easily and to
comment on each other's portfolios. However... I have
done none of this to date, except for the first time!!! I
don't know what the answer is. On the one hand, if
someone sent me their portfolio by email and asked me to
comment on it, I would, and having it on Google Docs
doesn't have the same impact somehow... why? An email
is personal communication and your conscience is pricked
more perhaps? The meetings are good, because we then
feel obliged to do something before each meeting, and
perhaps we should have more frequent meetings, even if
they are short? That way we have deadlines? I just think it
is too easy to forget about it when it is safely stored
somewhere online.

15. Veronica, our classmate, commented:
… it sounds like you're competing with busy
schedules and what educators are choosing to
prioritize. My real query is whether more
participants are likely to stay in your workshop
series and commit themselves to the tasks if it
becomes more collaborative enhanced by
technology or if this will actually add to the
dropout rate.

16. A concluding thought
The effectiveness of teaching portfolio workshops
in this form is affected by numerous factors, and
the use of technology in these workshops is only
one factor that is currently being explored.
From my participation in this workshop I have
become more fascinated by the potential of
technology for facilitating engagement about
teaching and learning by academics. The challenge
is how to achieve this, given the constraints that
have been discussed in this presentation.

17. References
Bower, M. (2008). Affordance analysis – matching learning tasks with learning technologies.
Educational Media International. 45:1, March 2008, 3-15.
Brohdal, C., Hadjerrouit, S and Hansen, N.K. (2011). Collaborative Writing with Web 2.0
Technologies: Education students’ perceptions. Journal of Information Technology Education:
Innovations in Practice. Vol 10, 73-103.
Chu, S., Kennedy, D. and Mak, M. (2009). MediaWiki and Google Docs as online collaborative
tools for group project co-construction. Proceedings of the 2009 International Conference on
Knowledge Management [CDROM]. Hong Kong, Dec 3-4, 2009.
​​​​Dabbagh, N. and Bannan-Ritland (2005). Online Learning: Concepts, Strategies, and Application.
Pearson Education. Chapter 6. (adapted for ICT CHEC Course, May 2011).
Garner, S. (2010). Supporting the personal knowledge management systems of students with
technology. Proceedings of Informing Science & IT Education Conference (InSITE) 2010.
http://proceedings.informingscience.org/InSITE2010/InSITE10p237-246Garner764.pdf
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Rowe, M., Bozalek, V. and Frantz,J. (2013) Using Google Drive to facilitate a blended approach to
authentic learning. British Journal of Educational Technology.
Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.