ePortfolio for transforming eVerything

I think the ePortfolio is like a magic pill for transforming learning systems - a process and a product that can frame a new approach to the management of learning.  

Here I will just share access to a list of some FuturEd papers and presentations.  As a futurist, I can say that some of these concepts have been systematically implemented, but few see the big picture which is:  ePortfolio is a tool to create and manage our digital identity.  

FuturEd eP work to Oct 2006

ePortfolio Workshop for eTQM

ePortfolio Introduction - FuturEd

History of ePortfolio in Canada

The Future of ePortfolio

ePConsumersGuide

ePortfolio Quality Standards Project

ePortfolio Quality Standards 2004

ePortfolio for Assessment of Learning

eFaculty Competencies Barker 05 October 07

ePortfolio for Teachers

ePortfolio Trends in BC

 

ePortfolio for Quality Assurance in Education Systems

ePortfolio for Trust Transparency Transportability

ePortfolio for eLearning Quality Assurance

ePortfolio Beyond the Classroom

ePortfolio and Digital Identity - eCitizenship

ePortfolio for Managing Learning in the Workplace

ePortfolio Success Stories - Wisdom for Trainers

Barker ePortfolios for Adults in Transition

ePortfolio for Human Capital Management

ePortfolio and HRD Policy Goals

ePortfolio to Recognize Culture and Heritage

ePortfolio to Connect Skilled Immigrants and Employers

eP for Skilled Immigrants and Employers - LIfIA

ePortfolio for Community Economic Development

As momentum grows, ePortfolio can be used to transform the recognition learning across cultures and lifetimes.  The wave is building. 

The FuturEd ePortfolio University of the #NewNormal

Anybody who knows me knows I've been promoting ePortfolios for ages.  More than 20 years ago, I said the ePortfolio was the future of eLearning.  It still is, but its time has FINALLY come, especially as more and more universities move to online delivery and cancel onsite classes.

Simply, an ePortfolio is a digital collection of achievements and information, produced and presented, in whole or in part, by a person.  It has multiple forms and uses, but let's narrow that to how it can become the framework for the university of the future.  

Here's how it would work.

For all courses and programs,  intended learning outcomes (ILO), or learning objectives, would be clearly stated using all the important quality criteria, i.e., they must be measurable, achievable, observable, timely, relevant, current, complete, and rationalized (e.g., on the new Blooms Taxonomy).  This is not rocket science.  This is good pedagogy.

All courses and programs would set out ILO as "learning standards", with stated degrees of acceptability (from unacceptable to excellence) and with examples of required/accepted digital evidence on a rubric.  Digital evidence means that a student submits their work in an electronic format, and that's not rocket science either - a paper as  PDF, a video or photo album, a hyperlink to a project website.  Easy.  There are multiple benefits to digital evidence, i.e., it is sharable, storable, variable, authentic, creative, repurposable, re-runnable. 

One function of the learning leader - the professor or instructor or teacher - is to present the learning standards and explain them fully - the terminology used, the general concepts, the obvious relationships.  Ensure that the standards are understood, and then direct learners to the rubrics that tell them what they may choose to present as digital evidence of learning achievement and exactly how they will be graded.  Using this approach, learners can do ongoing self-assessment and know almost exactly how well they will do on the course or program.  Transparency. It works. I do this with my students in China, and coach them on self-assessment;  it's an important lifelong learning skill. 

Of course, another function of the learning leader is to present materials and to curate a variety of learning resources focused on the stated ILO.  Since we are now in eLearning and distance delivery mode, the materials and resources can and should all be online - posted in an LMS like Moodle or referenced in a course syllabus. An important role of the learning leader is to quality assure the accuracy and suitability of recommended online resources and to be continuously enhancing the material selections.  Posting video lectures is just the start of this process and it should be minimized. 

eLearning can be so much more than conducting zoom lectures.  In fact, it should move beyond that for all the obvious short-comings of Zoom - accessibility issues for poorer students, security challenges to privacy, questionable interactivity.  It has been a short-term substitute for the regular classroom, but we need to move beyond that.  ePortfolio is how.

When learners know what they are expected to learn and how they are expected to present evidence of achievement, they can, with some help and coaching, choose from countless learning environments:  online materials, work experiences, community involvement, group projects, reading and travel, mentors and external experts, global media and research bodies.  A third function of the learning leader is to vet the choices students are making to ensure they are on the right track, and then to provide ongoing advice and feedback.  

On their own computers, incoming students are assisted to generate 2 critical files:  one containing the learning standard rubric for each and all courses/programs, and one to archive their digital evidence because what they produce may be used for more than one purpose.  And this archive may contain all sorts of evidence of achievements that bear no direct relationship to their courses or program YET. For example, they may be used after graduation for gaining employment or for advanced education.  I tell my students to routinely post their best works in their LinkedIn accounts so that when their names are googled, potential employers will find this part positive of their digital identity.  (I also tell them not to use their real names in social media because what is posted on the internet is there forever, and partying pictures have caused people to lose jobs later in life.)

The ePortfolio university achieves so many futurist objectives, i.e., it:

1.  is global because it is online, geographic jurisdictions only apply to professional credentialing

2.  reframes the role of professor to learning leader and lifelong learner

3.  reframes the role of student to learning partner and lifelong learning

4.  offers, to learning customers, transparency and accountability

5.  uses the internet and digitization in creative ways

6.  promotes ongoing digital skill development for everybody

7.  uses eLearning tools and products to maximum advantage

8.  reduces the reliance on maintaining actual facilities

9. engages fully with actual and virtual communities without the cost of travel

10.  it is more cost-effective, accessible, and compatible with the new social distancing

More importantly, ePortfolio (rather than traditional teaching and assessment of learning) is a better way of managing learning at all levels.

• It is asset-based, rather than deficit-based, and failure is minimized
• It includes all forms of learning - formal, informal, non-formal, accidental and incidental.
• At one level, it is competence-based with clear evidence of capabilities. It enables skills gap analysis and planning for learning.
• At another level, it supports lifelong learning skills of inquiry and research, critical thinking, appropriate communications, effective uses of the internet, community building

I am not alone in advocating for this.  My friend and colleague Ali Jafari at Indiana University has done a stellar job creating tools and processes used by many universities called Course Networking, and his mission will be complete when ePortfolios are not only a tool but an organizing framework.  Troy Markowitz and Portfolium have generated great applications linking school to work with ePortfolio tools.  Most forward-thinking institutions of higher education offer students tools to develop and use their own portfolios, and I applaud them!  Countless professional bodies require their members to maintain an ePortfolio of competencies for license renewal.  Every kid I know has a portfolio on Instagram of their "achievements" and the things that really interest them.  At every university and education ministry where I have worked, I have generated a strategic plan for ePortfolio implementation - for faculty development, for assessment of learning, for use of learning technologies, for quality assurance, on and on.  Still, they resist.  So let's make this simple.

Let's take a set of future skills - like those developed by my friend and colleague Ulf Ehlers in "Future Skills - the future of Learning and Higher Education" and generate an ePortfolio framework for a university. 

I have reservations about how these could pragmatically be taught or assessed, but simplistically speaking, the university would :

• take the 18 future skills as learning standards or intended outcomes, 
• embed each and all in every program OR wrap courses and programs around each future skill
• generate a curriculum alignment of teaching and testing methods
• set out a list of resources and recommended learning environments for each
• direct learners to recommended and required materials
• establish what digital evidence would be acceptable and ensure learners had the skills and tools to produce it
• conduct an authentic assessment of the learner achievements using rubrics

Frankly, there are much easier sets of future skills with which to frame an institution, for example, a comprehensive set of Graduate Attributes that are more specific, demonstrable, and measurable.  Or the 10 vital skills for the future of work, produced by Forbes magazine. Every education jurisdiction worldwide seems to be developing a set of employability skills for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and while I don't think that is the only future scenario that we can anticipate, it does focus on technical skills.  I have argued that Graduate Attributes should be the core of what a university delivers to learners, and the ePortfolio is the means of managing that. There is one more thing.

Managing all of these competencies could become complex and subjective, and means of managing might be blockchain technology.  If we were able to digitally classify the competencies students were required to learn, they could become crypto-competencies validated and managed by blockchain ledger tools.   A university able to design and deliver this would be what I call the FuturEd ePortfolio ecosystem of crypto-competencies.  Very utilitarian and not at all how some people see the purpose of a university.  But I think it would be worth a try.

If I were Minister of Education, I'd generate a Policy Delphi for the #NewNormal

This crisis in public health that has closed schools is, in one respect, a terrific opportunity to make important changes to learning systems.  While many education systems are trying to figure out how to go back to "normal," others realize that that probably won't happen. Fine, let's get ready to do things differently.

Because learning systems can not and should not return to the status quo of the past, a hasty strategic plan is needed. Of course, there will be howls of outrage about jurisdiction and tradition, but collaboration and positive action are needed if only to protect the interests of learners and society. We need to quickly generate a plan, to save the best of what we have, to find the necessary new resources, to build support for new approaches, to facilitate positive proactive change. Who is this "we"? Somebody has to take charge.

If I was Minister of Education, I would conduct a massive policy Delphi:  what are the changes that we need to see and how do we achieve them. My PhD was a computerized policy Delphi - I know how to do this easily with all the technology available to us.  We would engage citizens and learners, grandparents and policymakers, futurists and educators, people who didn't finish school - everybody.  We would set out the possibilities for deliberation, but first, we would require a DRAFT strategic plan - and this is critical because people need something to react to.  The Delphi process would, over successive iterations, generate a sound and consensus-based plan.

1. Step One:  a clear, concise, objective SWOT analysis snapshot of the present 
1. Strengths to build on, e.g., technology tools, pedagogical skills
2. Weaknesses to address, e.g., curriculum gaps, lockstep approaches
3. Opportunities to seize, e.g., online mentoring, portfolio management of learning
4. Threats and risks to avoid, e.g., trying to do the same old things
2. Step Two:  an environmental scan
1. trends in related fields, e.g., environmental science, spiritual wellness
2. potential wildcards and scenarios, e.g., the sudden shutdown of the internet, global war
3. best practices in all system elements, e.g., why everyone loves the Finns
4. worst practices in all system elements, e.g., ignoring refugees, standardized testing
3. Step Three:  Visioning
1. stakeholder synthesis:  perspectives and priorities
2. options analysis:  combinations of online and onsite
3. Strategic objectives
1. new, different, and better learning objectives and intended outcomes
2. new, different, and better processes leading to those outcomes
3. new, different and better resources and inputs to facilitate the processes
4. new, different and better quality assurance and feedback mechanisms

All the best and worst ideas would be sorted, presented, and deliberated by all the stakeholders.  It would be magic.

Sustainable change must be systems-based or the online learning effort will be wasted

The internet now is veritably vibrating with ideas of how to change learning systems - Maker Labs, Project-based Learning, ePortfolio, Future Skills, Community Mentors, mLearning - the list of potential innovations goes on and on.  But there is only one way to see change, and that is if the corresponding elements in the learning system are also changed.  If we want to see real change, we need to employ one powerful underlying framework:  the systems model. 

I remember proposing to the Qatar Foundation a project to gather all the stellar innovations showcased at WISE and position them in a systems framework in order to systematize implementation.  I guess I didn't explain it well enough. Here are my FuturEd principles for changing learning systems from a systems-based approach. 

Education and training, at all levels everywhere, exist as dynamic systems within an external environment that controls them.  Each system is a circle of inputs, processes, outputs, with feedback decisions.




A change in any one element results in or requires a change in all the others.  To achieve different outcomes (e.g., creativity and critical thinking skills), we need different teaching processes (e.g., problem-based projects) supported by different resources (e.g., curriculum and teacher expertise).  Likewise, a reduction or change in staff or budgets results in reduced or restructured processes and outcomes. It is pure logic. 

The world is full of good ideas to improve learning systems, and the reason most proposed innovations fail to fulfill their potential is that they are treated in isolation - great new teaching resources without proper training for staff, great new curriculum ideas without external support.  We cannot, e.g., expect traditional educators to teach entrepreneurship, we cannot teach creativity with a lecture, we cannot measure life skills with a standardized test. Academia has produced countless great discussions about skills for the future, so if we want different outcomes, we need to work backward and ask:  what are the necessary processes and procedures to teach to and test for those objectives, and what are the necessary environments and expertise required to achieve those processes? And critically, where is the evaluation strategy to judge whether it is working and should be continued?  What does excellence look like and how will we know if we achieve it?  Where is the Return on Investment and lessons learned?

Second, although a change in any element of the system (inputs, processes, outputs, or quality feedback) results in or requires a change in all others, it is difficult to deal with all at one time. In a best-case scenario of options and opportunities, the question becomes:  where to start?  What is the most important?  What is even possible?  Having a choice, systems can ask: what is it that our learners really need and how do we provide it (e.g., morning breakfast or workplace experience)?  However, there isn't always a chance to choose when a disaster happens and it is a worst-case scenario.  If, as is the case now, schools are closed worldwide for health reasons, traditional physical and human resources (i.e., inputs) are just not there.  Where possible, teachers and teaching processes have adapted to online and distance delivery, however, they are essentially intending to achieve and measure the same outcomes or learning objectives, and that is not possible in most cases. In fact, different outcomes result from this change, some good (e.g., new digital skills for staff and students) and some bad (e.g., isolation and learning loss for those without computers and internet). Online and distance learning, eLearning and mLearning, can only be successful as processes if the necessary resources are put in place and if the intended learning outcomes are modified or completely transformed.  A change in any element of the learning system will result in a change going forward in the system, but not backward.

Third, systems theory provides an easy framework for handling forced change. The leap to eLearning and the inability to open schools in the predicable future means we need to change the resources and intended outcomes if we are going to see eLearning as the continued solution.  Degrees earned by eLearning have not been accepted by many national governments because of veracity and validity issues, which have just now been swept under the rug.  These issues will resurface but now we have time and need to focus on quality assurance in eLearning products and services.  FuturEd thought of that in 1998 and created the CanREGS - the Canadian Recommended eLearning Guidelines - for the Government of Canada which, it turned out, has no authority to implement them. The CanREGS were intended to ensure that early eLearning was of a quality that inspired early adopters to trust and utilize it, and clearly, that didn't happen.  FuturEd even produced the eQcheck eLearning quality certification system, in keeping with the FuturEd transformation model (national standards for producers, consumer's guide for purchasers) but eLearning has remained questioned and marginalized until now. I know because in my position as a special advisor on higher education to the minister in Qatar, in 2015-16, I consistently lost the argument to support and implement eLearning properly. At a time of teacher shortages, they even fired all the Ethiopian teachers who had earned their education degrees online.  Unless the efforts to implement online learning now need to be examined closely and quality assured, they will be discarded as quickly as possible to return to the classroom.  If we want online learning to succeed, we need, first, to rethink and redesign the intended learning outcomes and, second, prepare and support teaching professionals in new and better ways. I personally think we should make the leap to mLearning and ePortfolio-managed education now while we can. 

In summation, if we are going to see real lasting transformation of learning systems - and we must - we must take a consistent systems-based approach rather than tinkering with individual elements.

Graduate Attributes as the Framework for the Future University

As the "new normal" unfolds around us, after this crisis rush to online and distance learning, universities and colleges struggle with what to expect and what to create, what to salvage and what to sacrifice, what reason to exist at all.  Credentialing has lost it's currency, and lifelong learning has yet to become a university mission.  Let's be frank - Most institutions are hoping to return to the past because change is difficult in so many ways. It doesn't need to be.


There is an easy change strategy and it is hidden in the concept of Graduate Attributes. Almost all universities set out a brief and erudite list of things their graduates "will be able to do" - like exhibit critical and creative thinking, employability skills, or global insight. They make this claim on webpages and strategic plans and advertising materials, but seldom are these attributes defined, taught to, or tested for. They are largely unsubstantiated claims. And yet, if developed and delivered properly, they are the entire mission an institution of higher education, and a logical organizing framework for the future university. When they become the clearly-stated, over-arching, competence-based intended learning objectives or outcomes, the processes and inputs logically shift.

Using Graduate Attributes requires reframing courses and programs, delivery and assessment of learning, materials and methods.  It means removing the silos, increasing contact with the community, actually measuring learning, embedding the graduate attributes in all courses and programs, developing a comprehensive ePortfolio scheme. I have presented workshops on how to do that, but few take the time to make it happen. Until now. We have lots of time.

Some background: I've researched and written about Graduate Attributes since 2009 when I guided the strategic planning process at King Faisal University in Saudi Arabia. Graduate Attributes were developed as an overarching framework to measure the success of the strategic plan. Very FuturEd! I synthesized the best of all those GA lists I could find and created a set the FuturEd Vision of Comprehensive University Graduate Attributes. I continue to argue that Graduate Attributes are like student KPIs, and should be measured to assess the quality of learning services at the university.  In my professional opinion, the statement of Graduate Attributes is a contract between the learner and the institution. By making unsubstantiated claims, the institution is liable for breach of contract or dereliction of duty. 


1. What are “Graduate Attributes”?

Many individual Higher Education institutions across the world produce and promote their set of stated Graduate Attributes, i.e., a list of “generic” knowledge, skills and abilities/attitudes (KSA) that they expect all graduating students to possess or be able to demonstrate. Even entire nations have produced statements of “national” graduate attributes as the intended outcome of entire higher education systems. These “sets” may take a variety of forms, e.g., some are linked solely to programs and formal student learning, some combine formal and non-formal/extracurricular student learning, some include skillsets associated with, for example, employability, international competencies, “21st-century skills,” lifelong learning. The sets of GA exist, but they are not used to full advantage, if at all.

To be sure, there is plenty of evidence of GA innovation and good practice.   For example, beyond a simple list, GA have been presented, by the University of Adelaide, with an associated “degree of impact of the participant." The University of Glasgow sets out GA with a three-dimensional matrix. For the University of Victoria, GA are about mapping student destinations. But nobody yet has developed a university around the central framework of Graduate Attributes - which should, incidentally, include mastery of content area knowledge. 

2.  How to use GA to advantage?

There are lots of uses for Graduate Attributes, for students, programs, institutions, and entire nations. Fundamentally, the concept of GA contributes greatly to quality assurance and enhancement of individual programs, entire institutions and even national systems. But you can't use them without measuring them. 

Students can and should use the list of Graduate Attributes as part of their learning objectives for undertaking higher education; i.e., in addition to earning a credential, a student should be expected and assisted to learn a set of competencies to help make the transition beyond higher education, either to work, the community or advanced study. In fact, GA can be a means by which students manage their own learning and hold the institution accountable. Often students can and do use the list as a framework for an ePortfolio of acquired KSA, and the ePortfolio of GA with digital evidence can be used for assessment purposes inside the institution and/or by potential employers. When a set of GA includes non-formal learning within higher education - or any formal education - it enables students to account for the vast amount of learning from extracurricular activities, travel, reading and community service. With an ePortfolio, a student says “here’s who I am, here’s what I know and can do.” Employers have been clear that they expect graduates to exit higher education with a set of workplace-relevant KSA, and they find an ePortfolio to be a good means of understanding the capabilities of an individual. Incidentally, they do not find transcripts and formal qualifications to be useful beyond initial screening. 

Programs and programs should use GA to guide the development and assessment of discipline-specific intended student learning outcomes. For example, the College of Education at SQU has produced and promoted a set of Graduate Attributes for students completing education degrees. In many universities, students prepare a course-work ePortfolio, framed by program learning objectives, as part of a graduation requirement. Program-specific GA cover the concept of “content area expertise.”  But there is more to be accounted for.

Institutions should use GA to guide the development and demonstration of both generic and academic student learning outcomes. Most universities in Australia, many in America and Canada, some in the UK produce and promote a set of generic GA as part of public relations for competitive advantage to attract students and public support. They fail to acknowledge that a clearly stated set of GA becomes a public declaration of the intention and/or capability of the institution to meet the needs of learners and society at large. In Australia, the National Graduate Attributes Project has investigated institutional policies for embedding GA in curriculum, assessment and research. Graduate Attributes, in the context of quality assurance, are like KPI for students, an objective of assessing the quality of student learning and institutional effectiveness.

Finally, entire nations have created GA demanded of HE institutions. For example, Malaysia requires that any accredited program include clear evidence that the 8 domains of generic learning outcomes have been systematically taught and assessed. In the UAE, according to the QFEmirates, an accredited program should include deliberate consideration of CoreLife Skills. Whereas in the UAE the CoreLife Skills could be characterized as employability skills, the GA in Malaysia are characterized as lifelong learning skills. Regardless, they serve only as a portion of the GA for an institutional or HE system, and the purpose has been to push HE to consider the importance of ensuring graduates are prepared for life and work beyond HE. It is conceivable that an HEI’s GA could contribute to large-scale learning assessment as a tool for national and internationally-comparative accountability of public and private investment in education.  But, to be meaningful,  the skills need to be taught to and tested for.

What is the Graduate Attribute Future University?

This is a leap, but it is doable. If, because we have the time and need to think about what we've been doing and why, and to heed the criticisms and opportunities, first, let's create a new strategic scenario. Instead of trying to fit GA into existing courses, why not fit courses and programs into an overall GA framework. This will reveal gaps and overlaps. More importantly, it will reveal much academic endeavor is (or is not) put into teaching, measuring, recognizing and valuing each Graduate Attribute.

And then, make adjustments. Many "soft-skills" or 21st Century Skills or professional skills can be taught in alternative environments by alternative instructors and experts. This is a chance to embed learning in actual situations like service-learning and work placements. 

And then generate a comprehensive digital identity for learners around an ePortfolio framework, All their achievements can be archived as evidence of formal, non-formal and lifelong learning.   

And finally, promote this new approach to structuring the university enterprise as learning-oriented, transparent and accountable to customers, future-focused and ePortfolio-enabled  - a genuinely lifelong learning institution.

This is actually doable. FuturEd is ready to help. 

Until and unless that is done, the Graduate Attributes are a bit of a fraud. I wonder what would happen if some students challenged a university for failure to ensure that they were critical thinking, leadership-ready, globally-minded entrepreneurs - or whatever claims their universities made?

eLearning is not the Answer - mLearning Is!

When the COVID19 crisis hit, schools closed and there was global pandemonium in education systems. In due course, education systems urged or forced their teachers and professors to take learning online.  

In a few best-case scenarios, some courses were already online, some professionals were experienced at using eLearning technologies and pedagogies, and some students were experienced eLearners.  But the worst-case scenario quickly unfolded -

• few policies or procedures were in place to manage the sudden shift 
• too many teachers and instructors had no eLearning skills or tools
• implementation was fractured, resisted and unmonitored
• too many options were suddenly offered with little guidance on choosing or using
• far too many students had no computers or internet access to meet the demands
• parents were struggling with countless other personal, health and employment challenges
• families were unprepared to turn homes into learning resource centers
• motivation and accountability in learning systems plummeted
• the private, for-profit education sector either shut down and stranded learners, or seized the opportunity to gouge for even more profit
• whole education systems just canceled classes, hoping for a miracle

This didn't need to happen.  We have known what good eLearning looks like, some professionals have the necessary skills and training, learners are most technologically literate.  I know what good learning looks like:  FuturEd created the Recommended eLearning Guidelines in Canada, and FuturEd has been an eLearning consumer advocate ever since. The overall quality of eLearning has always been questionable at best.  I repeat, this didn't need to happen. 

This worst-case scenario was a result of the consistent marginalization of eLearning across the formal education world - there have been collective voices against it from unions; there have been quality issues in the absence of specialized quality certification; there has been intense competition in the eLearning industry where the focus is naturally on profit;  there has been a relentless but disregarded effort by the non-profits agencies to promote value.  Many governments in the world still do not recognize qualifications earned through online programs; many others think eLearning is for training only.  With so much invested in the status quo, the formal education system, at all levels, simply did not want to change. Hence, this eLearning crisis.  

And without a massive effort, eLearning will cause as many problems as the virus.  Possibly the worst problem is that created by the digital divide - the elite will thrive online, the majority of learners worldwide will struggle and suffer, the divide will widen.  This crisis needs an immediate response.  We can fix the quality of eLearning later. 

A better and more appropriate form of online learning is mLearning - mobile learning - learning using mobile technologies PRECISELY because so many more learners have mobile devices.  But even more important, developing mLearning tools and strategies requires a visionary rethink of what education is all about.   eLearning has been used (or misused) consistently to do the "same old things" in a slightly different way - instruction and assessment are typically just the same online and on sight.  The teacher teaches and judges the learner.  Futurists hypothesized that eLearning would be a way to do different things differently, but that hasn't happened in any systematic way.  But mLearning will require new ways of delivering and managing learning,  because the power shifts from the provider to the consumer of learning services.  Maybe that is going too far....

This is how I see mLearning working. 

1. Learning requirements are set by "the system" - intended learning outcomes or learning standards that are measurable, cross-disciplinary, achievable and future-oriented, from basic literacies to advanced content knowledge

2.  Learning requirements are presented in two formats:  first in an ePortfolio format - an electronic framework that would include recommended or required resources, and means of digitally producing evidence of achievement  - "Here's what I was expected to learn (learning standard) and here's evidence of what I know and can do."  An app.  They already exist. Google has lots. 

3.  Learning requirements are presented also in a second format:  a competence-based, digital assessment rubric that establishes the type of evidence required to achieve levels from adequate to excellence "Here's exactly how you will be assessed and you can even assess yourself!"  It is a planning tool upfront and an accurate measure of both formative and summative achievements. Students learn how to learn and take some responsibility for what they learn. 

4.  With their guides or teachers or community mentors, learners make a learning plan, access resources from myriad sources, create digital evidence of learning and achievement using their mobile phones.  They can learn anywhere.  They already know how to produce digital evidence or artifacts.  They just need a framework to manage and use what they learn, and this process systematically promotes lifelong and life-wide learning.  

I am not advocating having learners of all ages wander off with their mobiles and then eventually become productive contributing members of society.  There needs to be a support system around this, and that's what teachers will be doing in the "new normal. "   For example, part of the ePortfolio development process typically includes reflection - and that takes coaching.  Another part is judgment and presentation - what to include and how - and that takes coaching.  

Teachers themselves need an ePortfolio framework to structure their developing use of mLearning, and that's where I would start:  an mLearning portfolio for all teachers.  I would organize training and tools centered on a research project to demonstrate how mLearning works so that they could model it for their students. 

Over time, learners will have a massive repository of learning achievements to be used for academic assessment, job and advancement applications, story-telling, career planning and development, and more, much more.

Mobile devices are ubiquitous and cheap, and students already use them enthusiastically, if not so very creatively.  Let's use them to deliver and manage learning! 

And then we can think about this when time and resources allow.