Four learners responses to e portfolio meta-genre 2013

Four Learners Responses to an Emergent
‘Visual Arts Showcase e-Portfolio’ Meta-Genre
Learner EG1’s homepage (2013) Learner AH1’s homepage (2013)
Learner CG1’s homepage (2013) Learner MV1’s homepage (2013)

2010 - 2012
Action research project with Visual Arts educators at
an independent and government school
2013/09/07 Prepared by Travis Noakes 2

Profile
description
Profile
image
Folders of
digitised
artworks
About button Portfolio
title
Contact
details
Areas of
expertise
SkillsFooter
Artist. Date.
Folder
Name,
Description
Artwork
Title
Description
Tags
Client tags
1 ‘Home’ page template
3 ‘Artwork project folder’ page template
2 ‘About’ page template (artist’s profile)
Carbonmade Artist. Date.
Availability
for freelance
graphic
Carbonmade portfolio’s page types
4 ‘Search page
results’ template
Work button
Creative’s
name
Portfolio title
Carbonmade banner logo
Footer
Artist. Date.
Footer
Artist. Date.
Prepared by Travis Noakes2013/09/07 3

Aligned with a national curricular statement module.
Appropriated at school to help learners improve their
‘Management and Presentation’ skills.
• Online portfolio syllabus taught for two weeks each year;
• Ultimate aims are matric-exhibition preparation and preparing
for post-school reality.
Screenshot of learner MH’s Carbonmade
‘homepage’, November, 2010
‘homepage’, December, 2011
‘homepage’, May, 2012
Prepared by Travis Noakes2013/09/07 4

The research questions of my PhD in Media Studies
Question 1.
What are the e-portfolio design
choices that Visual Arts learners
made?
Question 2.
How do e-portfolio design choices
and sub-genre practices relate to
the learner relationships and the
possibilities and constraints of
their circumstances?
5
For research updates, go to
travisnoakes.co.za or follow
@travisnoakes on Twitter
Prepared by Travis Noakes

Defining the e-portfolio design choices by layer.
Prepared by Travis NoakesSeptember 7, 2013
Bateman (2008) proposes an empirical approach to
multimodal document analysis showing how it(s design)
‘functions’ and what it does in its ‘own terms’. The GeM
framework decomposes multimodal documents into six
key structures:
•The ‘navigation’, ‘linguistic’ and ‘genre’ structures of the
webpages are simple as these are largely defined by the rules
of the online portfolio software page templates;
•The ‘layout’, ‘content’ and ‘rhetoric’ structures feature the most
variation.
In my ‘Four Learners Responses to an Emergent
‘Visual Arts Showcase e-Portfolio’ Meta-Genre’
conference paper I focus on differences in a cross-
section of learners’ design choices in ‘layout’, ‘content’
and ‘rhetoric’ structures.
6

Define 29 learners’ choices in response to a meta-genre?
Enact Genre
Reinforce/
Undercut
Ongoing
use
Observe genre use
Be influenced by genre use
Identify a situation
Identify a change of situation
Identify genre rules
Reproduce genre
Elaborate genre
Replace with different genre
Undercut genre
Select genre
Characterization of the cyclic process of genre change according to
Yoshioka and Herman (2000); sourced from Bateman (2008: 191).

Design and the Visual Arts Showcase e-portfolio
classroom sub-genre ecology
Learner subject
Exemplary corpora
Guidelines on choices that constitute a ‘Visual Arts e-portfolio showcase’ meta-genre
reproductionextendreplaceundercut
Multimodal design choice creates design syntagms and pages
Choice
matches
Choice
elaborates
Choice
substitutes
Choice is
absent or is
opposing
Other corpora? Non-corpora?
Educator and researcher
Several choices constitute a webpage ‘text’
Choice helps constitute a home-, about- or artwork
project folder page
http://www.travisnoakes.co.za/p/online-portfolio-lessons.html)
All webpage types contribute to creating the Visual Arts
showcase e-portfolio sub-genre
Visual Arts
Showcase
e-portfolio
classroom
sub-genre
References
the School
Visual Arts
genre and its
sub-genres
‘Online Portfolio
Exhibition’
super-genre
Reference the
‘Traditional
Portfolio
Exhibition’
antecedent
genre and its
sub-genres
‘Homepage’ ,‘About’ and ‘Artwork’ webpage sub-genres
Reference related sub-genres; i.e. ‘CV’, ‘Exhibition history’

This project adopts a SSMC research framework
(Kress, 1992, 2006, 2010) to understand aspects
of significance to the learner:
•‘Who produced it?’
•‘For whom was it produced?’
•‘In what context and under what constraints was it
produced?’
(Kress, 2000)
Social Semiotic Theory of Multimodal Communication
(SSMC) research framework
The meaning of learners choices cannot be
explained by the ‘constituency’ approach
commonly used in Linguistics, where learners
create meaning from the “bottom up” through
specific modal choices.

Four case studies
Learner EG1’s profile image (2013) Learner AH1’s profile image (2013)
Learner CG1’s s profile image (2013)
Learner MV1’s s search image (2013)

The value of Learner EG1’s e-portfolio design for him
He identified the value of his e-portfolio as adding another
dimension to his art in supporting; sharing with audiences, organizing
artworks for display (Int2 EG1, 7 November, 2012, R124, R129)
while also revealing his artistic identity and the evolution of his artistic
creativity at school (Int1 EG1, 15 November, 2012, R50, R51, R53).
He intended to use his e-portfolio as a drawing archive post-school:
He enjoyed drawing and contrasted his e-portfolio focus on drawing
to a friend, learner AK1, who had foregrounded photography; ‘But he
had always been focused on his photography and was very
passionate about it. Whereas I was more passionate about the work
that we had done and, like, presenting the work that I enjoy.’
(Int1 EG1, 15 November, 2012, R79).

The e-portfolio’s significance to Learner EG1
‘Who produced it?’
Learner EG1 with feedback from his educator and some from
parents, peers and friends.
‘For whom was it produced?’
Learner EG1 produced it to reflect his emergent identity as a fine
artist to his audiences.
‘In what context was it produced?’
Although Learner EG1 had successfully applied in matric for
admission to the Medical School of the University of Cape Town,
his admission could be withdrawn if he failed to continue achieving
a high subject average.
‘Under what constraints was it produced?’
Learner EG1 ‘flipped the classroom’ to work at home and
overcome slow Carbonmade use at school.
Did not publish extra-mural photography and many extra-mural
artworks.

Case Study 1. Learner EG1’s homepage
2010 2012
Learner EG1 adopted a unique design approach that differed from all his classmates in serving as a
metaphor for the ‘clean type of gallery look’ he likes (Int1 EG1, 15 November, 2012, R66). He
wanted it to look simple, elegant and not to distract from the actual works (Int2 EG1, 7 November,
2012, R113). He extended the Visual Arts showcase e-portfolio sub-genre through consistent
application of this metaphor.

2012
Case Study 1. An ‘artwork project folder’ page by Learner EG1
‘I think a sketchbook almost forms the strongest basis of our art, especially at <school name>.
Even above other schools, we use sketchbooks so much, where at other schools might be
doing bigger projects at a larger scale, where we always have a sketchbook that we are
updating every week or every two weeks.’ (Int2 EG1, 7 November, 2012, R126).

- Many learners struggled with the online concept of ‘ongoing design’ (this explanation was
written in 2011, while his ‘about’ page featured the current 2012 revision)

2012
Case Study 1. Learner EG1’s ‘about’ page

The e-portfolio’s significance to learner AH1
Learner AH1 with feedback from his educator and some from parents and
peers.
He created a ‘… more mature rendition’ (Int2 AH1, 23 November 2012, R47)
that could merit a ‘passing grade’.
‘Obviously it can be quite useful in terms of showing, like if I am going into
advertising say, I can reference this to interviewers to see my own art portfolio.
Instead of lugging a whole handheld thing in, which is nice.’ (R48, R49).
Learner AH1 said that he would update his Carbonmade portfolio with new
work from his advertising projects in Business Science.
Learner AH1 ‘flipped the classroom’ to work at home. He did not publish extra-
mural photography and many extra-mural artworks.

Case Study 2. Learner AH1’s homepage
2010 2012
If he could, he would have changed the whole Visual Arts curriculum; ‘I don't like being
given, like 'Protest art' and 'Search for African Art in the 50's and 60's.' That sort of stuff
does not interest me. What interests me is more of like.. not fictional stuff. Like characters
from video games or, or like nice tribal designs and more, er, more imaginative, er,
imaginatory pictures.’ (Int1 AH1, 2 November 2012; R5).

Case Study 2. Learner AH1’s ‘about’ page
2012
‘…why would you have a thing that you could share your stuff
with the world, if people can't contact you and be like this and
you can't get feedback from it. Otherwise, it just sits there.’
(Int1 AH1, 2 November 2012, R22).

Case Study 2. An ‘artwork project folder’ page by Learner AH1
2012
‘… the work that is on there is mostly work that has been set and we don't really get a choice as to what we
do at (school name). It is more of a curriculum that is set and you have to do this, this and this... these tasks
in order to pass. I mean ... I guess I could have put up some of my stuff that I have been doing personally,
but then again... I am not too sure that I am very self-conscious about my art as well. So, I am not too sure
that it is good enough to put up... and... if it will be judged in a negative or a positive way.’ (Int1 AH1, 2
November 2012, R9).

The e-portfolio’s significance to Learner CG1
Learner CG1 with feedback from his educator and some from
parents and peers.
Learner CG1 produced it for an assessment audience only.
Boarding house
Learner could not upload videos to free version of Carbonmade,
nor customise his template to the extent he wanted.
Published extra-mural photography and many extra-mural
artworks.

Case Study 3. Learner CG1’s homepage
2011 2012
‘So, you have the three, three portrait faces. So that
gave quite a cool effect and also... I don't know, Mr
Rupert said that he would prefer if it's like that and I am
not going to go against what he says, because I want
marks...’ (Int CG1, 6 November 2012, R32).

Case Study 3. Learner CG1’s ‘about’ page
2012
‘I would say that most, or some of the artwork does express my interests
and if you look at my 'about page' there, there is a percentage of what is
me... like what my interests are. And if you can what their interests are,
you can see what they are like…’ (Int1 CG1, 6 November 2012, R45).

Case Study 3. An ‘artwork project folder’ page by Learner CG1
2012
- Learner CG1 was keen to show the full range of his creative production and extended the sub-genre
by adding links to his videography and boarding house blog sites. However, he also did not pay
sufficient attention to detail and this resulted in multimodal disjuncture on some pages.

The e-portfolio’s significance to Learner MV1
Learner MV1 did not involve his parents, peers or others.
Learner MV1 produced it for marks from his educator.
Learner MV1 only did work in class that was marked in the lesson.
‘I don't actually have a passion for art. I never really enjoyed doing art. I
suppose I don't get enough satisfaction out of doing it, because I don't
even particularly enjoy my own work, I suppose. You know with
Mathematics, I can see that I have done something correctly or I have
done it right and it gives me a sense of achievement. Whereas art, I do
it, and I still feel it is not good. It is not nice, and I don't enjoy it. So, and
I don't really enjoy other people's work that much either…’ (Int1 MV1, 3
November 2012, R29).

Case Study 4. Learner MV1’s homepage
2010 2012
‘Ja, I think I probably went onto the website and... ja, I went onto the website to
update it and then I created the folder. And I didn't know what to call it, firstly. And
then I did not have much work to put into it. So, I just sort of closed it. (laughs) I did
not... I don't know how to work it that well. I wasn't trying, er, I didn't try that hard to
get it to work, so ja.’ (Int2 MV1, 7 November 2012, R29).

Case Study 4. Learner MV1’s ‘about’ page
2012
The paucity of e-portfolio content and customisation
reflected ‘…laziness, more than anything else. It wasn't
really me not wanting to exhibit my work, it was just,...
ja.’ (Int2 MV1, 7 November 2012, R97).

Case Study 4. An ‘artwork project folder’ page by Learner MV1
2012
Learner MV1 was also ‘… not really sure what went, what goes into categories.
Because, you know, he (Mr Rupert) wanted something like ‘Exploration of Colour’.
So, I wasn't sure about what goes into which category, and that sort of thing... I
am also not generally very good with like just management on the Internet. I am
not very good with computers.’ (Int2 MV1, 3 November 2012, R15).

Conclusion
This cross-section of case studies highlights how the curricular
compliance and coherence of e-portfolio design choices by
learners does reflect the significance that the e-portfolio holds
for them and their corresponding levels of interest and
attention. In particular, the aspects of; who was involved in the
production of an e-portfolio, its current and future audiences
and the relationship of the learner to the Visual Arts subject are
strongly reflected.

The ‘Visual Arts Showcase e-portfolio’ meta-genre has changed and
matured since 2010 to become one that assists learners by providing in-
depth guidance on each design choice. This approach resonates with the
‘constituency’ approach of Linguistics, where learners create meaning from
the “bottom up” through specific modal choices. Although this proved
successful in encouraging compliance for particular choices, it is unlikely to
help learners in appreciating how different combinations of choices can be
used to create successful examples within the ‘Visual Arts Showcase e-
portfolio’ sub-genre.
To address this, Visual Arts educators should encourage learners to think
about the cultural and social significance that the e-portfolio may have to
them; at their school, in their professional life and in hobbies, the relevant
curricular and extra-mural disciplines they want to feature, who they want to
involve in its development and their orientation to potential audiences. In
addition to supporting coherence, this should also give more freedom to
learners to develop their emergent identities and voice.
Pedagogical Review

THANKS to supporters of my research project
National Research Foundation.
University of Cape Town,
Department of Film and Media Studies.
Dr Marion Walton & Digimobs SA &
SAME research group colleagues
Cape Peninsula University of Technology,
Department of Informatics and Design.
Prof Johannes Cronje
& TERPS MA & PhD Colleagues
2013/09/07 Prepared by Travis Noakes
Video screengrabs from
John Salt of
31

Four learners responses to e portfolio meta-genre 2013

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