Members of the Early Childhood Education teaching team in the School of Education at Wintec, Hamilton, New Zealand, undertook a project to adapt current paper-based learning and assessment tasks for a Teaching Practicum module, to an ePortfolio based system.

The main reasons for this change were to combat the limits the paper-based system was imposing on the teaching, learning and communication within the module.

Staff were generally happy with the basis and fundamentals of the original tasks but realised there were many missed opportunities and deviations from the core principles caused by years of responding to the limits imposed by the paper-based version.

A working group was commissioned to plan how the tasks could be adapted and augmented using an ePortfolio system, hopefully strengthening the focus on and transparency of the module’s core principles and, at the same time, improving communication between student, lecturer and mentor.

The suggested changes were implemented and a selection of students is currently using the new system. Research projects were undertaken to gage the ways students interact with the system, to judge the effectiveness of the training and to judge influences on students’ self-efficacy while using the system.

The implications for future practice as a result of this project and research conducted around it include:
- Provides a model for developing ePortfolio based teaching/assessment based practices.
- Provides a model of student/lecturer/industry communication using an ePortfolio system.
- Informs us of how students perceive a separate ePortfolio system and the implications of these perceptions.
- Informs us of the influences of training on student use of such a system.
- Informs us of industry perceptions and engagement with such a system.

This Case Study presents some of the factors surrounding:
- Adapting the tasks to the online environment.
- Implementing the ePortfolio system with teachers and students.
- Research results and their implications.