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E-Portfolio is an unusual learning activity and assessment technique that is consistent with constructivism. It allows learners to show case their digital identity, academic achievements, and knowledge and skills throughout their learning experience (Meyer, 2016, November 16 ). Learners can use inexpensive or free platforms that can function as e-portfolios such as Mahara, Wix, Weebly, WordPress and Google Sites  (Meyer, 2016, November 16).
The cyclic process of developing an e-portfolio has four steps that intersect with the principles of the constructivist approach. irst, the learners should acquire new knowledge i.e. learning. Second, they are required to outline what they want to place in to their portfolios. Third, they insert the artifacts that best illustrates their work accomplishments, for instance in programming courses it can be their school projects. Last, they have to reflect and communicate a critique on their artifacts. The cycle continues with each new insertion with more experience of previous cycles (Roth, Bovey, Zea, Hediger, Keller & Berg, n.d.).

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I would love to see sequential projects (as are present in some courses here in MET) where the initial project leads to the next and culminates the student's learning in the final assignment. This allows the student to be responsible for their own learning and to truly take to heart the feedback of the instructor as they incorporate their insight into the new learning for the next assignment.

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Last spring our students and faculty presented the first ever conference on VR presented entirely in VR, called Merging Realities. We used a VR conferencing tool called Rumii to bring our world-wide audience and presenters together. I think this has some excellent ties to constructivism as you can now have all students together in the same room even if they are scattered around the globe. No plane tickets. Just transported there through a headset. If the person is in a high immersion rig (headset and hand controls), you can see their head and hand movements, allowing for some of that non-verbal communication to come through as well. I really am excited to see the possibilities around this technology! This conference is growing and will be offered again in April 2019 so be sure to check back if you are interested in experiencing this.

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One of the challenges I find with e-learning in a corporate environment is that most professionals make nice looking e-learning with great content and interesting and technically complex interactions, but more often than not we forget to ask the question "is this engaging for the learner?". Learners want to discuss and interact with each other, but it is way easier to facilitate online learning that is completely self-directed. The social or person to person connection is needed.

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When speaking to students taking online courses, they have mentioned that they took an online course because they thought it would be easier. It seems that students fall behind further than they would if they were learning in a classroom. Maybe having regular checks ins (formatively assessed) would be able to help with their academic performance.

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Learners are encouraged to bring to the group their disparate talents, knowledge and strengths at the beginning of a course and then have opportunities to work in small groups throughout the course on small collaborative activities. In this way the learners would begin to form stronger bonds and thus develop into communities of practice. Only forming into groups for large "high risk" activities of high marks doesn't necessarily encourage the formation of networks necessary for the development of community of practice.

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Finding a balance between asynchronous and synchronous communication.

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In a perfect world...real-time and continual feedback would help facilitate a more interactive environment. I know that due to time variance and restrictions this is not yet possible, however, perhaps there is a technological solution for this problem. Competition seems to be one application for motivation and a more universal design for learning - particularly how your understanding is presented is of course optimal as choice is a motivator and this is a universal design for learning that allows for learner strengths and interests to be utilized.

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I sometimes wonder that if learning is a social process, whether a hybrid, online and classroom setting would be best for learning.  This could possibly help with some of the more challenging aspects of collaboration (scheduling a time to meet online, not reading body language when in an online  discussion, and working on projects that are anything other than collaborating on websites or presentations)

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