Towards the Organization of a Portfolio to Support Informal Learning

Abstract

The accelerating change that the society is experiencing worldwide is exposing the weaknesses in the education system we have inherited from previous generations. Every year lots of kinds of jobs disappear and new job descriptions are being created as well. Lifelong learning is no longer a theoretical concept, but a very real need for most people. Not all learning comes from formal education processes. Students and professionals are getting actionable knowledge from all kinds of sources and activities. Thus, informal learning, alongside competence-based learning and learning outcomes is getting a lot of attention lately from human resources departments, academics and policy makers. A number of countries and organizations are busy defining guidelines for validating and evaluating informal learning experiences and formalizing its outcomes. In a globalized society where technology has brought together different cultures and educational systems, managing to keep track of a learner’s competences is a daunting task, and especially when trying to take into account the competences acquired through informal means. In this paper, we propose a framework to gather, enhance, organize, evaluate and showcase a user’s informal learning using a social approach to engage the learners to use the system by providing valuable recommendations, contacts and feedback.