@Mike Yes Sarah Stewart has some great eportfolio thoughts and I remember having a lovely chat with we both agreed that all that the students really need is their own blog. I'm sure she'll tell me if I'm wrong :)

I completely agree with the points you make Martin. In my experience I have also observed that eportfolios are often made available to many academics who do not understand what they are really for or how they fit pedagogically. Some academic staff members say they 'prefer it to the LMS because it has a better HTML editor'. Others use it as a pseudo LMS and use it for content delivery and quizzing. In fact, the clearest misuse of eportfolios is as an assessment submission system which I find quite dispiriting. I have often argued that all students need is a blog. I find it interesting that many universities are rolling out Google mail and Google Apps. I wonder if they realise that the freedom offered by the ability to create, sites, blogs and wikis in Google Apps will effectively disrupt their existing eportfolio systems. I have written about this recently on my own blog. http://www.masmithers.com/2011/06/06/the-cloud-as-a-disruptor-of-educational-technologies/

Nice post. I like the analogy. I wonder if we could take it slightly further and say that we won't care how the fruit is grown or even what kind of fruit it is as long as when it is finished it is ripe, tastes nice and that we want more. Cheers Mark