e-Portfolios and Learning

e-Portfolios and habits of work - which do you think viewers prefer?

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:41:19 -0500

Earlier in this blog and I believe somewhere on the portfolio.psu.edu website we asked the questions, "Can a blog be an e-portfolio?" or "Can you just call a website an e-portfolio?" If you had to draw a line between these different things, how would you go about doing this?

It has to do in part with purpose. This is the answer that I typically would have given. But how "real-world" realistic is this?

Don't get me wrong - I think a presentation portfolio - a snapshot in time of what you have accomplished is a wonderful thing, i.e., the ability to add the link, "Oh, by the way here is a link to my e-portfolio." and a new window opens into your world...

But then again, this is my point. What is your world? How have you captured this? To what degree is your eportfolio a representation and how much of it is the actual activity that is really going on right now!

How many of us work with computers and never connect to the web. What would this say about you and your habits of work? There are so many opportunities and examples of how we store, share and interact on the web these days, why can't we use this as the real thing instead of a representation of this.

I'm thinking, why not? How more authentic can you get?

Protected Blogging now available...

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:06:27 -0500

For those Penn State faculty, students and staff that have been waiting for a tool that would allow them to keep a protected online journal, your wait is over.

(Notice I used the word protected and not private - understand that if you really want something to remain private, the last place that you want it is on the internet!)

This caveat aside, there certainly exist instructional instances where the contents of a journal needs only to be read by the author, their mentor and perhaps a selected few others. If this is the case, then selecting the protected option makes sense.

Essentially, instead of writing your website/blog files to the 'www' directory in your PASS space selecting the protected option writes these files to your 'www_protected' directory within your PASS. In this way you can use the wizard to select which Penn State userids have access to view your files in this space. The Penn State blog tool provides connections directly to this ability.

PASS allocation expands to 10 GB!

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:50:42 -0500

The first brochure that we published as a part of the Penn State e-Portfolio Initiative stated that the allocation in PASS for faculty, students and staff was 50 MB. Last week ITS expanded this allocation to 10 GB! This is a considerable increase over a short period of time and exemplifies the Penn State's commitment to the computing and web publishing infrastructure as a part of the mission of the university.

Ample storage allocation and improved tools. What effect will this have on teaching and learning across Penn State's campuses?

The Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL)

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:58:34 -0500

First there was EPAC (supported through EDUCAUSE), AAHE took a turn but went defunct, now we have AAEEBL

The professional association for the world ePortfolio community.

I like the fact that this group:

has learning at its core
is trying to reach out to vendors to in mutual support

Visit their new web site at: http://aaeebl.wetpaint.com/

Use tags to organize and share evidence of learning outcomes?

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:49:28 -0500

One of the things about Web 2.0 content is that it gets us to begin thinking about content in more creative and less static ways. Just because something is published to a web page does not mean that it has to stay there...

Let's think about how this could be useful...

We know that some web pages contain content originally published someplace else. This content reports to this page, sometimes because a tag was used to indicate this relationship.

What if we could put this functionality into the hands of every user?

What if we created one page, a master page that serves as the container looking for certain tags.

Now, we can have users create a blog entries that include this tag. These blogs entries would report not only in their blog listing along with all their other blog entries, but more importantly report to the master page as well.

Let's make the master page focus on the learning outcomes for a course or even a program. Let's use tags that are associated with learning outcomes. Will this help use organize what we do and share this more efficiently?

Web 2.0 approach towards learning - what's the value-added?

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:29:36 -0500

At the International Coalition of Electronic Portfolio meetings in late February conversation centered around Web 2.0 types of tools - i.e., web tools that go beyond simple publication and encourage participation. I would certainly consider the Blogs@PennState tool as belong to this category.

What roles do these new web apps play in educational arenas and in particular as they relate to electronic portfolios? Helen Barrett is always reminding us to look back to our purpose.

I shared this diagram with participants. This is my own perspective on this question and includes a lot of what I learned from my conversation in these meetings.

Purpose? ... Would fostering the development of an active and intelligent citizenry (life-long learning) be a reasonable end goal? This would necessarily involve one's looking back and thinking about what happens in life and why (reflective practice), which stems from a sense of legitimate agency (self-authorship). Ok, but how do we get there...

Given this end goal, in working with undergraduates in a variety of curricular and co-curricular experiences does higher education provide opportunities for students to learn and make connections between theory and practice? Yes, and in many cases we do this very well. But what e-portfolios has brought to my attention anew is the lack of experience and confidence that these pre-professionals bring to their newly discovered academic or professional contexts. How do students move from pre-professional to professional?

How do these individuals become accepted members in these new networks? Can we use the participatory features of new web apps to provide students with a mode of personal expression that instills a sense of identity, but more importantly within this context, access to a community that can help validate their contribution? Are these strategies that will assist students in gaining ownership in what they have to contribute - better yet - membership in their chosen field of professional endeavor?

How many e-Portfolio tools can you name?

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:40:11 -0500

In a recent EPAC chat a page in the EPAC wiki was shared that had a list of the e-Portfolio tools that are in use across the world.

How many can you name? While I recognize many of these I was still surprised by how many ways technology has been engineered to provide solutions in this space.

A keynote at a recent conference mentioned that on his campus there were 6 different e-portfolio tools deployed and that at the University of British Columbia there are 13 different solutions.

I guess this would make you think about what purposes they support. Kind of reminds me of one of the closing lines in the children's story book Stellaluna, "How can we be so different and yet be so much alike?"

What, ... oh yes ... here is the list.

How do you embed video in your Blog/Website?

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 08:42:04 -0500

I have been asked by a number of individuals how to embed video here. So, here are a couple of methods.

FIRST - you must have captured video and made it available in a web playable format. For instance, web browsers will most likely automatically recognize movie files with the extensions .mov (Quicktime) or .wmv (Windows Media Player) and use the proper player. But it depends on how the user has configured their browser.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

EASIEST OPTION: Link to the movie file

Use the 'Insert File' option in your Moveable Type Dashboard editor to upload and insert the file into your page or blog entry.

Example: Introduction to e-Portfolios: A Short Movie welcome.mov (1MB)

Notice that I let the user know how large this file is!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

EMBED OPTION: Here you want the player to show up right in your web page or blog entry. If this is the case then you need to use the following code. Copy and paste this into the source code ( icon in your Moveable Type editor) - you will have to decipher the HTML code you find there and look for a good place to place this code.

Where:

src is the name of the movie file.
height and width correspond to the dimensions of the movie.
(Add 16 pixels to height for a movie controller.) A controller can be true - present, or
false - absent
autoplay set to true lets the movie begin playing without user intervention
if so saved.
type helps browsers recognize QuickTime when the page is opened locally, not
from a web server.

Example: Introduction to e-Portfolios: A Short Movie

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

YouTube OPTION: This option is the best of both worlds it seems, you share your video on your site, but the video is being stored elsewhere!

First, create an account at YouTube, then upload your video there. You have up to 10 minutes or 10 MB for each video I believe - check the fine print - but once your video is processed and available, copy the embed code (upper right of the YouTube page) and paste this in the source code of your Moveable Type web page or blog entry, again deciphering the HTML to figure out where a good place for this to go might be.

Example: Introduction to e-Portfolios: A Short Movie

Need help with any of these options? Check with the Digital Commons at your Penn State campus location.

From Cradle to Grave - e-Portfolios for ALL Pennsylvanians!!

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:46:11 -0500

Just announced out of the Pennsylvania Department of Labor, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has contracted with eFolio to provide for every resident of Pennsylvania the ability to create and store an electronic portfolio! This is the same system that the state of Minnesota has been using for quite some time now so it looks like its track record has been positive!

The use of this system is free of charge for all residents of Pennsylvania and students enrolled at Pennsylvania educational institutions - free of charge! 50 MB storage limit and a fairly sophisticated web application allows users the means to include a range of different information types about themselves and a fair degree of personalization of a some standard templates.

Check it out at: http://www.efoliopa.com/

The best thing is that this system reaches all corners of the state and tells us that this phenomenon of individuals using the internet to publish information about themselves as a value-added means of telling their own story is not going away anytime soon!

Get started on your e-portfolio today Pennsylvania!

All things e-Portfolio - EPAC

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:33:13 -0500

EPAC stands for Electronic Portfolio Action and Communication. This organization has had various sponsors such as the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative/Educause Learning Initiative and the American Association for Higher Education and over the years its visibility has varied. For those that have followed EPAC throughout this time, it has served as a clearinghouse of resources and information about e-portfolios and professional opportunities related to these.

It is open to all and free to join. Of late EPAC's presence on the web has taken the form of the EPAC wiki.

Want to find a conference with tracks associated with e-portfolios, others interested in e-portfolios, teaching and learning or opportunties to submit scholarly works on topics related to e-portfolios, this is the place.

What is a Curriculum Map?

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:57:10 -0500

In conversations with faculty and staff the term 'curriculum map' has been coming up lately. I thought it would be handy to have a reference that I could point that helps to clarify what I am thinking about when it comes to mapping a curriculum.

Curriculum maps lay out courses and/or experiences on one hand and the program learning outcomes or accreditation standards on the other (below). The X's represent key assessments which will represent student achievement of an outcome. So, for instance, in 401 there are two key assessment opportunities where students can demonstrate achievement of outcomes A and C.

This key assessment may be a paper, exam, project or other example of student work. This agreed assignment between the key assessment and the course or experiences in which this may take place is essential. The map lays out how each course or experience contributes to the overall program of study. This is also the information that is used by an assessment system to not only store but track where this evidence of learning is coming from and which outcome or standard it supports.

NCEPR Energy + Identification of Local Needs = Opportunities for Action

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 08:25:34 -0500

Over the years Penn State's involvement in the coalition has provided us with opportunities for moving thinking into action. Do we use our discussion and notes about integrative learning? Here is an example of where we are now:

"Integrative learners do not separate learning from life..."

The integrated learning experience presupposes purpose, involves reflection and personal connection, while at the same time implies an understanding of what the important attributes, values, understandings that are to be learned. From the beginning of our involvement NCEPR our goal at Penn State has been has been to find out whether a structured e-portfolio system, designed to communicate high expectations and intended learning outcomes could have an impact on student engagement and learning.

In other words, how do we share a 'big picture' of learning and then place our students within this picture such that this position serves as a scaffold for finding new understandings, promoting meaning making that leads to self-authorship, concepts that Kegan and Baxter-Magolda advocate. We know we need to invite prior experience to play an important part in shaping this experience but also realize that students bring messy pictures into this arena. The challenge lies in the gap between where students are and where our big picture implies they should be.

What is the developmental pattern for how students can be brought through this integrative process? A simple advanced organizer is not enough. How do we infuse structure while at the same time allow for a flexibility that cultivates students' becoming 'architects of their own education'?

We've moved through a variety of unsatisfactory solutions and frustration surrounding technology as 'a moving target' is getting old, but we are learning. Nonetheless, we are excited about our most recent deployment, MovableType4, to support Blogging as e-Portfolios. We don't think of this as a new service because of how nicely it integrates into the technology infrastructure already in place. Further, it has dramatically reduced any learning curve associated with online publishing, students are comfortable with its capabilities and convenience. But more importantly it allows us to 1) include templates that state program learning outcomes, 2) use tags to associate artifacts with these outcomes, 3) use tags to provide intellectual access to content previously not possible, and 4) aggregate and 'pack up' specific program outcome related evidence for assessment or evaluation purposes.

We are hopeful that this most recent exploration into the use of the MovableType blogging platform will help us in delivering the three curricula we have been talking about: the delivered (teachers' goals for students), the experienced (students' perceptions of the learning experience) and the lived (personalization of how this is experienced in life). The unobtrusiveness of this solution is perhaps it greatest feature because looking back at earlier solutions we've thought that perhaps the more we get out of the way, the better we'll serve our students.

As Kathleen Yancey noted at the Waterloo meetings, "Biggest take-way: be very intentional with communication."

Program evaluation ... Can e-portfolios help us think about think about what this might look like?

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:00:10 -0500

e-Portfolios are recognized as great tool for providing evidence of student learning. For this reason, e-portfolios can also be used to help us think about program evaluation. Even if your students are not currently involved in creating e-portfolios, from a program perspective, a telling question would still be to ask, "If it were possible to see an exemplary portfolio developed by a good student in your program, what would you see in it? What evidence would it point to? What experiences would be documented? Successively over time, what are your students able to demonstrate they can 'take away' from your program? For example, what evidence of learning will a student have collected after their first year? What skills should they be able to demonstrate? Are there personal attributes they should come to value? What does the e-portfolio contain after their second year? Their third year in your program? After their capstone experience? The answer here is not about the courses students take. In most cases, we have a real good idea of what these courses are. Instead the answers programs should provide need to be articulated in terms of evidence and experience.

Take it a step farther and put this into play in the context of reviewing your program's curriculum. Now, with this list of evidence and these experiences in mind, ... Where are the opportunities for students to develop these desired skills, develop attributes and get involved in valued experiences? Mapping out where these opportunities can and should take place is an important next step. This helps to make expectations real where mystery might exist as well as informs discussions of curricular integrity. In the long run, it is exciting to see what students produce and how this development maps across their entire program experience.

e-Portfolios, even if you aren't using them, they can help to focus our thinking about tangible student achievement.

The power of the Tag Cloud ...

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:17:14 -0500

When you look at a web site what indicators do you use to help you determine what kind of information is located on the site?

Right off the bat my eyes gravitate to navigational links. The words these links use provide me with an organizational structure as to what kinds of information a site contains and a means to get there. But hierarchical structures or site maps only go so far. They may tell me the category but not necessarily the perspective or intellectual thread. The heading my be 'Politics' but of what party or conviction?

When users take advantage of tagging what they write about in doing so they provide their readers with a new window into what their site contains. Tags describe the content or multiple instances of content from a very different perspective, one that was intrinsically built by the writer.

If my glancing survey of the navigational links tells me if I am in the right spot, does my quick review of the tags used will give me an indication how long I might stay?

Web expression and learning: Is it about Publishing or Participation?

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:04:04 -0500

Now that I have had a chance to play around in the Moveable Type environment for a while I am beginning to get glimpses of how this tool has the potential to change what we have been able to support in terms of online publishing behaviors here at Penn State.

For quite some time now Penn State faculty, students and staff have been able to apply for the web publishing option and then use this to publish information in their personal.psu web space. This has been wonderful and we can point to fantastic examples, (more piling in all the time), of how students have taken advantage of this in powerful ways to help leverage their collegiate evidence, experiences and newly formed values in order to support their own personal development.

What has been possible?

Penn State's web publishing options have been product oriented and the examples that we see are those that are primarily the finished product.

How has this changed?

1) Most obvious is the lack of required software. Anyone with a browser can publish products - easily.

2) Dated entries - blogs - allow for and encourage small, regular contributions to personal products.

3) Commenting on the work of others initiates and sustains conversation around these products.

What we can promote is more than publishing - we should promote participation.

We did a study a few years back asking students that were required to learn web publishing using a web editor if they valued these skills and how much they used them after the class was over, i.e., did these skills persist? Results showed that students did indeed value the skills but they did not update their web space as often as we had thought.

Discussion: Why? Perhaps it was not that easy. Perhaps they thought of those documents as static, one-time renditions, or 'assignments'. Enter Moveable Type >> The learning curve is demolished? Getting online and updating and adding to what is already there is not the effort it was before? Online materials as a result are more dynamic, changing and interesting to use as well as read?

Hmmm... smells like learning to me!