AAEEBL Conference Reflections

The second AAEEBL Conference was held in Boston on July 25-28, 2011. Below are the slides from my two pre-conference workshops. The first workshop was led with Eileen Brennan from Mercy College.

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The second workshop was lead with Cynthia Lucena from the University of Puerto Rico.

Aaeebl boston2011-web2 pm

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Her story about the commercial and open source tools that they tried at UPR, followed by their current adoption of GoogleApps and Moodle to collect evaluation data, is an interesting journey through a variety of different ePortfolio tools, both commercial and open source. Their decision to adopt Google Sites reinforces the message of this workshop: adopt student-centered tools that can be maintained across the lifespan, not tools that require a lot of technical support or fees to maintain beyond graduation. 

I received some interesting feedback from one of the participants in the afternoon workshop. She told me that my presentation, which tends to take a more student-centered, personal development viewpoint, was a marked contrast with the majority of the institution-centered sessions that tended to focus on accountability and program assessment. I tend to agree; my perception is that the people who attend AAEEBL are more focused on the use of electronic portfolios in institutional contexts... perhaps that is because the membership of AAEEBL is primarily higher education institutions, not individuals. This is a real contrast with the European ePortfolio and Identity Conference (EPIC) that was held two weeks earlier in London, where there was more interest in community portfolios, individual identity development, and lifelong portfolios. The draft Proceedings of the EPIC 2011 conference are online.

Teacher Dashboard Video

This was just posted on the Manaiakalani blog:



Good overview, and a great reminder of my visit to the Pt. England school in March!

Education Gazette

http://www.edgazette.govt.nz/Articles/Article.aspx?ArticleId=8389
E-Portfolios in New Zealand:
Digital portfolios grow with the learner

Education Gazette reviews the growing use of digital portfolios by students, teachers and schools.

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ePIC Conference Keynote

Eifel2011 keynote

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Tweets from people attending the presentation:

• @shojikajita "When cloud computing meets with Semantic Web: A new design for e-portfolio systems in the social media era" http://bit.ly/rtAbps #epic11
• @isabellegonon #epic11 Helen Barrett : the future (of #eportfolio) is in the #cloud and in #mobile
• @ljanegray #epic11 Helen Barretts philosophy for e-portfolios = authenticity, choice and voice.
• @inicot #epic11 I'll certainly remember this piece of advice from Helen Barrett "Rewire, don't retire!"
• @John_Pallister the #ePortfolio challenge is to make it the 'e'asy portfolio; the 'e'ssential portfolio and then go for learner 'e'ngagement #epic11
• @isabellegonon #epic11 now I know what a #shoebox story is ! Thanks to Helen Barrett
• @kirstie_C Great presentation from helen barratt. Epf as digital document of development. it's everywhere #epic11
• @shojikajita Peter Drucker "Success in the knowledge economy comes to those who know themselves" in "Managing Oneself" #epic11
• @donpresant #epic11 Helen Barrett: family photos, videos often start building digital identity before birth...ultrasound as #eportfolio artefact
• @donpresant #epic11 Helen Barrett: 4 pillars are: self awareness, planning to learn, knowing how to learn, monitoring your learning
• @shojikajita Isaac Asimov "The day you stop learning is the day you begin decayin." #epic11
• @inicot #epic11 Helen Barrettt, "the matriarch of ePortfolios": Lifelong learning shouldn't be confused with lifelong schooling 

It was an interesting session. First there was Donald Clark, talking about his skeptical blog post about ePortfolios: 7 reasons why I don’t want my life in a shoebox. In some ways I agreed with him when he railed against the commercial ePortfolio tools and extolled the use of social software. But he made some generalized statements that did not match my experience or beliefs, especially about lifelong learners. I think this blog entry simplified a very complex process, and didn't recognize the importance of metacognition. Before my talk, Shane Sutherland talked about the design of Personal Learning Spaces, which was an interesting look at systems design.

simondseconoart.png 1987×1639 pixels

http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/diagrams/social/simondseconoart.png

This picture was shown in a presentation today. I found it and sent the link by email to my blog, but had to go back to the website to upload the image.

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ePortfolios and Identity Conference 2011

I am in London, providing two workshops at EIFEL's ePIC Conference. Here are my slides:

Eifel2011 monam web2

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Eifel2011 monpm ds

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Here are a few tweets from the sessions:

• @inicot Dr Barrett : "Upload your videos onto youtube, vimeo... They will make sure that they are still accessible in a 100 years from now" #epic11
• @shojikajita Instant screencast http://www.screenr.com/ #epic11
• @inicot At #epic11, attending Helen Barrett's workshop,'Adding voice to ePortfolios'-"Write lousy first drafts!"- @eportfolios
• @shojikajita Tools for Digital Storytelling http://electronicportfolios.org/digistory/tools.html #epic11
• @isabellegonon #epic11 #evernote pour sauvegarder ses notes, ses enregistrements audio ou video depuis son mobile et se souvenir de tout, je vais essayer !
• @isabellegonon #epic11 Helen Barrett parle de twitter comme outil reflexif pour échanger sur ce qu'on est entrain d'apprendre
• @CnamSDTICE leonardo da vinci's folio is the first portfolio in history says Helen Barnett in #epic11 electronic portfolios since 1991 only !
• @inicot @batier Merci Christophe ! On diffuse à l'interne. A Londres pour la conference ePortfolio #epic11 can't wait i meet Helen barrett;-)

It is nice to reconnect with colleagues in the ePortfolio field. Besides a wide representation from across Europe, there is a large group from Singapore. I will be doing a short keynote in two days.

Audio and Video Diaries

Thanks to a Twitter post, I found this article in The Guardian:
Next generation learning: the gift of sound and vision
"David Stinson has pioneered the use of video and audio diaries to improve students' learning." Excerpts from the article:

"By using video and audio diaries and much more besides, the kids can reflect on trials and tribulations they've encountered during the learning process..."

"The real benefit of using e-portfolios is that every student, regardless of ability, can adapt to the dynamic nature of recording their thoughts and emotions in video and audio, removing some of the anxiety involved in pen and paper communication. For students with special needs this can be especially constructive, as the unique nature of expression in e-portfolios takes away the need to endlessly compare to their classmates."

I am going to start using the term online diary instead of blog or reflective journal for the type of working portfolio that involves documenting the learning process over time. The word diary has a more universal meaning, regardless of media. This article demonstrates the powerful impact of reflection on learning, even though the word reflect is used only once. Now, with mobile technologies, it is much easier for learners to capture audio and video reflections. We know that students have figured out how to use the cameras on their mobile phones... for good or for ill; here is an opportunity to teach about appropriate uses of these tools (digital citizenship) while using a tool that is intrinsically motivating and always in most students' pockets.

We need to document strategies to capture these multimedia diary entries in easy-to-use websites that can be overseen by teachers when used in K-12 schools. I started with my mPortfolios Google site, and my workshop at ISTE last week. I have two upcoming workshops on using Web 2.0 tools (at EIFEL in London on July 11, and at AAEEBL in Boston on July 25). Once those workshops are over, I will focus on how to incorporate these ideas into the online courses to be offered by the new ePortfolio Academy for K-12 teachers.