Intro to Electronic Portfolios in K-12

The first self-paced course of the REAL ePortfolio Academy has been completed and is posted online:
https://sites.google.com/site/k12eportfolios/
By January, there will be supplemental modules available for Implementing ePortfolios with GoogleApps Education Edition, WordPress/Edublogs, or iOS/Android Mobile Devices.

Any non-profit/educational institution is free to use this open courseware content with colleagues in a school and and teachers are encouraged to become a member of the free Google Group for open/free discussion:
http://groups.google.com/group/eportfolioacademy

I am starting the first facilitated version of this class in January 2012. If you want to be part of this first facilitated class, register on this website in December:
http://electronicportfolios.org/academy/register/intro.html
I am in the process of getting approval for professional development college credit through Seattle Pacific University for those who need it, and registration information will be available upon receipt of the facilitated course enrollment.

Rather than using a highly structured course management system, we are going to use social networking strategies to facilitate interaction in the facilitated class: email through a private Google Group and collaboration in the Edmodo or Google+ social networks.
https://sites.google.com/site/k12eportfolios/syllabus/facilitated-course-communication

Review of Commercial Tools...and my response

Trent Batson just published an article in Campus Technology entitled, "A Survey of the Electronic Portfolio Market Sector: Analysis and Surprising Trends." He discusses the variety of commercial and open source eportfolio tools; many of the commercial providers are members of AAEEBL. My response:  

You reviewed the commercial and open source market here. However, in my experience, the largest growing category of student-centered ePortfolio tools are so-called Web 2.0 tools: blogs (such as WordPress and Blogger), wikis (such as Wikispaces and Google Sites), and web site authoring tools (such as Weebly and Yola). Next month, Seattle Pacific University will receive one of four 2011 Sloan-C Effective Practice Awards for its use of Wordpress.com as bPortfolios: Blogging for Reflective Practice --http://bit.ly/pamT5d 
Worthy of special mention is the GoogleApps Education ecosystem, providing a variety of tools for authoring, storage and data transferability. When looking at portfolios across the lifespan, it is important that portfolio data not be locked into silos, but exportable into open formats. I have also spoken about how the boundaries are blurring between social networking and ePortfolio development. The new Facebook Timeline is an interesting platform for lifelong and life-wide learning, reflection, storytelling, & meaning-making. As asked in a comment on my blog, "How will those of us using ePortfolios in higher education compete with a social network that already dominates (and in some cases defines) our students' lives?" http://blog.helenbarrett.org/

Mix and Match: Creating a Blended Learning Environment with WordPress and Google Apps

Mix and Match: Creating a Blended Learning Environment with WordPress and Google Apps

This is a great post by Kim Cofino about how the teachers and students blend these two tools at the Yokohama Independent School.

SPU bPortfolio process wins award

Sloan-C will formally recognize SPU's work as an effective practice award winner for 2011 at a featured session at the 17th Annual Sloan-C International Conference in Orlando on November 11, 2011. The award acknowledges SPU for advancing learning, access, scale and student and faculty satisfaction.

The project description that won one of four 2011 Sloan-C Effective Practice Awards: bPortfolios: Blogging for Reflective Practice - Seattle Pacific University    http://bit.ly/pamT5d

It is so great that these efforts have been recognized by such a prestigious organization. It is important to gain more recognition for the benefits and outcomes of supporting student reflection and ownership of documenting their own learning, whether in teacher education, or in K-12 classrooms. SPU's Teacher Education Program should be proud of creating an environment that balances learner-centered reflection with institutional assessment. Students are also experiencing a model of electronic portfolio development that can be adapted to K-12 students using widely-available and free online tools.

I appreciate the opportunity to add my very small contribution (and my name) to the application. Since my ideas were credited as part of their initial decision to adopt a blogging platform and move from their previous commercial system, I am very proud that these efforts have been recognized.

UPDATE: Blog responses to this award:
‘ePortfolios’ are out, ‘bPortfolios’ are in (apparently) 
At Last – Recognition for Blog-based Portfolios