ePortfolio Hub from Ireland

I just received notice today about a new website in Ireland, which is part of a national program in ePortfolio development in that country.  According to their announcement:

As part of a National-Forum funded project, Dublin Institute of Technology, Institute of Technology Tallaght, Institute of Technology Blanchardstown and Hibernia College are delighted to launch the ePortfolio Hub website, which offers a one-stop-shop for anyone interested in incorporating ePortfolios into their teaching or creating their own ePortfolio, including how-tos, templates, guides, presentations, videos and research findings. 

I participated in a conference last March in Dublin, and I recognize a lot of ideas from my keynote address, which I organized around these three questions:

 

The website contains a lot of videos and resources to either create a personal portfolio, or incorporate an ePortfolio into an academic program. 

The largest section of the website focuses on the How of creating ePortfolios, focusing on four steps (for individuals) or three steps (for programs):

 

The Plan section has great resources that provide checklists and resources that are similar to the Planning resource that I have incorporated into my online course. The Reflect section has an insightful video on Reflective Writing, and a very interesting page on Reflective Practice using Barbara Bassot’s ‘Metaphorical Mirrors’. The Present section includes videos on developing digital identity. The Assess section (for programs) includes a variety of sample rubrics for evaluating ePortfolios. There are also sample portfolios, samples of reflective writing, description of the variety of online tools available, and video tutorials for developing an ePortfolio using WordPress.

Overall, this is a great resource for higher education, with a lot of local videos from students and faculty to support the elements of ePortfolio development. I am impressed and proud to have been a small part of the process, beginning with the conference last March.

ePortfolios in Ireland - Day 2 workshop

On the second day of the ePortfolios in Ireland conference, I led a workshop on Reflection as part of the theme for the second day, Process.

Dublin2016 reflection from Helen Barrett

ePortfolios in Ireland -Day 1 Keynote

 I am in Dublin, Ireland, providing the keynote address for a national conference sponsored by the Dublin Institute of Technology. Here are my slides.

Dublin2016 balancing from Helen Barrett

Fresno State University Keynote & Session

I had the privilege to provide the keynote address at a faculty development workshop at Fresno State University on August 20:

Fresno2015 balancing from Helen Barrett

My colleague and fellow ADE Otto Benavides, took this photo where I am showing the Google Site that I set up for the workshop:

 After the keynote address, I provided one of my favorite presentations on digital storytelling and reflection (Know Thyself):

Fresno2015 reflection from Helen Barrett

I really enjoyed the opportunity to meet new and old friends, and to continue to share my knowledge and passions for ePortfolios, reflection, and digital storytelling.

Resurrecting this blog

For the last two-and-a-half years, I have been ignoring this blog. The reasons were both personal and professional. My elderly mother came to live with me in 2012, and my attention was diverted to more retirement activities; I bought a Kindle, then a Kindle Fire HD, activated my Audible account and have accumulated some wonderful ebooks and audio books! My professional travel has also been greatly reduced (I am no longer MVP on Alaska Airlines -- sniff!). But today is my birthday; I received many wishes on my Facebook page, and I received a very interesting email from a K-12 school district, which made me realize that there is still interest in my ePortfolio expertise.  So I decided to get caught up with posting past presentations and other communications that I thought worthy of sharing.

While I won't post as often as in the past, I think it is time to pay more attention to my blog. I expect to post more interesting weblinks that I have just been uploading to my delicious account. Next week I will leave for a week working with Waikato University in New Zealand. After the webinar that I participated in through the Center for Digital Storytelling, I became energized by using the WeVideo tool. So, I am preparing a proposal to work with a local school on digital storytelling with teachers and high school students using WeVideo, I hope! It is time to rewire rather than totally retire!

Digital Storytelling with WeVideo

I just finished a webinar series sponsored by the Center for Digital Storytelling on creating digital stories with WeVideo. I went through the process and learned to use the tool, and I am VERY IMPRESSED with this online video editing tool. It reminds me of the version of iMovie that I loved (and Apple ruined--iMovie6).

This website provides a concise description of creating a digital story with still images:
Create a photo story with WeVideo

Here are some tutorials on the WeVideo site: 
Personal Narrative & Digital Storytelling with WeVideo [Part 1]
Personal Narrative & Digital Storytelling with WeVideo [Part 2]
Personal Narrative & Digital Storytelling with WeVideo [Part 3]
WeVideo Academy on YouTube (tutorial videos)

I created a very personal family story using WeVideo, so I will not post it here in my professional blog. However, I will work on another story that I will be able to post. I also hope to work with students and educators on creating digital stories for deep learning.

ISTE 2014 Poster Session

Here is the page I developed for my poster session at ISTE 2014:
http://electronicportfolios.org/posters/index.html

Using Mobile Devices to Support Reflection in ePortfolios.

It was a great opportunity to share my resources on mPortfolios and to meet other educators.

My Philosophy of ePortfolio Development

As I work with others on the implementation of ePortfolio Development, I need to articulate my own philosophy. My doctorate is in Human Development (not computer science), so my philosophy comes from the perspective of using e-portfolios in the context of learning and individual lifelong development. Some people see ePortfolios through the lens of ICT and the underlying technologies; I see ePortfolios through the lens of human development potential in an era of social media. 

I believe:

• ePortfolio development activities can be found across the lifespan
• ePortfolio development can be an important element of a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) and Network (PLN)
• ePortfolio development and social networking have many similarities
• ePortfolio development is a balance between process and product 
• ePortfolios can be created for many different purposes 
• ePortfolios can be created with many different tools
• ePortfolio development should be integrated into everyday activities
• ePortfolio development supports a process of Reflection and Metacognition that is essential to lifelong learning

I elaborated in a longer GoogleDoc Document with supporting links to some of my work.

Supporting Reflection in ePortfolios

I was up early this morning for a webinar with a group of teachers participating in a research project in a school district in Ontario, Canada (without cameras at 6:30 AM!). I spent some time last weekend updating my presentation and several websites to focus less on specific tools and more on a generic process.

http://electronicportfolios.org/eportfolios/

http://electronicportfolios.org/eportfolios/reflection.html

This presentation draws on some of my previous slides, but is more focused on a generic process rather than using Google Apps, mobile devices, etc. I also focused their independent study on my Reflection for Learning Google Site.

Generic e portfolios  

View more PowerPoint from Helen Barrett

Culture and ePortfolios

How does culture impact on ePortfolio development? I have met with groups that question whether the focus on reflection in ePortfolios is a northern European/Australian/NewZealand/American form of self-disclosure that is very uncomfortable in other cultures, such as southern European, Asian, etc. Over ten years ago, when I was in Singapore, we talked about the difficulty many in Asian cultures have with public disclosure and reflection. (I wonder, has the emergence of social networking changed that attitude?)

When I was presenting at a university in the Midwest last fall, an anthropology professor pointed out the American/Euro-centric nature of my discussion of reflection. Last week, I worked with the Languages faculty at my former university, where we discussed the difficulties of students from some cultures to focus on self rather than groups (family, community) or to point out their own strengths and achievements. I am preparing for a possible trip to Vietnam, where I will be doing workshops on ePortfolios in English Language Learning.  I have a lot to learn about the impact of a person's culture on the implementation of the portfolio process. Are there cultural implications of reflection in ePortfolios that I need to be sensitive to, similar to the developmental dimensions?

I was interested in Darren Cambridge's tweet last weekend from the AAC&U ePortfolio meeting: "[the speaker] makes the classic mistake of thinking an eportfolio is a collection not a synthesis." In my previous blog post, I added some references to Bloom's Taxonomy within the context of ePortfolio development. In the revised taxonomy, where the concepts changed from nouns to verbs, the authors removed synthesis but added create. I added these components to a diagram that I am using to illustrate the development of ePortfolios with 1-to-1 mobile devices, but included both synthesize and create.

http://educationaltech-med.blogspot.com/2011/09/blooms-taxonomy-21st-century-version.html

Supporting Reflection with Mobile Devices

I am doing a Poster Session at ISTE 2012 in San Diego entitled,  mPortfolios: Supporting reflection in ePortfolios with mobile devices. Here is the first draft of the document that I will eventually print out in poster size.  I think I will also try to create a Prezi document based on this diagram. Each of the icons can become links to the specific app website. A lot of this information is posted online in my mPortfolios Google Site.

The Reflection Cycle, which I posted earlier, is based on a theory of Self-Regulated Learning that was the underlying theory of the ePearl ePortfolio system developed at Concordia University. I have adapted the process to include suggestions for mobile apps with supporting websites, or those that include the ability to upload artifacts to Dropbox, GoogleDocs, YouTube, etc. I also identified the multiple portfolio processes that are identified in the JISC publication Effective Practices with ePortfolios: Capturing & storing evidence, Reflecting, Giving & receiving feedback, Planning & setting goals, Collaborating, Presenting to an audience. I also added indications of how the strategies fit within the revised Bloom's Taxonomy. I have placed the Evernote app under all three stages because of the impressive implementation by the teachers and students at Trillium Charter School in Portland. The blog maintained by Rob VanNood is a very insightful documentation of their implementation of Evernote within the self-regulated learning process.

I would love feedback on the diagram, including more suggestions for useful apps to include. A full size version is posted on my website, as well as a PDF version.

ISTE 2012 Sessions Scheduled

Today, I received notice of approval of these sessions for the 2012 ISTE Conference in San Diego:

• Create Interactive ePortfolios using GoogleApps: Docs, Picasaweb, Blogger, Sites [Workshop : Hands-on] Scheduled: Saturday, 6/23/2012,  8:30am–3:30pm PDT.
  GoogleApps provides a comprehensive ePortfolio system: Store artifacts in GoogleDocs/Picasaweb; maintain reflective journals using Blogger; create showcase/assessment/presentation portfolios with GoogleSites; manage domain with Teacher Dashboard.
• Student-Centered Interactive ePortfolios with GoogleApps [Concurrent Session : Lecture] Scheduled: Monday, 6/25/2012,  12:45pm–1:45pm PDT.
  Create a comprehensive student-centered system supporting all three levels of ePortfolio development: Create/collaborate/store/share artifacts in GoogleDocs; Reflection/Feedback using blogging; Presentation Websites with GoogleSites.
• mPortfolios: Supporting reflection in ePortfolios with mobile devices [Learning Station Session : Poster] Scheduled: Tuesday, 6/26/2012,  10:00am–12:00pm PDT.
  Mobile devices (iOS, Chrome or Android) can support reflection through regular planning & goal-setting, capturing the learning moment, and metacognition (reflecting on change over time).

I've never done a poster session before, so it will be a challenge to present a complex topic like reflection and mobile devices in this format. But my presentation on GoogleApps is a reprise of my 2011 presentation that I thought was on of my best! The full-day hands-on workshop will give me an opportunity to provide an overview on my online Introduction to K-12 ePortfolios class with GoogleApps supplement. I'm pleased!

Resources on Reflection

I recently found the following resources on reflection in the learning process:

• Where is reflection in the learning process? - an excellent blog post by my friend, Jackie Gerstein
• Empowering Students Through Reflection and Feedback - part of a very comprehensive wiki on student engagement developed by Leslie Grahn, World Language Resource Teacher, Howard County Public Schools. I especially like:
• Reflective Thinking from the Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
• The Reflective Student from ETE, Classroom of the Future, Wheeling Jesuit University
• Creating a Culture of Student Reflection: Self-Assessment Yields Positive Results from Edutopia
• Getting into the Habit of Reflection by Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick in Ed Leadership, April 2000
• Peer and Self Assessment from The National Capital Language Resource Center (includes discussion of the elements of self-assessment: Goal setting, Guided practice with assessment tools, Portfolios)
• Student Engagement and Student Self-assessment: The REAL Framework
  by Geoff Munns and Helen Woodward, University of Western Sydney (includes excellent guides for reflection)
• A Taxonomy of Reflection: Critical Thinking For Students, Teachers, and Principals by Peter Pappas (based on Bloom's Taxonomy, revised)
• How to Foster Student Feedback (from Edutopia)
• Feedback That Fits by Susan M. Brookhart in Ed Leadership, December 2007/January 2008
• Feed Up, Back, Forward by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey in Ed Leadership, November 2009

There are other great resources on this wiki, worth a few hours of exploration.

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.

REAL E-Portfolio Academy for K-12 Teachers

I found a name and developed a logo for my latest project. Every portfolio needs an adjective to describe its purpose.  REAL stands for Reflection, Engagement, and Assessment for Learning.

I blogged this title in 2005, and haven't had an opportunity to put it into practice until now. So, when I introduce a series on online courses this summer, they will be under the umbrella on an online academy -- more like a learning community, although there will be more structure than the average online community of practice.

I have received over 129 responses to my online form, so far. I am surprised with the number of inquiries from outside the U.S. To date, 60% of the respondents have already set up a GoogleApps for Education account, and 75% indicated interest in students using mobile devices to support e-portfolio development! Tomorrow I am visiting a school where 3rd-5th graders are using a few mobile devices and Evernote to capture their learning and share with their parents. Stay tuned!

A Device for Every Learner!

On Wednesday, Google announced Chromebook, a laptop computer that will be available to order on June 15, 2011; Price: $28-$33/month for businesses, $20-$23/month for education. I think the price is a little high for education, when looking at a device for every child, but very affordable for mobile labs or for individual families for a 3-year lease that includes all upgrades, maintenance, hardware refresh, and 100 MB 3G access per month. ReadWriteWeb provided an interesting cost analysis of the Chromebook in education. Combine the use of the Chromebook hardware with all of the Google Apps, and the barriers to e-portfolios are coming down. I wonder if my next purchase is a Chromebook ($20x36 months = $720) or one of the Android tablets coming out this summer (for around $500)?

But there are other options for giving each student internet access 24/7, at school and home. In addition to 1:1 laptop programs, there are other mobile devices that are being used in schools. For example, Canby (OR) and Escondido (CA) School Districts provide iPod/iPod Touch devices and/or iPads for student learning.  More schools are starting to explore student owned devices; according to eSchool News, 'Bring Your Own Device' is Catching on in schools.

Ed-tech access is an issue, but students' personal devices are an attractive option to a growing number of districts.

I am doing e-portfolio research this year on the variety of student-owned-or-loaned mobile devices that increase access to creative tools and the web, both from home and school. In addition to "capturing the moment" in image, video, audio and text formats, creating a digital story can be a powerful way to add reflection to a portfolio. The tools are becoming very creative and inexpensive on an iOS device (per my own experience last Christmas break with my iPod Touch); last weekend, the Center of Digital Storytelling sponsored the Blink Mobile Media Challenge:

The idea is to choose a moment to capture images/events, and then write and record a narration, and edit the movie on your mobile device.

Editing Google Apps from iOS devices is still not as easy as with Google's own ChromeOS, but there are many apps that can be used to support various components of e-portfolio development. I will be exploring specific iOS apps for supporting certain aspects of e-portfolio development at a preconference workshop at this summer's ISTE Conference. Maybe by the end of June, there will be more information about  emerging Google Chrome and Android devices.

---

Tweets from @dorothyjburt in NZ:
- We are trialling 6 - without the Telco plan - using our own wifi. Lotsa fun
- Weekend story from an @ptengland 6yr old "In the weekend I went to the park and played on the Firefox" Thx SallyV for sharing :)

Using SMS in the e-portfolio process?

I am following an EPortfolio Conversations Google Group, where a question was raised about collecting evidence of informal learning rather than formal education. One response: "Start with SMS [on mobile phones] - its the morse code of the present generation...and it works." Here is my response:

Being a Baby Boomer, and only learning about SMS from my kids and grandkids, I need to learn more about how we can use SMS in ePortfolio development. I am doing a workshop at ISTE in Philadelphia in June entitled, "Hands-on mPortfolio Development with iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad)." In all cases, there is a Web 2.0 website where we will post the artifacts and reflections "in real time".

Although smart phone ownership (Android, iOS) is growing, these tools are not widely owned by teenagers. Where does a student store SMS messages online? I know my teenage granddaughter updates her Facebook page with her "feature phone" but that is not an option for most schools. I am looking for the practical applications, because I am getting inquiries from educators in the developing world, where the plain old mobile phone is the tool students have available for Electronic Documentation of Learning? In my opinion, that is the first step in building an ePortfolio: collection of artifacts (in text, images, audio, video) and reflection on experiences/artifacts (in any of those same formats).

Maybe we could learn from what Google is doing in Egypt right now: providing local telephone numbers to call; the service simply delivers a link on Twitter so you can hear the actual voice message! In the U.S., Google Voice messages can be saved as MP3, and imperfectly translated into text. (I heard of one teacher who sits in his car--his quiet recording studio--and records his reflections as a voice message in Google Voice.) What else? I am looking for a blog-like tool that can be updated by a plain mobile phone. What Web 2.0 tools, besides Facebook, are accessible from SMS? After a little research, I found instructions for posting from SMS to Blogger and WordPress, but it looks like this service is only available within the USA. I suppose Posterous would work as well, if the message comes in as an email. You can also use SMS to post to Twitter.

Generative Knowledge Retrieval Prompts

I am at the AAC&U E-Portfolio Forum, and the attendees were asked to choose a form to reflect on the activities of the day: a Digication Portfolio page, Facebook, Twitter tag #aacu11gki Google Voice, Google Docs. I chose Twitter, but am also checking FB. Of course, this type of backchannel conversation happens at most technology conferences I have attended over the last two years. What makes this different is the prompt provided to the participants:

ASK YOURSELF: Why am I here today? What am I curious about? What do I want to know or learn from today's for? What did I take away from [today's] activities?
"I am here to..."

RETRIEVE YOUR EXPERIENCE: What is capturing my attention right now? What is challenging, exciting and/or annoying to me and why? With whom do I want to share my insights or materials at home?
"I notice that I..."

RECORD YOUR INSIGHTS: How am I sharing my insights with others? What am I doing to record my experiences? What resources might I need?
"That session made me think about..."

ANCHOR & AMPLIFY: How do the insights I am having today apply to the rest of my work and life? What will I perceive, think and do differently as a result of today's sessions?
"Based upon what I've learned today, I think I will..."

Good stuff.

Sent from my iPhone

bPortfolios at SPU

Seattle Pacific University has adopted Wordpress.com as their students' "bPortfolio" system. Each student establishes their own account, and records their reflections in a blog entry. I attended a workshop yesterday that the faculty requested, to set up a WordPress.com account and see what the students are experiencing. Prior to a year ago, this university used one of the commercial ePortfolio tools. Since that time, although the transition has not always been smooth, they have provided good support materials, including video tutorials, and a good set of presentations on iTunesU on Reflective Learning with Electronic Portfolios recorded on March 23, 2010. I am especially impressed by the video on Metacognition: Reflective Thinking Strategies by Art Ellis, Director of the Center for Global Curriculum Studies, who discusses strategies for promoting student reflection on their learning process.

The students set up their WordPress.com site with Categories with represent the Standards that the students are required to demonstrate. All entries and a final meta-reflection are assigned a specific category. Students are also encouraged to assign their own tags to entries, and to include a Tag cloud in addition to the categories. The final entry is the meta-reflection or self-assessment of achieving the standard. Since the blog is organized in reverse chronological order, when selecting the category/standard, the meta-reflection is the first entry shown.

The question of accountability/assessment always comes up, and this institution is NCATE accredited. I have talked with the person at SPU who has set up an Excel spreadsheet template to share student portfolios with a designated assessor, who is paid separately to evaluate the student's self-evaluation.  I saw an example yesterday and basically it includes links to the students' bPortfolios, and space for an assessor to record evaluation of the students' self-assessment of their portfolio. The assessor opens the student's bPortfolio link in a their browser window, and records the evaluation in the Excel file. (I'll bet it could be done in a GoogleDocs spreadsheet, but I haven't tried to adapt it to an online format.) The rubrics are included in the spreadsheet document. The spreadsheet data from the separate assessors are then merged into a single spreadsheet and will be used for reporting and analysis.

Since I am teaching an online graduate course for SPU this quarter, I am able to see how this process works. All of the students had already set up their Wordpress accounts. My course requires them to write a weekly reflection in their bPortfolios on the weekly themes. So, I have an opportunity to see this process in action. There is lots of room for improvement, but as I said in an earlier blog entry last year,  "This Teacher Ed program has figured out how to balance the needs of the institution with the needs of their teacher candidates... who just might want to replicate the process with their own students... with tools that are free and available in schools."

Tech Talk on Learning Portfolios at BBI

I just listened to an Eluminate session conducted by LearnCentral and TechTalk Tuesdays. The guest presenter was Lenva Shearing, Deputy Principal at Bucklands Beach Intermediate School (BBI), in New Zealand, where I was privileged to spend a couple of weeks last March. A summary of the webinar:

Look at the pedagogy, vision, implementation and effects on learning that personal reflective portfolios can provide. This session will not discuss the tools that might be used, but the pedagogoy  behind personal reflective portfolios.

It was fun to see how the ePortfolio process at BBI has evolved over the last few months. What I appreciate about their approach is the emphasis on goal-setting, learning and feedback, and their inquiry model of teaching, based on the EYP philosophy. Even though there was not an intention to discuss the tools used, questions can't be avoided when ePortfolios are being demonstrated. I see that BBI has moved from the Ning platform to store their video, to using divShare, one of my favorite online storage sites. Lenva demonstrated how teachers are using this tool to store and embed their audio feedback on student work. Even though the demos of student portfolio videos were difficult to follow, Lenva's description of BBI's philosophy and practice is a worthwhile contribution to the larger ePortfolio dialogue.