AERA Conference

I facilitated a symposium at AERA on April 11 entitled, Researching Electronic Portfolios in Schools: The Role of Teacher Professional Development. We had more than 30 people in attendance on a very snowy day in Chicago! Many people from outside the U.S. were interested in this research. There were some very interesting questions about the study, some of which I realized I was not prepared to answer, especially about impact on student learning. I co-presented with Evangeline Harris Stefanakis, who is doing longitudinal research in schools in New York City, where she is finding interesting results with bilingual students in some of the poorest schools in the city (they use PowerPoint as their ePortfolio tool). I have been working with her to get her results published on the Internet. She accompanied me on my trip to Australia and New Zealand, and since we shared flights and hotel rooms, we had lots of time to talk about research, especially in preparation for AERA.

There were more than 46 portfolio papers in 10 different sessions at AERA, primarily focused on reflection and teacher education, and some valuable additions to the literature. I was also discussant at a session on Teacher Education portfolios. My REFLECT study in K12 schools is certainly unique, although there are some studies that are being conducted in England that will provide more knowledge about the widespread implementation of ePortfolios in schools. As the final 24 questions for students and teachers in our REFLECT data collection, I am using those that were also used in the study conducted by Elizabeth Hartnell-Young in a study sponsored last winter by BECTA (British Educational Computing & Telecommunications Agency). I spent over a week with Liz in Hong Kong and Australia in March, and talked with her about her research (and also launched her new book, which I discussed earlier in this blog). All of my experiences over the last two months of traveling have led me to think more deeply about the REFLECT study.

Bucklands Beach School

I had a wonderful, too short visit to Bucklands Beach School near Auckland, New Zealand. After being wonderfully hosted by the Deputy Principal in her home on Tuesday night, we had an opportunity to see the school in operation: from the morning meeting to seeing various classes in progress, we saw an exciting school in a beautiful setting. Two students showed us their paper portfolios, and we were able to observe a student/parent/teacher conference. The school has many Apple computers, and I was able to see some of the students experimenting with several options to computerize their paper-based portfolios. I am hoping to get back to that school some time in the next year or so, to observe how they implement electronic portfolios within a very strong and structured paper-based portfolio system.

ePortfolio New Zealand

I am once again so impressed with the ePortfolio leaders in New Zealand. I am just finishing up a wonderful day-and-a-half of conversations about electronic portfolios. There is a new open source portfolio being built in New Zealand, called Mahara, which is based on the three components of artifacts (collection), multiple views, and audiences (selection). I appreciated having a delightful dinner last evening with the Mahara team.

There were a lot of K-12 teachers attending this conference. What I heard from the closing session of this conference was the general theme that the ePortfolio was really a personal learning space. I agree with that perspective. It really puts the ePortfolio into a perspective.

New web pages

I created two new web pages while in Australia:

• Creating ePortfolios with Web 2.0 tools -- Consolidating some of my explorations with Web 2.0 tools
• "Telling My Story" -- Audio Clips I have collected at different EIFEL ePortfolio Conferences

Launching a new Book in Melbourne

I am delighted to launch the second edition of the book Digital Portfolios written by Elizabeth Hartnell-Young and Maureen Morriss, published by Corwin Press. I bought their earlier edition when it first came out, and quoted from it extensively, since it was the first book that was published on this topic. Beginning with the introduction by Barbara Cambridge, the entire book provides an overview of the process of constructing a digital professional portfolio, including some very useful tools. I especially appreciate the permission form and evaluation rubrics provided, with permission to duplicate them provided to purchasers of the book.

The authors have provided an overview of the many issues that can arise from the multiple purposes for developing electronic portfolios. I especially liked the following quote:

While these are legitimate uses for portfolios, when teachers perceive that accountability is viewed as more important than their knowledge and expertise, they can become cynical, and their portfolios tend to be heavy with documentation but light on passion. (p.8)

With portfolios being used in many sectors of education and for both summative and formative assessment, it is important to emphasize the elements that contribute to professional growth. This book provides a framework for professional educators to document their growth, maintaining the emotional engagement that gives meaning to the process. Their highlights on vision and knowing oneself provides further emphasis on using portfolios to support learning, not formatting or data.

By capturing the experience of the learning journey, reflecting on its meaning over time, and sharing the learning with others, teachers develop new insights and understanding. (p.27)

The book also emphasized the importance of building a personal archive of work (with references to the Cohn & Hibbits article on Lifetime Personal Web Space). The book also provides a focus and guide to reflection. One chapter provides ten practical steps in creating a digital portfolio, beginning with a quote from one of my articles:

A portfolio that is truly a story of learning is owned by the learner, structured by the learner, and told in the learner's own voice. (p.39)

A key component of the philosophy in this book is that teachers not only prepare a digital portfolio to help develop their own technology competency while reflecting on their own growth over time, they can also use this opportunity to model the portfolio development process for their students. "By presenting portfolios to various audiences, teachers learn the skills they need to develop with their students." (p.64) I couldn't agree more. A teacher with a digital portfolio is more likely to have students who have digital portfolios. This book's philosophy, that portfolio development is a process of professional growth (p.72), should be valued as a process to support educational reform. The emphasis on process (means) over product (ends).

A fundamental principle of this book is that educators grow professionally as a result of producing a digital portfolio. They become producers as well as consumers of technology, enabling them to become more confident about using it in their daily work. They learn more about using the World Wide Web for teaching, research and for communicating with a global audience. This transfer of knowledge and skills will benefit not only themselves but their students, colleagues, and community. But more fundamentally, educators can show evidence of their deep learning...(p.78)

Last weekend, when I told my daughter that I was launching a book on ePortfolios, she asked me when I was going to write my own book. I responded that I had a website and a blog. But when I read Elizabeth and Maureen';s book, I said that I really agreed with what they had to say, so I really didn't need to write a book. But that may change. In the meantime, I highly recommend this new version of Elizabeth and Maureen's book.

Hong Kong Conference

This is the first stop on the Asia ePortfolio Trilogy tour. A group of about 40 Hong Kong educators gathered for the first ePortfolio conference in Hong Kong. I am really excited about what I see happening here, and the level of interest, despite the low level of attendance. There is now a policy in Hong Kong for all secondary students to develop a Student Learning Profile, which can have a variety of formats; one of those could be an ePortfolio. So there will be a lot of exciting developments happening in Hong Kong over the next few years.

K-12 Student Portfolio

I just received permission to share an amazing student portfolio, that has been maintained in a single school from Kindergarten to senior year. The portfolio was created with Apple's iWeb, and represents learning in a Multiple Intelligences curriculum.

Workshop in Japan

I have been in Japan since Wednesday, for a symposium on Portfolios in Medical Education at Mie University in Tsu, near Nagoya. I was a second presenter after another expert from a medical school in the U.K., where they have been using portfolios for high stakes, summative assessment. I provided quite a contrast with my focus on student-centered, formative portfolios. This was my second bilingual hands-on workshop: the first in Finland in 1998 and now Japan in 2007. This was quite a contrast. In Finland, I was teaching how to create an electronic portfolio with Adobe Acrobat. Today, we created an electronic portfolio with GoogleDocs. This time, I knew the tool well enough to be able to point to the part of the screen where the different commands existed in the English version, and it all worked, although I had a great workshop assistant who was typing and using the software in Japanese.

The participants were very actively engaged in both yesterday afternoon's workshop, which was mostly lecture, and today's full day workshop, which was very hands-on and participatory. We had simultaneous translation, which I had only experienced a year ago in Italy, where it was all a lecture format. At least today, that was a lot of experiential learning going on. I learned one thing: only use the Firefox browser when using GoogleDocs. Internet Explorer for Windows did not work well.

I am most impressed by how well I was taken care of while I was here. I was met at the airport and escorted to my hotel, where I had my first dinner. Every day, I was escorted to their offices or to where I needed to be for the workshops. Tomorrow, I will be escorted on the train back to the airport for my flight to Hong Kong. The taxicabs were immaculate, with white covers on the seats. My hotel had free wifi and free breakfast. Our lunches were catered in beautiful boxes. I had no idea about everything I was eating, but it was all very good. As my first trip to Japan, it was very impressive!

Two Political Statements

I came across these two websites on one of my listservs. This isn't a political blog but I just couldn't resist adding them here:

It's not on the Test: Here's a new song about school testing that Tom Chapin wrote. It helped usher in the New Year on National Public Radio, appearing on "Morning Edition" on January 1, 2007.

Mad TV's iRack

Enjoy!

Identity Production and Online Portfolios

I recently read a paper online entitled, "Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace." In this article, based on a speech made at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, February 19, 2006, the author addresses three issues related to MySpace: identity production, hanging out and digital publics.

The dynamics of identity production play out visibly on MySpace. Profiles are digital bodies, public displays of identity where people can explore impression management [2]. Because the digital world requires people to write themselves into being [3], profiles provide an opportunity to craft the intended expression through language, imagery and media....

What we're seeing right now is a cultural shift due to the introduction of a new medium and the emergence of greater restrictions on youth mobility and access. The long-term implications of this are unclear. Regardless of what will come, youth are doing what they've always done - repurposing new mediums in order to learn about social culture.

Technology will have an effect because the underlying architecture and the opportunities afforded are fundamentally different. But youth will continue to work out identity issues, hang out and create spaces that are their own, regardless of what technologies are available.

A colleague of mine completed a dissertation a year ago, where she studied the implementation of electronic portfolios created using very different tools in two different Teacher Education programs. In one university, the students were taught to use a free web page editing tool (Composer) and were encouraged to individualize their portfolios. That university had developed a separate assessment management system to collect and manage the accountability data, which was not very obvious to the students. In the second university, the students were forced to purchase an account for 4-to-6 years in one of the commercial systems, and were provided with highly prescriptive assignments in a system "specifically designed to impose uniformity on the portfolio task." My colleague is presenting a case study at the SITE conference about the frustrations of a student in that second university, who was an experienced MySpace user, and used that experience to customize her portfolio, despite the constraints of the system.

In one of my more recent blog entries, I shared an email from an educator who indicated that she was looking for a portfolio system that would allow students to individualize their portfolios (among other criteria). She also wanted it to be interactive, to support multimedia, to be secure, to allow assessment, and to be portable (i.e. students can take it with them when they leave). When a tool is developed, the tool developers have to prioritize their development efforts, to provide the most important tools that their clients say they need. That's why most of the ePortfolio tool developers have created very good assessment management systems, that collect data that institutions need for accountability and summative assessment. But in the order of priority, the needs of the learner, for an environment where they can express their own individuality through their portfolios, is often left on the "wish list" for future development (or not even considered).

In my opinion, this situation is the result of programmers and technology experts developing what they think is an efficient system for collecting this data, not a tool that facilitates individuality and creativity. Perhaps the technicians don't recognize the psychological need for adolescents (and post-adolescents) to establish a unique identity, both face-to-face and online. In my current research, I am finding that MySpace is so popular because it encourages and enables individuality and creativity in addition to the social networking that also drives that system.

In my review of the many tools out there, I found that there were many tradeoffs between usability and creativity, qualities that I think are very important to maintain student engagement. To their credit, the better commercial ePortfolio providers are addressing these usability issues as they continuously modify their software. But it is a challenge to balance competing priorities with limited resources.

GoogleDocs for Online Portfolio Development

This is the 25th tool that I have used to create my online portfolio as part of my "Online Portfolio Adventure" research over the last three years. Since I copied the pages from another version of my portfolio, the tool allowed me to reconstruct my portfolio in less than an hour, copying and pasting the information, although fine tuning the formatting took more time. As with all of my other portfolios, all of my artifacts are documents already stored on one of my websites, so I did not have to upload any documents. I think this program is a viable tool for maintaining portfolios that are comprised mostly of word processing documents that are converted into GoogleDocs. I don't know how it handles other documents as attachments, such as PowerPoint. It is very easy to create links from a GoogleDocs page to any web page or any other GoogleDocs page. I used to teach how to create a hyperlinked portfolio with Microsoft Word. This is the online (Web 2.0) equivalent!

This system has the potential to offer interactivity, since each page can have comments added by those selected to Collaborate. I was able to add links by simply copying from another website with the links embedded and I could designate that each link would open a new browser window which is what I prefer: the portfolio remains open so that when an artifact is opened, the reader can close the window and easily return to the portfolio, rather than using the Back button.There is no data management tool, to aggregate assessment data, although Google Spreadsheet could be used. Therefore, this tool would work for formative assessment (providing teacher and/or peer feedback on student work) but not for summative assessment. But the process for adding comments and feedback would need to be agreed upon with the approved collaborators within the system.

The major advantage of GoogleDocs is that it is a Web 2.0 tool, and universally available through a WWW browser. I found it fairly easy to use, although it helped that I knew how to edit HTML to fine tune the formatting. I tried to use the Google Spreadsheet to create the Portfolio-at-a-Glance matrix, since it was originally created in Excel. However, I could not easily create hyperlinks in the cells, and the links did not translate when I converted the Excel spreadsheet into Google. So, I converted the spreadsheet to HTML and pasted it into Edit HTML on a new page. A table is easy to edit in a GoogleDocs page. I also found it extremely easy to insert images on a page. I published another "How-To" page on using GoogleDocs to create an online portfolio.

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) for e-portfolios?

I attended the annual conference of the American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) last weekend in New York City. I went to many presentations on the program that focused on e-portfolios. What I heard continues to distress me: teacher educators are most often talking about using portfolios for collecting data for reporting and accreditation. I was the discussant in a wonderful presentation by the faculty of the University of Wisconsin Madison, where that was not the case. Their presentations focused on a scaffolded model that helped teacher candidates reflect on their growth and change as they progressed through the program. However, at 7:45 on a Sunday morning, there weren't a lot of people attending. In one of the "portfolio as data" sessions, I asked about the role of reflection. In another, I commented about the importance of students telling the story of their own growth in their own voice. It made the data-happy folks very defensive ("the stories come through the data"). WRONG! The stories come from the students own voices! I am more and more convinced that the full balanced story of portfolios is not being told in Teacher Education. There is so much attention being given to the data collection, that there is not a lot of energy left to tell the stories.

At the same conference, I attended several sessions that focused on Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK), which:

...attempts to capture some of the essential qualities of knowledge required by teachers for technology integration in their teaching, while addressing the complex, multifaceted and situated nature of teacher knowledge. At the heart of the TPCK framework, is the complex interplay of three primary forms of knowledge: Content (C), Pedagogy (P), and Technology (T). See Figure above. As must be clear, the TPCK framework builds on Shulman's idea of Pedagogical Content Knowledge.

I think a lot of the problem with the implementation of electronic portfolios is that they are being implemented without TPCK. There isn't a lot of knowledge about the pedagogical content of using portfolios for learning; the administrators and data managers are implementing electronic portfolios (that are really used as assessment management systems) with full knowledge of data and statistics but without full knowledge of the theoretical underpinnings and value of using portfolios to support student and teacher learning.

We have many faculty who understand these issues, but see the implementation of portfolios in conflict with their prior understandings of how portfolios help students learn. I am also concerned that we are not implementing portfolios in teacher education that models how teacher candidates will use them when they get their own students in their own classrooms. Many students see portfolios as a hoop they need to jump through, to give the institution data needed for accreditation, and not something that will help them as professional educators. That was NOT what I saw in the UWM presentation; their model was supported by both the faculty who spoke and the few students that were there. I wish that model could be shared more widely. They need to tell their story!

Online ePortfolio Strategies

I received an email recently from a teacher who participated in the online class that I just finished teaching. She asked:

I am now very excited about the direction I hope to take the e-portfolio at our school. One of the things I have decided to do is to use this opportunity to mentor rather than teach my students. I am hoping that I will be able to work alongside them as we all create our own portfolios (me too). I have significant technological challenges and if you have time would appreciate your input. I am not as technologically savvy as perhaps I should be given that I teach online.

I have lots of cool ideas but my biggest stumbling block is technology. I want a space for students to create their portfolios that is:

1. interactive
2. will be able to support multimedia
3. allow students to individualize their portfolios
4. is secure
5. allows assessment
6. is portable (i.e. students can take it with them when they leave)

I figured that a student webpage (assuming they could make one) would cover 1, 2, 3 and 6, but not 4 or 5.

Moodle covers 1, 4, and 5 but not 2 (very well), 3 and 6

A CDROM covers 2, 3, 4, & 6 but not 1, & 5.

I know I'm asking for the world, but please help.

I know the parents at the school would balk at the idea of student pages accessible to anyone & to be honest I don't want my personal information out there either. This may not be where the Internet is right now, but I'm not comfortable sharing with the world! However I think that as a group of Grade 11 and 12 students and a mentor (me), we could really achieve something meaningful. Now that The Graduation Portfolio is no longer mandatory in BC, I want to make this an optional course for students interested in creating their own e-portfolios as a start to a lifelong journey.

I responded: I decided to take your document and put together a GoogleDoc page to look at different strategies. I added five more options to look at. After you review the table, you can get back to me. I think there are other options that you could consider.

I don't understand what you mean by assessment. Do you want to score student portfolio work, based on a rubric? Or do you want to provide students feedback on their work (which I think your first section, Interactive, covers).

How-to's

I added a few "how-to's" on a couple of my online portfolios, which are Web 2.0 tools, but not necessarily portfolio tools: WikiSpaces.com (my favorite wiki) and WordPress.com (my favorite blogging tool) for ePortfolio development. These pages briefly cover the process:

Purpose
Collection/Selection
Reflection
Connection/Interaction/Dialogue
Presentation/Publishing

These pages provide some suggestions for a sequence of activities using that specific tool to construct an interactive ePortfolio.

Free Web Conferences available

Based on the success of the video conference last week with Mexico, I have decided to offer FREE web-based conferences available to K12 teachers (in after-school workshop groups of 5 or more teachers) and as a guest lecturer in teacher education classes. I've had success offering these workshops on a limited basis to some of my ADE colleagues. I've decided to make this offer on my website. I also just learned that I can have a free Eluminate vRoom, limited to 3 simultaneous participants. So I have two options to facilitate these online workshops: live video chats using iChat (Macintosh only) or Skype (requires two computers on the other end: one for my video feed, one to show my PowerPoint slides), and Eluminate vRoom (single computer required: no video feed).

I decided to offer these live conferences for two reasons: I really enjoy talking to teachers about ePortfolios (I learn a lot in the process), and the tools are now free for small groups. I've decided to offer the first conference to a school group for free, offering a follow-up ongoing professional development class for a fee, as I have offered in the past. I also want to pay back the Teacher Education community for the wonderful opportunity that I had for four years working under a PT3 grant.

Skype Video Conference with LatinCALL

I just finished a video conference with the Computer-Assisted Language Learning conference for Latin America. They were in Durango, Mexico; I was sitting in my living room in Puyallup, Washington. While video conferencing is not new, this is my first time using Skype for this type of video conferencing. What was unique for me was that this was a cross-platform video conference: I was using a Macintosh and they were using a Windows computer. I was able to see the audience and the screen while I was presenting (to make sure that we were on the same slide). Other than it being early in the morning for me, and my voice had not warmed up, I was fairly pleased with the results. I think they were pleased also.

At MacWorld, I also saw a demonstration of the new iChat in the next version of OS X, which would allow screen sharing with another Macintosh on the Internet. That looks like a great way to conduct these types of video presentations. However, until the rest of the world wakes up to the superiority of the Macintosh, there will be few opportunities to use this tool (can you tell that I am an Apple Distinguished Educator?). For now, I will use Skype and may try doing SkypeCasting.

KEEP Toolkit

I created the 24th version of my portfolio using the KEEP Toolkit created by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. I copied the pages from another HTML version of my portfolio. The tool allowed me to reconstruct my portfolio in less than two hours, copying and pasting the information.

Once I figured out how the Dashboard worked, and how I could develop my portfolio with blank templates, it was relatively straightforward. I was able to do basic text editing with the Rich Text Editor. I added all links using the software's edit links tool.

I was also able to create several versions of my portfolio and individual pages, and stitch them together for another view. There is a lot of flexibility with the authoring tools. There is also no data management tool, to aggregate assessment data. Therefore, this tool would work for formative assessment (providing teacher and peer feedback on student work) but not for summative assessment.

Epsilen ePortfolio tool

I created the 23rd version of my ePortfolio using the Epsilen ePortfolio tool, created at IUPUI CyberLab. The tools is free for anyone with an EDU email address. Since I copied the pages from another HTML version of my portfolio, all URLs came over as weblinks. The tool allowed me to reconstruct my portfolio in about than an hour, copying and pasting the information.

The software includes a blog and has elements of social networking built in. The ability to control who views each page can be controlled through customized access keys. Documents can be saved in files and folders, but the storage is limited to 75 MB. There is also no data management tool, to aggregate assessment data. Therefore, this tool would work for formative assessment (providing teacher and peer feedback on student work through the blog, QuickNotes, and an internal email system).

The user interface needs a little work. I had to figure out that to add additional pages to my portfolio (not the ones in their template) I had to select the Options Menu. The portfolio itself has a few other selections on the page that I did not put there (Access key, Login). However, it automatically generated the navigation bar on the left side of the window. Once I figured out how the basic software worked, it went pretty smoothly. If I wanted, I could change colors, but did not find any other design templates available.

One option that could be added is a Personal CMS toolset that features a complete Course Management System (CMS), offering tools such as Lessons, Chat, Drop Boxes, Grade Book, Course Mail, and Forums for discussion.

On the whole, the system let me work around its template structure, and create my own portfolio. It also offers a lot of additional features that I did not try.

Apple's iPhone in Education?

I visited MacWorld on Wednesday, and saw the iPhone. I also watched the podcast (downloaded to my iPod) of Steve Jobs' keynote address at MacWorld. I am ready to order one of those phones today, despite the fact that I just started using a Palm Treo SmartPhone. It's a good thing that the iPhone won't be available until June. Still, as I look at the features of this phone, I see an incredible tool to support learning! It's a tablet PC in the palm of your hand, complete with OS X and wifi access. It has all of the features that I want in a cell phone/iPod/handheld Internet device (for email, web browsing, maps, and searching). How soon will it have voice recognition for voice dialing, like many cell phones do? Will it interface with a Bluetooth keyboard for those of us who find it faster communicating with all of our fingers, not just one? Jobs used a specially-built iPhone with a video board, that projected its image to the presentation screen. Will that adaptation be available?

As I look at this device through the lens of my current research interests, I wonder: Would Apple consider making a version that works without the phone service, but uses the device on a classroom network? I could imagine a lot of ways that this device could be used to enhance learning. Right now, schools are paranoid about cell phones, with many K12 schools banning their use. But these schools also filter the Internet, so that these devices could safely be put into the service of learning. Online simulations, games, learning objects, widgets, blogs, a built-in digital camera to collect images; the capabilities of this device could far exceed the way Palms are currently being used in education today. I could imagine many ways that this device could become the next 1-1 platform for learning. I also see a tool that will support the many stages of ePortfolio development, including collection and reflection.

What do you think?

A New Year

I am starting the New Year with a conference in Hawaii (really!). I am attending the 2007 Hawaii International Conference on Education, making two presentations: one on our REFLECT Initiative project in Arizona, and another entitled "Voice and Interactivity in ePortfolios: Digital Stories and Web 2.0." I just posted a new web page on the different presentations and workshops that I am offering, from one-hour conference presentations or keynote addresses to two-day hands-on workshops as offered last month in Oregon.

I have not yet reflected on the Time Magazine Person of the Year issue. I consider myself included in the designation "YOU" (anyone who posts content on the web--basically a recognition of the power of the many Web 2.0 technologies, but especially YouTube). I was also impressed by a few other blog entries that reflected on that issue, especially a discussion of how many schools block these Web 2.0 technologies at the time they show the most promise for improving education. Thank goodness DOPA is dead.