December 13, 2006
WCET EduTools study of seven ePortfolio tools
This message was posted by Dr. Helen Barrett in eportfolios@yahoogroups.com:
The WCET EduTools study of seven ePortfolio tools has been completed
and is online:
http://eportfolio.edutools.info/
In the Spring of 2006, EduTools and ePAC International undertook the
review of seven ePortfolio products on the behalf of seven partner
institutions or systems of institutions. In consultation with ePAC
and the project partners, a set of 69 electronic portfolio features
were identified and defined by Bruce Landon. Based on those features,
reviews were conducted and completed in April 2006. According to the
agreement with the partners, the feature set and reviews are now
available for public use.
Posted by mlindema at 07:05 AM
October 28, 2006
Blackboard's Portfolio for Vista & CE
I just read an interesting blog posting by Raj Boora about Blackboard's eportfolio product. He addresses the importance of faculty buy-in to ensure successful adoption. Boora has created a demo of the portfolio, which will be available until November 11, 2006.
Also See Edutools review of Blackboard's ePortfolio.
Posted by mlindema at 01:33 PM
June 20, 2006
Ohio OSPILOT Update (with an Emphasis on ePortfolios)
I just participated in TeachU’s Online Seminar titled “Ohio OSPILOT Update (with an Emphasis on ePortfolios)" presented by Dr. Scott Siddall, Assistant Provost and Director of Instructional Technology, Denison University.
Siddall began by giving an overview of OLN's Open Source Pilot, which hosts Sakai, Moodle, OSP ePortfolio, and uPortal for 21 member institutions. We should be providing a similar service for educational institutions in Illinois!
My reflections from today’s presentation:
It appears that the user interface of OSP has improved in version 2.1 . I played around with an earlier version last year and found it difficult to navigate. I should give this new version another look.
The new version of OSP is a toolset of Sakai. I think this means that you need to install Sakai to run OSP. However, one of the participants in today’s presentation said that you can hide the CMS aspects of Sakai is you want.
A big issue for OSP, and all other ePortfolio systems (TaskStream, LiveText, etc.) is the transportability of an ePortfolio from one system to another. Siddall said today that OSP has not figured out how to easily and import other ePortfolios (e.g. LiveText and TaskStream) into OSP or to export an OSP ePortfolio into another system.
Posted by mlindema at 11:22 AM
June 08, 2006
FSU's Web-based portfolio manager to go nationwide
FSU's Career Portfolio is an exemplary system that allows students to formulate career goals and successfully move on to a profession or graduate school. I wonder if this system, available nationally later this year, will address the other purposes of ePortfolios - such as ePortfolios for learning and ePortfolios for institutional improvement.
read more | digg story
Posted by mlindema at 12:59 PM
May 17, 2006
Potential of Lifelong ePortfolios
Richard Straub writes in the article "Competing in a “flat” world. Innovation and openness for lifelong learning"
"In a world of active lifelong learning, as promoted by the European Commission, an individual’s skills portfolio will be built and documented based on a mix of real-life experiences, achievements and relationships, and formal learning certifications. While classroom-based learning will continue, especially in the early phases of education, it will play a decreased role during an individual’s lifetime. Various studies report that 70 to 80 percent of what we learn is acquired on the job. In this sense, ePortfolio technology possesses the potential to transform cur-rent practice and improve the quality of life-long learning, including continuing professional development."
In an article by Ali Jafari published in Educause Review, he describes a Lifelong ePortfolios system as an:
"an ePortfolio program that promises access and maintenance beyond graduation. Building a lifelong ePortfolio system promotes additional incentives for users to create and maintain their ePortfolios, and any advancement of system use certainly contributes to the business success of an ePortfolio project. Once John Smith, for instance, matriculates from Bowling Green State University, he will be able to continue using his ePortfolio, still accessing all of the documents and artifacts created during his college life. Should John need to retrieve any file stored within his ePortfolio, whether he is looking for a new job or wants to apply to graduate school, those files are immediately available and quickly accessed."
Posted by mlindema at 04:38 AM | Comments (0)
March 31, 2006
Epsilen - a new ePortfolio, course management system
I just read about Epsilen, a new web-based Learning Portal with several tools for public ePortfolio, course management, social networking, learning assessment, peer review, and collaboration.
According to an article in The Dartmouth, “Through Epsilen, creator Dr. Ali Jafari, professor of computing and information technology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, hopes to take Blackboard and similar programs into the future through a setup inspired by Facebook.com.”
The press release from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis reports that with an Epsilen account,
• Students can create ePortfolios with resumes that can be shared with prospective employers or graduate schools.
• University faculty members can share their learning objects and collaborate with others researchers on a global Epsilen network and prepare their dossier.
• Students and faculty alike can intelligently find others with similar hobbies, career, and research interests in order to collaborate in various online Epsilen groups.
I have just requested an account and am looking forward to testing this service. According to the Epsilen Web site, from January – December 2006, any student, faculty, or staff within a post secondary educational institution in the United States can register free.
Posted by mlindema at 08:26 AM | Comments (1)
July 22, 2005
Accountability and Portfolios
In her E-Portfolios for Learning, Helen Barrett posted a message on 5/23/05 titled Accountability and Portfolios in which she clearly expresses her fears that ePortfolios could be corrupted by "high stakes accountability" - saying "In the drive to use portfolios as assessment OF learning, we are in danger of losing the power of portfolios to support reflection and assessment FOR learning."
As the Illinois Online Network prepares to implement ePortfolios for the Master Online Teacher certificate in the MVCR program, I want to be sure we are mindful of this issue. ION (luckily) does not have to prepare for a NCATE review or a NCA audit required of many of the institutions we work with, but I imagine we could easily fall into the trap of using the ePortfolio for the assessment OF learning rather than the assessment FOR learning. In order to prevent this from occuring, we need to be very clear about the goals and purposes of the ION ePortfolio.
Posted by ionadmin at 12:19 PM | Comments (0)
June 30, 2005
ePortfolios and the “Bring Data” mandate
In the June 2005 edition of Campus Technology’s DigitalTweed column, Kenneth C. Green discusses the “Bring Data!” Mandate being pushed by Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling and the Bush Administration and specifically relates the mandate in context of IT.
While I enjoyed reading the column, especially the little dig about the “Bushies” having a problem with reliable research, the following statement on pg. 14 made me cringe a little:
“The business intelligence and data mining tools that allowed Wall-Mart to discover a surprising run on beer in its Florida stores ahead of last fall’s tropical storms are the same tools that colleges and universities will have to deploy to respond to the mandates (some new and some ignored for years but now enforced) from accrediting associations, government agencies, and other sponsors who demand hard data documenting impacts and want real evidence about institutional outcomes.”
I am currently on a committee charged with investigating the role of ePortfolios in Associate in Arts in Teaching (AAT) degree programs in Illinois and I am getting ready to implement an ePortfolio for ION’s Master Online Teacher certificate. After reading many articles, attending conference presentations, and talking with vendors, I’m pretty excited about the potential of ePortfolios as a tool to encourage learning and reflection.
However, after reading Green’s statement about the “Bring Data!” Mandate, I began to wonder about the possible dark side of ePortfolios. Will ePortfolios be employed by institutions to “bring data” for assessment initiatives and outcome measures?
After spending some time scanning the blogs and online articles today, I realize that I am not alone in my fears.
For example, Helen Barrett, the ePortfolio guru, writes that “Many Teacher Education institutions are adopting electronic portfolios from a perception that the accreditation organizations are requiring them” In another article, she observes “Many of these systems promise support for student portfolios AND aggregated assessment data to meet reporting requirements.” http://electronicportfolios.com/systems/paradigms.html
I sincerely hope that the driving force behind the implementation of ePortfolios will be improved student learning and not institution accountability.
Posted by ionadmin at 04:53 PM | Comments (0)