Electronic Portfolios: Why Now

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• Electronic Portfolios Why Now?
• EDUCAUSE LIVE!
• February 11, 2004

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• An electronic portfolio is
• a collection of authentic and diverse evidence,
• drawn from a larger archive representing what a
  person or organization has learned over time
• on which the person or organization has
  reflected, and
• designed for presentation to one or more
  audiences for a particular rhetorical purpose.
• NLII

3

• Why Now?
• We know more about learning than we ever have
  before.
• Multiple people are now recognized as educators
  who continue to learn themselves and who are
  central to learning by students.
• Colleges and universities want internal and
  external audiences to understand and value the
  learning taking place in their institutions.
• The social network made possible by electronic
  portfolios and the technology that supports them
  requires international cooperation.

4

• Deep learning
• involves reflection,
• is developmental,
• is integrative,
• is self-directive, and
• is lifelong.

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• To reflect is to look back over what has been
  done so as to extract the next meanings which are
  the capital stock for intelligent dealing with
  further experiences. It is the heart of the
  intellectual organization and of the disciplined
  mind.
• John Dewey. Experience and Education,
  1938.

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IUPUI Student Portfolio Principle of
Undergraduate Education
http//shamilto.with.iupui.edu/index.aspx
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• We are finding that a variety of transcendent
  skills, such as critical thinking, communication,
  information literacy, and understanding diverse
  societies and cultures, are being highlighted
  through the development of ePortfolios.
• Sharon Hamilton, IUPUI

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Deep learning is developmental.
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What relationship exists between the kinds and
numbers of links in a portfolio and a students
intellectual growth?
10

• At Bowling Green University emphasis is on
  durable learning, learning that lasts beyond a
  course. The newly emerging science of learning
  offers a growing body of principles and research
  findings to be systematically applied.
  E-portfolio technology offers learners the means
  to document and reinforce their learning.
  Bowling Green looks at how science of learning
  principles are applied to tangible activities.

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• Two goals for ePortfolios at LaGuardia Community
  College
• provide students and faculty with a rich view of
  a students educational growth and development
  throughout college
• provide comprehensive picture of student growth
  for program and institutional assessment
• www.eportfolio.lagcc.cuny.edu

12

• The credit hour may be one of the biggest
  obstacles to institutional change because it
  perpetuates an accounting structure that was
  developed in the last century and may well have
  outlived its usefulness.

Jane V. Wellman, Thomas Ehrlich (eds.) How the
Student Credit Hour Shapes Higher Education The
Tie that Binds. San Francisco Jossey Bass, 2003.
p. 1
13

• The credit hour is an increasingly imperfect
  measure that may be causing or contributing to
  bad habits within higher education.

Jane V. Wellman, Thomas Ehrlich (eds.) How the
Student Credit Hour Shapes Higher Education The
Tie that Binds. San Francisco Jossey Bass, 2003.
p. 1
14

• ePortfolios enable students to analyze evidence
  from learning across their educational careers.
• Ocean Lakes High School
• Alverno College
• Syracuse University

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Deep learning is integrative.
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• Students need to take more responsibility for
  their learning and create a coherent and cohesive
  undergraduate or graduate education that is not
  just defined by what courses they have taken or
  what grades they have received. They need to
  incorporate the kinds of things that are going on
  outside of the classroom into their education and
  have that information documented so that it can
  be shared.
• Helen Chen
• Stanford University
• Ready2Net. October 2002

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• What kinds of pedagogies allow us to capture
  the incidental learning that occurs beyond the
  curriculum and how do we make it count (how do we
  assess it)?
• Portland State University

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• The University of Washington is developing a
  collaborative culture where online portfolios are
  used both within the classroom curriculum and for
  activities such as service learning,
  self-reflection, academic planning, and career
  planning. The online Catalyst Portfolio helps
  students integrate university experience,
  bridging the gap between classroom, community,
  and career.

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Deep learning is self-directed.
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• Experts operate differently than novices.
• They
• have a conceptual framework for information
• notice features and patterns
• organize content knowledge to reflect deep
  understanding
• apply information in new situations
• monitor their own understanding in a process of
  adaptive expertise, modifying concepts,
  identifying information gaps, and taking
  control of their learning
• Suzanne Donovan, James Bransford, and James
  Pellegrina (1999). How People Learn. National
  Academy Press, Washington, DC.

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• In their ePortfolios, Freshman Interest Group
  students include
• evidence of how they learn
• descriptions of how they plan to establish
  relationships with faculty and students
• their personal mission statement
• artefacts about their identity in high school
  and identity at college
• The portfolio is a snapshot in time of who they
  are.
• University of Washington

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• The use of a learning portfolio has completely
  changed the atmosphere of oral exams.
• respect and support, not intimidation
• emphasis on self-directed learning
• Mary Huba
• Iowa State University

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• The Diagnostic Digital Portfolio enables each
  Alverno student -- anyplace, anytime to follow
  her learning progress throughout her years of
  study. It helps the student process feedback
  from faculty, external assessors and peers and
  helps her look for patterns in her academic work
  so she can take more control of her own
  development as an autonomous learner.
• http//ddp.alverno.edu/

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Deep learning is life-long.
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• We are exploring how students technology
  preparation and experience, including through
  ePortfolios, manifests itself in practice for
  pre-service and beginning teachers during the
  first 3-5 years of their teaching careers.
• Carl Young
• Virginia Tech University

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• The Royal College of Nursing, the largest
  European professional body strong of 350,000
  members, is implementing an ePortfolio for
  supporting nurses continuing professional
  development and re-accreditation.

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• Minnesota e-Portfolio is an electronic portfolio
  tool for Minnesota students, workers, educators,
  and citizens in the 21st century.
• Gary Langer at
• gary.langer_at_so.maseu.edu

28

• The country of Wales provides a kind of
  ePortfolio to its 3 million citizens as a way of
  valuing its human resources.

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• An educational portfolio documents the
  accumulation of human capital.
• Helen Barrett
• Educational Pathways
• May 15, 2000 1

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• Every individual can and should be enabled to
  manage and distribute and control his/her own
  personal digital information. This is the future
  of individual records management. This is the
  future of knowledge management. And ePortfolio
  provides the technology for that future.
• Paul Treuer
• http//eportfolio.d.umn.edu

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• Electronic course portfolios are a new genre for
  generating and documenting the scholarship of
  teaching and learning.

32
American Historical Association Mills Kelly,
George Mason University
http//www.theaha.org/teaching/aahe/Kelly/Pew/Port
folio/welcome.htm
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Knowledge Media Lab Gallery Sample
http//kml2.carnegiefoundation.org/html/gallery.ph
p
34

• The University of Denvers Portfolio Community
  System

Tools for community interaction, such as
asynchronous discussion, are seamlessly
integrated into the system. Each individuals
portfolio includes information about her
community membership and participation in
collaborative activities. Not only can all
constituents of the University create a
portfolio, each virtual community has its own
portfolio.
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• The future of learning is learning networks.
  Portfolios are a hub through which to manage our
  participation. Future ePortfolio technology
  should embrace the role of social context in
  learning by more tightly integrating in virtual
  communities of practice.
• Darren Cambridge The Future of Electronic
  Portfolio Technology (2003)

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Educators include

• faculty members
• student affairs professionals
• instructional technologists
• librarians
• students

37

• There may be a quiet revolution going on in
  breaking the elements of instruction into
  component parts design, development, delivery,
  mentoring, and assessment.
• Jane V. Wellman, Thomas Ehrlich (eds.).
  (2003) How the Student Credit Hour Shapes
  Higher Education The Tie That Binds. San
  Francisco Jossey-Bass. p.1

38

• Urban University Portfolio Project
• California State University Sacramento
• Indiana University-Purdue University
  Indianapolis
• Georgia State University
• Portland State University
• University of Illinois Chicago
• University of Massachusetts Boston

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Portland State University Institutional Portfolio
http//portfolio.pdx.edu/Portfolio/Community_Globa
l_Connections/
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• Web-portfolios leverage the metaphorical as well
  as technological aspects of the web and
  facilitate organization, coherence, linking, and
  analysis.
• Judy Patton
• Portland State University

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IUPUI Institutional Portfolio Performance
Indicators
http//www.iport.iupui.edu/performance/perf_teach.
htm
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• WASC 2001 Handbook of Accreditation
• (Western Association of Schools and Colleges)
• Electronic Portfolios Emerging Practices in
  Student, Faculty, and Institutional Learning
• (American Association for Higher Education)

43

• Networks across institutions
• Networks across vendors and institutions
• International networks

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• The National Articulation of Transfer Network, a
  200-member coalition of
• high school districts,
• community colleges and
• four-year, culturally enriched college and
  universities
• is building web-based pathways for college
  information, enrollment, advisement, mentoring,
  transfers, retention, graduation, and career
  choice.

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ePortfolios are part of this system aimed at
alternative pathways for historically underserved
populations to access HBCUs, HSIs, and TCs.
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NLIIEPACOSPI
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• Developing standard ways of representing
  meaning in electronic portfolios is the only way
  portfolios can truly become an educational
  passport useful in any type of educational
  setting as well as for professional development
  in any career path.
• Paul Troner and Jill Jensen (2003)
  Electronic Portfolios Need Standards to
  Thrive. EDUCAUSE Quarterly 26 (2) 34-42.

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• European Center for the Development of Vocational
  Training (CEDEFOP)
• Instrument to enhance mobility and
  employability
• Priorities for 2003-2006
• Improving access to learning, mobility, and
  social inclusion
• Enabling and valuing learning
• Supporting networks and partnerships in an
  enlarged European Union

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• European Consortium for the ePortfolio, a
  division of the European Institute of E-Learning
• www.europortfolio.org

50

• National Coalition of Electronic Research 2004
  Cohort
• Alverno College
• Bowling Green University
• Indiana University-Purdue University
  Indianapolis
• LaGuardia Community College
• Mississippi State University
• Northern Illinois University
• Portland State University
• Stanford University
• University of Washington
• Virginia Tech University

51

• Why Now?
• We know more about learning than we ever have
  before.
• Multiple people are now recognized as educators
  who continue to learn themselves and who are
  central to learning by students.
• Colleges and universities want internal and
  external audiences to understand and value the
  learning taking place in their institutions.
• The social network made possible by electronic
  portfolios and the technology that supports them
  requires international cooperation.

52

• Barbara Cambridge
• bcambridge_at_aahe.org