"The landscape of portfolio development has expanded astonishingly
with the advent of multimedia and hypermedia. Yet, though the mediums
have changed from print on paper to electronic hypertext, the fundamental
process of learning portfolio development remains steadfast."
Tomorrow's Professor Msg.#568 ELECTRONIC LEARNING PORTFOLIOS
Folks:
The posting below discusses the development and use of student
electronic portfolios. It is from Chapter 4, Electronic Learning
Portfolios, in The Learning Portfolio, Reflective Practice for Student
Learning by John Zubizaretta, Columbia College. Anker Publishing
Company, Inc. Bolton, Massachusetts. www.ankerpub.com
Copyright © 2004 by Anker Publishing Company, Inc. All rights
reserved. ISBM 1-882982-66-5. Reprinted with permission.
Regards,
Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Reliability and Validity
Tomorrow's Teaching and Learning
----------------------------- 2,333 words --------------------------------
ELECTRONIC LEARNING PORTFOLIOS
ELECTRONIC PORTFOLIOS
The advent of digital technology has done much to alter the way
in which learning is displayed, shared, and analyzed in multimedia
and hypermedia environments. The varied accounts of uses of electronic
portfolios in Part II and the diverse models in Part III and IV
of this volume provide compelling evidence of the increasing popularity
of electronic portfolios as a powerful method of enhancing and assessing
student learning. Cambridge (2001) and her team of assisting editors
invite us "to read about the practices of individuals and institutions"
invested in electronic portfolios, imagining, as we study the various
cases and models in their volume, "what might be as we move
at ever more accelerating rates into new possibilities" (p.
viii) for using digital technology in portfolio development.
Browsing the American Association for Higher Education's searchable
database at the Electronic Portfolio Clearinghouse site (http://www.aahe.org/teaching/portfolio_db.
htm) reveals a number of institutional programs that use electronic
portfolios to foster students' reflection and to assess and evaluate
learning. The list includes colleges and universities as diverse
as Elmhurst and Messiah, Dartmouth, Kalamazoo, Indiana University,
Amsterdam Faculty of Education (Netherlands), GateWay Community
College, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and University of
Florida, among others. Clearly, for students and faculty increasingly
proficient in the ubiquitous technologies that have challenged and
redefined traditional pedagogies, reshaping K-12 and higher education
in our time, the electronic portfolio is an exciting and effective
tool for improving, assessing, and evaluating learning.
Defining the Electronic Portfolio
What exactly is an electronic portfolio? Answers vary as considerably
as they do in defining print portfolios because of the many purposes
for which portfolios are developed and the multiple technologies
available. Kaufman and Jafari (2002) of Cyberlab at Indiana University-Purdue
University Indianapolis surveyed an assortment of educators to gather
definitions, and the wide range of responses is available online.
One definition is offered by the Alphabet Superhighway, a K-12
initiative of the US Department of Education, a reminder that portfolios-even
the electronic varieties-have enjoyed considerable attention in
the grade schools. The definition, available online at http://www.ash.udel.edu/ash/teach/portfolio.html,
is just as applicable to college-level portfolios; its central message
is that electronic innovations enhance the virtue of portfolios
in representing a learning history.
ADVANTAGES OF ELECTRONIC PORTFOLIOS
The same site above also provides a useful set of advantages to
electronic portfolios, summarized in the following list:
* Electronic portfolios foster active learning.
* Electronic portfolios motivate students.
* Electronic portfolios are instruments of feedback.
* Electronic portfolios are instruments of discussion on student
performance.
* Electronic portfolios exhibit benchmark performance.
* Electronic portfolios are accessible.
* Electronic portfolios can store multiple media.
* Electronic portfolios are easy to upgrade.
* Electronic portfolios allow cross-referencing of student work.
Electronic media choices have introduced an array of strategies
for archiving, organizing, and reflecting on information about a
student's learning. Using hypertext links, for example, students
can present and explore multiple layers of accessible documentary
information in a way that reinforces the notion of learning as a
shared, interactive process, inviting both the portfolio author
and audience progressively deeper and wider into the constructed
process of learning. Also, because web portfolio projects, especially,
often make much or all of the student's work publicly accessible
online, the electronic portfolio heightens what Yancey (2001) calls
the "social action" and "interactivity" (p.
20) of learning. Sometimes, electronic portfolios are not posted
as web pages but presented instead on conventional floppy disk,
Zip disk, or CD-ROM (see Holt and McAllister in this volume). Such
mediums also facilitate the shared dimension of learning in a way
that is less cumberso!
me and more instant than hard-copy pages and folders.
DISADVANTAGES OF ELECTRONIC PORTFOLIOS
he versatility of electronic portfolios in providing a high-tech
means of collecting and storing information is intriguing but also
problematic because of the often daunting amount of training necessary,
the potentially confusing variety of hardware and software choices
available, and the dizzying pace at which technology evolves. Springfield
(2001), for example, mentions such barriers, commenting on problems
encountered with numerous products. Barrett (2000a) reviews the
advantages and limitations of common technologies for portfolio
building. Lankes (1995) also points out various approaches to digitizing
portfolios, referring to how some educators have had to develop
customized templates for easier implementation of portfolios for
assessment and career preparation.
Transferability of files from one type of computer program to another
is an additional worry. Barrett's (2000c) solution is to use Adobe
Acrobat PDF (Portable Document Format) files as the ideal medium
for electronic portfolio development because of its user-friendly
ability to cross many platforms and applications.
The National Education Association (2000-2001), taking into consideration
the potential hurdles in moving from print to digital portfolio
formats, issues the following cautions in its web site on portfolio
assessment:
Bits & Bytes Advice
Data in digit form can easily be cross-referenced, overlaid, and
analyzedŠIf you want to take advantage of technological tools
to create electronic portfolios, you should consider several factors,
however, before you make a change from a traditional system:
* Access. The hardware and software used to capture and store the
student portfolios must be accessible to both teacher and students.
If you computers, scanner, and printer are still down the hall in
the Computer Lab, this may not be the time to initiate electronic
portfolios.
* High-end Tools. Depending on the subject matter, you'll want
to be able to store multiple data sources (text, voice, video, image,
etc.). The capacity to store more than a single file format will
also give a more well-rounded representation of the student's work.
Therefore, you will need access to at least one high-end workstation
with scanner, OCR (optical character recognition) software, printer,
and perhaps digital camera.
* Space. Graphics and photographic images take up a great deal
more system storage than text does. Be sure that your school's system
can support large files without compromising other applications.
You many also want to develop a regular schedule of backing up files
and archiving outdated material to magnetic tape or CD-ROM storage
to avoid an unnecessary drain on your system or the loss of vital
material.
* Labor. Accumulating information for an electronic portfolio is
both labor-intensive and time-consuming. Although you may delegate
this task to each student as part of his or her role in compiling
a portfolio, always be careful to stay on top of the process.
* Administration. Before starting, determine how you will administer
the electronic portfolios. You ill want a database application that
establishes an area for each student, stores various file formats,
and allows for annotated comments appended to each item. You may
also want a tool with security features and password protection,
so that the privacy of portfolios cannot be compromised. You'll
also want to make sure that the interface (ease of use, appearance,
etc.) is "friendly" and appealing to both yourself and
your students.
* Hybrid Solutions. More often than not, portfolios are the composite
of evaluation techniques, including standardized testing, completed
assignments, original works, teacher comments, student reflections,
and peer reviews. You may not want-or be able-to capture all of
these products into the electronic portfolio, so you should try
to develop portfolio content on the basis of your identified goals
and the needs of your students.
The assessment portfolio-whether electronic or paper-based-is intended
to document student learning and progress, as well as allow students
to identify their own goals and accomplishments. Technology can
be a powerful tool in your use of the instrument. (pp. 1-2)
Young (2002) reports on several responses to such issues. One is
a consortium (http://www.eportconsortium.org)
formed by the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
and the University of California, Los Angeles to develop e-portfolio
software that, for an institutional membership fee, "will give
students and advisers tools to build portfolios" (Young, 20002,
p. A32). Another consortium is affiliated with the National Learning
Infrastructure Initiative of EDUCAUSE (http://www.educause.edu/nlii),
and it consists of institutions from several states-including California,
Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Washington-all attempting to make
the process of developing electronic portfolios more cost and labor
efficient with the positive outcome of enhanced student learning.
FUNDAMENTALS
The landscape of portfolio development has expanded astonishingly
with the advent of multimedia and hypermedia. Yet, though the mediums
have changed from print on paper to electronic hypertext, the fundamental
process of learning portfolio development remains steadfast. Cambridge
(2001) points out that reflection is central to learning, and the
reflective core of sound learning portfolios is what transforms
mere accumulated information to meaningful knowledge, an idea I
mentioned earlier. Yancey (2001) follows up with the assertion that
"electronic portfolios are created through the same basic processes
used for print portfolios: collection, selection, and reflection"
(p. 20).
In the interest of clarifying the deep purposes and value of creating
electronic portfolios and keeping a premium on meaningful reflection
and careful, strategic implementation, Yancey (2001) shares the
following heuristic, further developed in her text, for effective
design and creation of student electronic portfolios:
* What is/are the purpose/s?
* How familiar is the portfolio concept? Is the familiarity a plus
or a minus?
* Who wants to create an electronic portfolio, and why?
* Why electronic? What about electronic is central to the model?
And is sufficient infrastructure
(resources, knowledge, commitment) available for the electronic
portfolio?
* What processes are entailed? What resources are presumed?
* What faculty development component does the model assume or include?
* What skills will students need to develop?
* What curricular enhancement does the model assume or include?
* How will the portfolio be introduced?
* How will the portfolio be reviewed? (pp. 84-86)
Having reflected carefully on the issues raised in the heuristic,
one ca then proceed to more detailed questions of implementation
and use. Yancey (2001) follows with an expanded list of recommendations
for setting up an electronic portfolio program. Here is a summary
of her tips:
* Think rhetorically. Who is creating the portfolio and why? Who
is reading it and why?
* Consider how the electronic portfolio needs to be electronic.
How will it be interactive? What
relationships and connections does the digital form make possible?
* Consider how the portfolio will be interactive socially.
* Develop some key terms that you can associate with your model
of an e-portfolio, and use them
consistently.
* Be realistic about how long it will take to introduce the model
and the skills that faculty and
students will need.
* Be realistic about the difficulty that teachers may have in designing
reflective texts, that
students may experience in writing reflections, and that teachers
may have in responding to and
evaluating those reflections.
* Perhaps more than other innovative practices, the development
of e-portfolios calls for a collaborative process of development.
(pp. 86-87)
SELECTED RESOURCES
The amount of information on electronic portfolios available online
is staggering. A simple query on a standard Internet search engine
produces over a half-million sites, though not all are relevant
to higher education; many are K-12 projects, student samples, commercial
ventures, or simply inoperative links. Here are just a few that
may prove useful, listed alphabetically:
Albion College Digital Portfolio site with extensive information,
template, student samples: http://www.albion.edu/digitalportfolio
Alverno College Diagnostic Digital Portfolio. Password protected
information but brief details available: http://www.alverno.edu/academics/ddp.html
Helen Barrett's educational and entrepreneurial e-portfolio site
with many links to information, guidelines, resources: http://electronic
portfolios.com
California State University, Los Angeles, Webfolio Project with
information, student samples: http://www.calstatela.edu/academic/webfolio
"Creating an Electronic Portfolio" site includes links
to resources and rudimentary information on process, evaluation
rubric: http://cte.jhu.edu/techacademy/fellows/Spencer/webquest/lasindex.html
Dartmouth College electronic Career Services Portfolio site: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~csrc/portfolio/index.html
GateWay Community College, Maricopa, e-portfolio information: http://www.gwc.maricopa.edu/class/e-portfolio/index.html
Kalamazoo College portfolio page with extensive links to e-portfolio
information, student samples: http://www.kzoo.edu/pfolio/index.html
LaGuardia Community College's site with many links to information,
guidelines, resources, students samples: http://www.eportfolio.lagcc.cuny.edu
Ohio University e-portfolio site with extensive information, guidelines,
instructions: http://www.cob.ohiou.edu/~mgt300/esp/portfolio.htm
Seton Hall University samples of teacher education e-portfolios:
http://education.shu.edu/portfolios
St. Olaf College's Web Portfolios site with extensive information
about educational purposes, goals, guidelines, templates, models:
http://www.stolaf.edu/depts/cis/web_portfolios.htm
Stanford University Learning Laboratory E-Folio project site with
brief information about Stanford's prototype of "electronic
knowledge database": http://sll.stanford.edu/consulting/tools/efolio
Tidewater Community College, Donna Reiss's Webfolio Project with
templates, resources, students samples: http://www.wordsworth2.net/webfolio/index.htm
University of Florida e-portfolio information, templates, student
samples: http://www.coe.ufl.edu/school/portfolio
University of Pennsylvania e-portfolio site with information, guidelines,
content and design strategies, resources: http://www.upenn.edu/careerservices/college/electronic_portfolio.html
University of South Dakota Technology Literacy Center e-portfolio
site, offering guidelines, do's and don'ts, common problems: http://www.usd.edu/tlc/eportfolio
University of Virginia, Curry School of Education portfolio information
with links to student samples: http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/curry/class/edlf/589-07/sample.html
University of Wisconsin, Superior, e-portfolio information, guidelines,
with available manual in MS Word: http://www2.uwsuper.edu/assessment
Utah State University Digital Portfolio Project site with extensive
information, links to grade schools using e-portfolios, student
samples: http://myfolio.usu.edu
Valdosta State University e-portfolio page with links to PowerPoint
information, student samples: http://Chiron.valdosta.edu/coeadvising/professional_portfolio.
htm
Virginia Wesleyan College e-portfolio information, student samples:
http://www.vwc.edu/academics/portfolio/
Wesleyan University's site for electronic portfolios used for advisement:
http://portfolio2.wesleyan.edu/names.nsf?login
THE LINK TO LEARNING
According to Cambridge (2001), technology, as it turns out, is
"only one component of decision-making about the use of electronic
portfolios and...not the most crucial one" (p. 11). The real
link to promoting learning with portfolios, regardless of the technologies
pressed into service, is holding fast to the fundamentals. Discerning
the foundational value of portfolios underneath the technology,
Yancey (2001) puts it this way:
[M]ore generally, portfolios bring with them three key characteristics:
*They function as means of both review and planning.
*They are social in nature.
*They are grounded in reflection (p. 19).
The key elements of effective portfolio projects, then, as identified
in Chapter 3, remain the most salient issues in portfolio development:
*Reflection
*Evidence
*Collaboration and mentoring
Just as in teaching portfolios (Seldin, 1993, 1997), these three
dimensions are the most strongly determining factors in successful
use of learning portfolios, whether the format is print or electronic.
What all three components are present in the process of constructing,
reviewing, and revising the portfolio, student learning is richer,
more lasting, and more transformative. We will then have realized
the full, authentic value of the learning portfolio.
REFERENCES
Barrett, H. (2000a). Create your own electronic portfolio: Using
off-the-self software to showcase your own or student work. Learning
& Leading with Technology. Retrieved from http://www.electronicportfolios.com/portfolios/iste2k.html
Barrett, H. (2000c). Using Adobe Acrobat for electronic portfolio
development. Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education.
Retrieved from http://www.electronicportfolios.com/portfolios/sitepaper2001.html
Cambridge, B.L. (Ed.). (2001). Electronic portfolios: Emerging
practices in student, faculty, and institutional learning. Washington,
DC: American Association for Higher Education.
Kaufman, C., & Jafari, A. (2002, March 26). What is an electronic
portfolio? Retrieved from http://www.eportconsortium.org/old/whatis.aspx
Lankes, A. M. D. (1995). Electronic portfolios: A new idea in assessment.
Syracuse, NY: ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology.
(ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED3903777)
National Education Association. (2000-2001). Technology and portfolio
assessment. Retrieved from http://www.nea.org/bt/5-profession/5-3-nres.html
Springfield, E. (2001). A major redesign of the Kalamazoo portfolio.
In B. L. Cambridge (Ed.), Electronic portfolios: Emerging practices
in student, faculty, and institutional learning (pp. 53-59). Washington,
DC: American Association for Higher Education.
Yancey, K. B. (2001). Digitized student portfolios. In B. L. Cambridge
(Ed.), Electronic portfolios: Emerging practices in student, faculty,
and institutional learning (pp. 15-30). Washington, DC: American
Association for Higher Education.
Young, J. R. (2002, March 8). "E-portfolios" could give
students a new sense of their accomplishments. The Chronicle of
Higher Education, pp. A31-A32.
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