Multi-Dimensional Evidence Provided with ePortfolios

Rhodes, Terrel L. (2011). Making Learning Visible and Meaningful Through Electronic Portfolios.  Change 43 (1), 6-13.

Making Learning Visible and Meaningful Through Electronic Portfolios

I highly recommend this article especially for those interested in institutional assessment. The author shares great points and excellent examples.

Prior to the development of electronic portfolios, art and design students were already building collections of work to display their skills and accomplishments. Now that technology has made this process easier, it has spread to other fields. (The author points out teacher education as the most prominent and anyone following my annotated bibliography shouldn’t be surprised by that.)

An interesting statistic in this article states that forty percent of college campuses report using student e-portfolios. That number includes all campuses from public and private to research, liberal arts, and community colleges.  Perhaps more relevant to my research, the author references a 2008 survey conducted by Peter S. Hart Research Associates. The survey asked employers what evidence of student learning they would like to see when hiring college graduates. Thirty-five percent wanted to see student work in e-portfolios.

An e-portfolio has the ability to demonstrate what is learned both inside and outside the classroom and the development of the e-portfolio requires reflection, which in itself is a learning process. The most successful examples of institutions using e-portfolio consider the students to be the owners. The students are then able to decide how to use their e-portfolios beyond a course or program. When employers want to see examples of students applying their knowledge and addressing problems, an e-portfolio can provide multi-dimensional evidence that integrates life and academic experience.

“Resumes are good. Are electronic portfolios better?”

Rowh, Mark. (2008). Building an e-Portfolio. Career World 37 (3), 26-28.

Building an e-Portfolio

For this article, Mark Rowh interviewed college students seeking internships and employment opportunities.  He explains how e-Portfolios go further than traditional resumes by displaying information through more than one medium, but differ from social networking sites due to the targeted audience of employers and other professionals. This is not Facebook. 

He notes that electronic portfolios are ideal for artists, designers, and other creative individuals, but unlike many other resources that I’ve read through, he acknowledges that “almost anyone” can use an e-portfolio, including high school and college students. His idea of using e-portfolios is not limited to any particular field. He can envision the experiences of a camp counselor or a student’s science fair project displayed in an e-portfolio.

The students interviewed in this article had various reasons for using e-portfolios.  A writing and public relations student didn’t feel that a resume could do justice to his experience.  An architecture major wanted to share her work samples with employers far away from her current location and yet another graduate was simply looking for something to grab attention.  The plan worked for all three students.

The author recommends a few online portfolio hosting sites:

• Coroflot
• Carbonmade
• VisualCV

Lifetime Electronic Portfolios?

Cohn, Ellen & Hibbits, Bernard. “Beyond the Electronic Portfolio: A Lifetime Personal Web Space.” Educause Quarterly 27.4 (2004).  Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/apps/eq/eqm04/eqm0441.asp

Beyond the Electronic Portfolio: A Lifetime Personal Web Space

This is an interesting viewpoint from Educause Review and I hope you will check it out.  The authors ask some very important questions and I’d like to hear your answers.

The article is more or less describing a dream (I believe the authors called it a wish) of moving beyond the limits of an e-portfolio model by providing a personal Web space for everyone for their lifetime.  A lifetime personal Web space?  Think of the possibilities!  This article was published in 2004, so my interest is whether or not e-portfolios have advanced enough in the past eight years to make these dreams a reality. 

I think we’re getting there or at least moving in the right direction.

The authors of this article note that new graduates can use e-portfolios to showcase their accomplishments and gain an edge in the job market.  Along those same lines, career centers in universities can use e-portfolios to link academic outcomes to the workplace.  This all leads to many questions for the authors.  Will students bringing electronic portfolios to job interviews be more competitive than students with paper-based portfolios?  Is a glorified resume the best possible result for this technology?

As I watch the integration of e-portfolios with workforce development efforts, it is now time to look at the value in business and industry development.  What is the impact of electronic portfolios in hiring practices?  I started the next phase of my research this week by distributing a survey to human resource professionals, career counselors, and workforce development representatives.  It’s time to find some answers to these questions and I’m happy to take you on this journey with me.  Stay tuned!

"ePerforming" with ePortfolios

Ramirez, K. (2011). ePerformance: Crafting, Rehearsing, and Presenting the ePortfolio Persona. International Journal of ePortfolio, 1 (1), 1-9.

 ePerformance:  Crafting, Rehearsing, and Presenting the ePortfolio Persona

This essay looks at ePerformance as the act of students creating, rehearsing, and presenting themselves to various audiences using ePortfolios. The author describes ePortfolios as a performance space and examines the comparisons to live theatre. 

Through this reading, I see that the idea of ePerformance is well discussed in regards to ePortfolios, but this is the first time that I’ve considered the perspective of viewing and interacting with an ePortfolio as a live performance. 

When the author focuses on the process of reflecting, rehearsing, and presenting an ePortfolio, she discusses the importance of defining the audience. Not only can ePortfolios support real-time exchanges with chatrooms, blogs, and social networking, but also asynchronous interactions that expand the size and variation of the audience. Asynchronous interactions promote richer reflections, which result in more informed and thought-provoking exchanges. In a sense, students are able to perform and reflect on their performance at the same time.

ePortfolios have created an audience for students and knowing that others may view, evaluate, or use their work motivates them to create a higher quality performance. The interactive capabilities also remind students that we all perceive as many performances as we give in everyday life.

The author finds the power of ePortfolios in the ability to function as a rehearsal and presentation space which “facilitates a process of making learning visible” (3).

Current electronic portfolio software offers many tools for users to display (and demonstrate) their experience in an ePerformance. The technology offered through eFolioMinnesota includes text, photos, videos, hyperlinks, documents, feedback, and web-based sharing tools.      

Are we emphasizing content or technology? Which is correct?

Eliot, M., Kilgore, D., Mobrand, K., Sattler, B., and Turns, J. (2012). Preparedness Portfolios and Portfolio Studios. International Journal of ePortfolio, 2 (1), 1-13.

Preparedness Portfolios and Portfolio Studios

This article starts with the flexibility and innovation of electronic portfolios in education, but what really caught my attention was the fact that this work focuses on engineering students developing ePortfolios.  The authors even acknowledged that, as a discipline, engineering has not traditionally been connected to ePortfolios.  The paper also looks at the idea of portfolio studios.  What is a portfolio studio?  According to the authors, it is “a structure for supporting students in their efforts to construct their ePortfolios” (1).  More on this later…

The authors chose to emphasize ePortfolio content, not technology in this research project.  As an example of other projects, they mentioned the statewide exploration of a single ePortfolio system in Minnesota.  Due to its large-scale deployment, it was necessary to focus on technology.  The authors, however, state that the need to learn ePortfolio technology can interfere with other benefits of developing an ePortfolio.  For this reason, they chose to use simple website authoring tools (similar to the public tools provided by Google Sites) and focus on ePortfolio content in this project.

One thing that I really like about this article is the use of argumentation in regards to the content and function of ePortfolios.  They view ePortfolios as a tool for making claims and then providing evidence to support the claims.  In this project, a professional statement typically created the home page and annotated artifacts became additional pages.  I often ask students and jobseekers to think of how their cover letters address job postings.  Yes, I have that skill.  Yes, I meet the qualifications.  I want an ePortfolio to go beyond that and actually show me their abilities.  So you’re certified to operate that piece of equipment?  Give me a video demonstration to prove it.

Back to the portfolio studios…  The authors conducted three studies experimenting with the support provided to students.  The first study had two in-class brainstorming sessions and a grading rubric.  The second study had four sessions, which included peer review, and the third study had five sessions with the same features, but also included an opportunity for practice presentations.  They found the five-session portfolio studio as the most advantageous and offered a detailed description for the structure of each session.

Session 1:  Introduction to ePortfolio
Session 2:  Share experiences and brainstorm
Session 3:  Facilitator and peer review
Session 4:  Peer review
Session 5:  Presentations

I will admit that my training sessions dedicate a significant amount of time to learning the technology while the researchers in this project did not have to allocate much time for such issues.  While I try to emphasize content, my training sessions are very focused on technology.  Perhaps this research can help me find a similar balance.  In the conclusion, it is briefly mentioned that they now offer portfolio studios as one-credit seminars.  I hope to learn more about the implementation of such a concept. 

Teacher Preparation Through ePortfolios

Cross, J. (2012). From the Reflective ePractitioner: A Pilot Model of Teacher Preparation Employing ePortfolio. International Journal of ePortfolio, 2 (1), 39-48.

From the Reflective ePractitioner: A Pilot Model of Teacher Preparation Employing ePortfolio

This project looks at the concern that new technology is moving at a pace where students may be more competent than teachers in the use of new media. Overseas trained teachers were introduced to the process of creating a reflective, professional ePortfolio in English to familiarize themselves with new technology while honing their language skills. The ePortfolios required a career objective, a two-page curriculum vitae, a generic cover letter, a detailed lesson plan, reflections on the ePortfolio process, and a critique of a work experience. 

While the majority of students chose to prepare for the Professional English Assessment for Teachers (PEAT) through a test-focused form of study, four out of more than forty completed a full-time course in Career Development. They developed career prospects by preparing for the PEAT through a learning process of using emerging technologies. The course embedded a reflective ePortfolio project.

This group became part of the reflective ePortfolio project focused on project development, career evaluation, sustainability, and emerging technologies in an accredited Certificate IV Course in Career Development. 

For the students in this project, their preparation for the PEAT was supported by recording their learning in an ePortfolio that was accessible, flexible, and portable. Since the project, enrollments and completions have increased in the full-time Career Development ePortfolio option. 

Note that Mahara was the open source ePortfolio platform used in this project. Cross acknowledged that learning about new software such as Mahara also increased awareness of related social networking applications used by students. 

Digital Portfolios in Smaller Institutions

Willis, L., & Wilkie, L. (2009). Digital career portfolios:  Expanding institutional opportunities.  Journal of Employment Counseling, 46, 73-81.

Digital career portfolios:  Expanding institutional opportunities

In this article, the authors discuss the recent trend that digital portfolios are replacing paper-based resumes, cover letters, and portfolios and the perception that e-portfolios may promote career development.  Digital portfolios allow students to be more creative and transfer their experiences into “interactive, meaningful displays of performance” (74).  Digital portfolios can even link coursework, program goals, and institutional outcomes. 

Some larger universities with well-funded portfolio projects:

• Florida State University (http://www.career.fsu.edu/portfolio/index.html)
• University of California at San Diego (http://career.ucsd.edu/sa/portfolio.shtml)
• Penn State University (http://portfolio.psu.edu/)

This article examines a smaller institution without the funding, administrative support, or technical support available to large-scale projects and discusses how similar institutions can provide the same opportunities to students.

To develop a digital portfolio program for technology support majors, a department committee set goals for “the development of formative and summative portfolio assessment tools, a Web portal and portfolio template, and a plan to help students understand the interconnections between individual courses and the technology support curriculum as a whole” (75). 

The institution created a Web portal with a main page linked to secondary pages to provide an introduction and information on expectations for students during the portfolio development process.  They also developed a template to provide guidance for students and consistency for faculty.  Eleven standards were integrated in the program along with a list of core courses and competencies.  A personal/informational page was also included in the Web portal to address potential employers with video clips and multimedia to display accomplishments.   

Next, the department committee developed a standardized rubric to function as an assessment tool for all student portfolios because they thought a less-structured approach would allow students to express their creativity throughout the process.  Students would receive an updated rubric at each advising session and a summative portfolio evaluation by a faculty panel during their final academic year. 

The project was introduced as a pilot test in a senior seminar class.  It was received favorably by faculty and students.  According to the authors, e-portfolios provided students with “applied, real-world career connections” (78).  The final phase of implementation was introducing the project to incoming freshmen through the initial core course.  Faculty members serve as advisers and upperclassmen serve as peer mentors throughout the digital portfolio development process.

• The authors provide a list of factors to consider for smaller institutions:Space, Storage Cost, and Technical Support
• They used underutilized server space and the technical skills of senior students.  Upon graduation, students transferred their portfolios to CD-ROMs or DVDs to release server space.

• Design Issues and E-Portfolio Creation
• Students need initial training on Web editing, design, and software programs.
• A template should be available to maintain consistency.
• Students need access to multimedia software products.
• Consider open source development initiatives like this one:  University of Minnesota at Duluth (http://eportfolio.d.umn.edu/)

In conclusion, this project discovered that digital portfolios “enhance a student’s understanding of career development guidelines” in the following areas:  personal, educational and career goal assessment; educational achievement and lifelong learning; decision-making processes in career development; and the assessment of academic, occupational, and employability skills (79).