E-Portfolios

This discussion offers you the opportunity to develop materials for your e-portfolio. Our session on e-portfolios involves the following:

Readings
http://www.pt3.org/stories/eportfolio.html - "Kick It Up A Notch: Taking Professional Portfolios from Black-and-White to 3-D Color"

This is a short article on the U.S. Dept. of Education's PT3 (Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology) website. After you read this article, please think about the type of portfolio you're interested in constructing: formative (supports ongoing professional development), summative (for formal evaluation process), marketing (for seeking employment), or an amalgam of all of the above.
http://gwu.edu/~btunca/e-portfolios/stages.htm - "Electronic Portfolio Development"
This page sets up a helpful progression for developing an e-portfolio. You'll also find a link to a checklist, which is taken from a 1994 publication. While the checklist is helpful in prompting you to think about what kinds of items to collect for your portfolio, keep in mind that the checklist is geared towards a print or binder version.
thumper.valdosta.edu/msed2000/e-portfolios.htm - "Introduction to E-Portfolios"
This short introduction on an education course website at Valdosta State University demonstrates how building an e-portfolio is becoming an integral part of a degree in education. You'll notice a link to "E-Portfolio Guide" at the top of the page, and if you click on that link, you'll see that students at Valdosta already have templates in FrontPage 2000 for building their portfolios (you won't be able to access these templates). UMBC is in the process of building a similar service. The Valdosta page also offers you links to example portfolios, which we'll look at when we address "Example Portfolios" (see next section).
p3t3.soe.purdue.edu/portfolio.htm - "e-Portfolios"
Purdue's P3T3 site (Purdue Program for Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to use Technology) offers a quick description of e-portfolios. Like the Valdosta page, you'll find a link to the Purdue Electronic Porfolio system set up only for Purdue students. The download link to the student guide (a .pdf file) is specific to the Purdue system and guides students through the process of entering and updating artifacts to their e-portfolios. It's only worth reviewing this file if you'd like a preview of the UMBC system, which will function in a similar manner (I think...). You'll also find "Portfolio Links," which include helpful resources.
http://electronicportfolios.com/portfolios/EPDevProcess.html#eval - "Evaluating the Electronic Portfolio"
This helpful rubric for evaluating portfolios is part of Helen Barrett's page called "Electronic Portfolios = Multimedia Development + Portfolio Development: The Electronic Portfolio Development Process." Barrett's website offers tons of information, including tips on technology tools for building e-portfolios.

Example Portfolios
www.geocities.com/dhendry26/pdindexm.html - "Donna Hendry - Professional Development Portfolio"

Hendry's portfolio exemplifies a polished piece of work. Hendry leads Tapped In's After School Online monthly tech discussion and had one session on e-portfolios in which she offered her portfolio for discussion. We talked about the use of frames on her site, and although Hendry normally doesn't use frames, she thought they would be helpful for her portfolio. What do you think? Pay close attention to the amount of material and its presentation under the headings of Sample Unit Outline, Sample Lesson Plans, Student Work Samples, and Classroom Resources Created.


http://durak.org/kathy/portfolio - "Kathleen Fischer's Portfolio"
I found this portfolio linked from Electronic Teaching Portfolios, a course offered through The Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. I was hoping to point you to the collection of sample portfolio there; unfortunately, most of the links don't work.
coe.valdosta.edu/coeii/portfolios/Default.asp - "College of Education Student Portfolios"
Valdosta State's College of Education offers this goldmine of example portfolios. At this page, you'll find a yellow box to the right with some pull-down menus and the title "View Student Portfolios Here By Major." You can then choose to see portfolios that are "In Progress" or of "Student Teachers," "Graduates," "Alumni." Your choice of majors includes a variety of instutions and subjects. Once you choose your two selection criteria and hit the submit button, you'll see a box with a number of links to portfolios, which have been selected as "Faculty Chosen Outstanding Portfolios." Please spend some time browsing these portfolios and identify one or two you find particularly inspiring.

Your Portfolio
1. Decide on your audience and the purpose of your portfolio. Your decision will most likely be based on where you are in your teaching career. If you'll be looking for full-time work soon, your portfolio needs to function more as a marketing tool (refer back to our first reading selection above - portfolios can be formative, summative, marketing - or a mixture).
2. Decide on the separate items or sections that will make up your portfolio. Look at the following list taken from the PT3 website:

Remember, this is a work in progress subject to revision. All you need to do here is to sketch out what you want your portfolio to contain. ***POST YOUR ANSWERS TO STEPS 1 & 2 TO THE CLASS EMAIL LIST BY 11 APRIL, NOON***
3. Identify which items you would most like help developing and refining. This will vary from person to person. For example, let's say you've been teaching for a couple years and can't stand your current resume. Choose to focus on your resume. Or, let's say you're student teaching and you haven't yet developed lesson plans. Choose to develop a lesson plan. Or perhaps you've yet to define your teaching philosophy. Choose to work on a draft. Let's say you have collections of student work you'd like to showcase. Focus there.
4. Of the items you've identified in step 3, choose 1 or 2 of the most crucial ones. Develop/revise/produce the items and bring them into class for feedback. Certain items will take more time to prepare than others, so decide what's most important to get feedback on and what you can get done in the time you have scheduled. For instance, if you're the veteran teacher with the resume you hate, take some time to carefully revise your resume and sketch out how it would appear in an electronic version. What hyperlinks would you include? Will you have a photo? Where does the resume go on your e-portfolio? If you're the student teacher building a lesson plan, perhaps you want to show prospective employers that you're tech-savvy and know how to motivate students, so you decide to build a social studies lesson plan that addresses the restoration of the original U.S. flag and uses the Smithsonian Institute website. Construct the lesson plan and determine how you would showcase the lesson plan in your portfolio. In order to get feedback from your peers, you don't have to have the lesson plan online (although that would be lovely); you just have to bring in the lesson plan for feedback. If you're the person who hasn't yet written a statement of teaching philosophy, work hard on a draft that you can share with others. If you're working on showcasing your own students' work, develop a plan for what you'll show, how you'll reproduce it electronically, how you'll incorporate the work into your portfolio - where exactly does it go?

No matter what you produce for class, expect that feedback will help you to revise your product.

TO SUMMARIZE: ***POST TO CLASS EMAIL LIST BY 11 APRIL, NOON*** a sketch/plan/outline of your portfolio that includes audience and purpose of portfolio, and list of items to be included ***BRING TO CLASS ON 25 APRIL*** - bring 1-2 items for collaborative critique - remember to bring copies for others (we've got 11 people in this class including instructor).

first published: 5 april 2002
last revised: 5 april 2002
webspinner: s.d.shattuck



educ603 home educ791c homeengl648 home