Electronic Portfolios

• Electronic Portfolio Template Menu
• Electronic Portfolios and Education Reform: Standards, Assessment, and Technology
• Creating Standards-Based Electronic Portfolios - Directions Based on California TPEs
• Creating Multimedia Portfolios
• National Educational Technology Standards Project - NETS by ISTE
• NETS and California Teacher Performance Expectations (TPE)
• California Technology Standards - Level One Standard 9 and Level Two Standard 15 (pdf)

Video Interview - Dr. Helen Barrett

View Video some of the video segments featuring Dr. Helen Barrett - University of Anchorage, Alaska.  She is "the Guru of Electronic Portfolios!"  Go through this Apple learning Interchange website on Electronic Portfolios.  http://ali.apple.com/ali_sites/ali/exhibits/1000156/  Play through the video sequences.  

Read this article: Electronic Portfolio = Multimedia Development + Portfolio Development: The Electronic Portfolio Development Process - http://electronicportfolios.com/portfolios/EPDevProcess.html   We won't be creating an extensive portfolio for this class.  However, I want you to develop the skills so you are able to begin to collect your artifacts.  These days, everything is digitizable - especially if you have a digital camera.  

Optional articles on alternative, authentic, and portfolio assessment.

• Alternative Assessment and Technology - http://www.ericdigests.org/1994/technology.htm
• Electronic Portfolios: A New Idea in Assessment - http://www.ericdigests.org/1996-3/idea.htm
• Helen Barrett on Electronic Portfolios - http://transition.alaska.edu/www/portfolios/LLTOct98.html

Why develop electronic portfolios?

From Carla Piper's Electronic Web Dissertation - http://www.soundpiper.com/EPWeb

Bennett and Hawkins (1993) discussed the use of technology as having "unique capabilities that would make crucial contributions to the creation of workable and meaningful forms of alternative assessment." They stated that computers and video records offered potential for collecting and storing records of students’ work. Lankes (1995) discussed the use of computer technology as a "likely solution" to the problem of creating, managing, and storing portfolios. Electronic or computer-based portfolios were considered similar to traditional paper portfolios, but information was collected, stored, and managed electronically with computerized text, graphics, sound, and video. Lankes (1995) stated that computer-based portfolios provided authentic demonstrations of accomplishments and motivated students to take responsibility for their own work.

Sheingold and Frederiksen (1994) stated that technology could provide "the media through which students and teachers can have conversations that lead to shared understandings of the values and standards for student performance" (p. 112). Technology could help link assessment with reform by providing the following functions: support for student work in extended, authentic learning activities; portable, accessible and replayable copies of performances in multiple media; libraries of examples and interpretive tools; greater participation in the assessment process; and publication of works recognizing student accomplishments (p. 121). Technology could provide evidence of assessment beyond products that are text-based or activities that require the physical presence of the evaluator. Student work could be captured and preserved using interactive multimedia formats that integrate many forms of information on one computer disk (p. 122).

Technology could ultimately eliminate the need for physically transporting bulky paper portfolios, however Sheingold and Frederiksen emphasized that these performances must be "easily accessible to all parties" (p. 122). Schools must have appropriate recording technologies that are accessible and understandable to all potential users and group viewing systems that allow for the social activity of interpreting performances (p. 123). Through technology, different evaluators would not have to rely on varied recollections long after the actual performance. They could observe an assessment activity repeatedly and focus on interpretation (p. 123). The issue of ownership of the work produced by students would be solved by computer and video technologies because more than one copy of the work could exist (Sheingold & Frederickson, p. 124). The collaborative group approach to evaluation was recommended as a means of interpreting and scoring performances, but an exemplar library of positive and negative examples and rationales should be included to guide assessment (p. 126).

Barrett (1998a) supported the use of portfolios for authentic assessment of student learning. She believed portfolio-based assessment was one of the most exciting developments in the school reform movement. She proposed that standards provide the basis for portfolio organization:

An electronic portfolio without clear links to standards is just a multimedia presentation or a fancy electronic resume or digital scrapbook. Without standards as the organizing basis for a portfolio, the collection becomes just that…a collection, haphazard and without structure; the purpose is lost in the noise, glitz and hype. High technology disconnected from a focus on curriculum standards will only exacerbate the lack of meaningful integration of technology to improve teaching and learning. (1998, Tel-Ed Abstract)

1. Documents are generally created with a computer anyway.
2. Hypertext links allow clear connections between standards and portfolio artifacts.
3. Creating an electronic portfolio can develop skills in using multimedia technologies.
4. If teachers develop electronic portfolios, students may be more likely to do the same.
5. Electronic portfolios are fun and it is easier to manage the process, especially storage, presentation, and duplication.
6. Electronic portfolios make student work replayable, portable, examinable, reviewable, and widely distributable. (1998b, 1999)