Julia Hengstler

Since I'm working with this as a first run implementation I can give you my projections:

The retention of artifacts created by students is required to demonstrate their attainment of standards to enter the teaching profession in BC. So in our case there is a driver that cannot be ignored. Electronic creation & archiving is the obvious choice for long term solutions in this situation. I believe re. our tool choice--Mahara--we have the flexibility for the students to provide what we need for reporting out, for developing a capstone portfolio to reflect & celebrate their accomplishments as well as morph it into something they can use to get a job. I think the "sell" would be more difficult without platform flexibility to meet the institutional & individual needs.

Re. faculty buy-in--as previously stated we must have this electronic portfolio and it must be built through our programs and classes. Faculty have a range of comfort learning new technologies--so I imagine a phase-in approach with early adoption driven by those who are passionate about technology and/or eportfolios will be the route. The need to tag content with course data (e.g. course codes) may create some interesting potential issues re. assessment of courses & instructors via eportfolio content--or not. One of the challenging aspects of working in post-secondary education, unlike the business sector--or even K-12 in BC, is that we can't take a day or 1/2 day and say "OK, today everyone in our department will learn the basics of how to work the eportfolio system." Even in K-12, the administration had control of a school based day--and could set the agenda.

It's also challenging for a school or department to look at each instructor contributing to the overall graduation/skill set of a student through each assignment. I think eportfolios, in the teacher credentialing area, can develop a more systemic perspective re. assignments then previously. Not just how does this assignment help students pass this course--how would it evidence that this student is now more ready to be a teacher--ready to be a credentialed teacher? At the same time, this could be a great asset to program development--helping align all that is done with the ultimate objectives of a program.

What I like most is for students to compare their earlier content with their exit content: here is where I was and look how far I've come. These are not necessarily what students want to present for employment or credentialing--or even a capstone, but for me, this type of portfolio is the true measure of their growth. Not just stating, "I used to believe x" but the passionate novice statement in all it's fervor & naivete compared with the voice of greater knowledge & experience--or the "I can't do that" compared with "Look what I can do..."

Sorry, I'm not there this week--working in the office on several roll-outs. My colleague, Mary O'Neill is there, though, I think. If you don't connect with her, just email me directly Julia.Hengstler@viu.ca.

We need to hammer out what we need to see from our various perspectives--capstone, ASR (Attainment of Standards Reports for BC College of Teachers)--that will drive the Mahara view templates. Do you have experience with using Groups vs. Communities? Maybe we could create a Mahara thread.

I'm from the Vancouver Island University Faculty of Education and we are working to integrate our eportfolio thread across the programs as embedded elements.

Eportfolios are used as "capstones" for program completion--built across the students' time in the specific program. We also use them for meeting the Attainment of Standards Reporting required by BC College of teachers. So from that aspect, it's a credentialing portfolio as well.

We have been searching for a tool to support this multiple use of eportfolios--development via course work throughout programs, integrating that work for presentation as a capstone and credentialing. This year we will be doing a pilot project with Mahara. The beauty of this system is its flexibility that will also allow students to create "employment", "research", etc. portfolios that can be shared publicly, with individuals, or anywhere in between. We also have the need to export and archive data for BC College of Teachers--which this system does well.

I am an Educational Technologist & Instructor in the faculty with a multifaceted roll of supporting the back-end administration, working with faculty to develop templates (our Special Education Master's program will also be using eportfolios this fall), training students and faculty on the system and liaising with our other IT-type departments to support this project.

Hi. Just joined & am looking forward to this. I am an Educational Technologist & Instructor in the Faculty of Education @ Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, BC. I'm very interested in what you will have to say. I think this is a very important topic myself and luckily my Dean has supported my work. I have developed a set of presentations on Digital Footprints for grade 6-7, high school, year 3-4 university, teachers in service & university faculty. I'm currently developing another for parents--because "turn off the computer" is not a sufficient response for students experiencing cyberbullying.
In my view, one of the biggest hurdles that inhibits people from understanding the issues of digital footprints in the Web 2.0 world is that they don't really understand the underlying mechanics of how their information is distributed across various networks, and its persistence in those other places even after the person's original post may be deleted.

Looking forward to hearing you and everyone else who participates,
Julia

I think that portfolio assessments--good ones--will also require high caliber faculty who stay current with their field. When we open up what can be in the portfolio, it becomes more challenging work to assess. It's easy to assess what fits tightly with your course outline and assigned activities--not so easy with the other stuff.