Models of Reflection

At the closing session of the EIFEL Conference, we had an interesting discussion on reflection. I discovered two more models of reflection:
Gibbs Model of Reflection

Peter Pappas' Taxonomy of Reflection, based on the revised Bloom's Taxonomy. This blog entry includes more detailed scaffolding of reflection for students, for teachers, and for principals.

Keynote at EIFeL 2010

I am at my eighth European ePortfolio Conference, this year in London. Below are my slides for my keynote presentation.

Eifel2010

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It is fascinating for me to see the many presentations at this conference from the health care field and from other countries, including Japan and Australia. The interest in ePortfolios is truly becoming worldwide. The first keynote of the morning was from the health care field, and the last presentation was about 21st Century Skills. There weren't many participants from K-12, though.

ISTE 2010 Presentation

ISTE 2010

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I just did my presentation at ISTE 2010 today. It was scheduled to start at 12:30, and I went to the room at noon, walking past a long line (wasn't sure what they were waiting for). It turns out, they were waiting for my session! The room was full at 12:15 and they closed the door, so I spent the first 10 minutes just fielding questions. Then I did my presentation during the normal time (slides above). I forgot to audio record it, but the slides pretty much cover the content. I incorporated a lot of the content of my TEDxASB talk.

I would love some feedback from the participants.

Google Announcements

Google announced today at ISTE 2010 two more states, Colorado and Iowa, are joining Oregon to make GoogleApps available to all schools. In my opinion, soon schools in these states will have a ready-made environment to support e-portfolio development using this rich toolset.

Google also announced a set of training solutions for schools through a new online Google Apps Education Training Center.  They also announced a new Google Apps for Education Certified Trainer and Partner program to "provide a formal structure for certifying individuals and partners who lead workshops or trainings about Apps, and provides schools with an easy way to find the best partners in their area."

iPhone ePortfolios?

From a listserv post by Trent Batson, founder of AAEEBL, a professional organization supporting electronic portfolios primarily in higher education:

See this URL: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/eportfolio-for-iphone/id361277520?mt=8
From the person, Paul Treuer who was IP owner for the first OSP code set which is now -- a few new code sets later -- part of Sakai.

My response:
The UMN software only uploads pictures to a UMN portfolio, so far, although a comment in iTunes said, "Soon to follow, I've heard a voice recognition-to-text feature will allow you to dictate into your ePortfolio. How cool is that!" I agree. It would be powerful to be able to reflect by voice, and have it go directly into my reflective journal/blog. I can do that using Dragon Dictate in my iPhone and send the text online by email.

There are several other portfolio tools in the iTunes store. PebblePad has an iphone app. Also an app for physicians in U.K. for "Effortless recording of learning and reflection and access to reference materials." Right now, it is only by typing, but these are a start!

There is also a WordPress App. I just can't really edit my GoogleDocs artifacts or my Google Sites portfolio from my iPhone/iPad, and I can only blog by email. But, it's beginning to happen! Anyone have other examples?

Sent from my iPad

EduBloggerCon at ISTE10

I made it back to another EduBloggerCon prior to ISTE 2010 in Denver. It is very important for me to listen to teachers who are working with K-12 students and implementing Web 2.0 tools, although these were very advanced users! Lots of discussion of the iPad, and quite a few of them in the room. I took both my iPad and my laptop to the workshop, because I wasn't sure which one I would want to use. During the Smackdown (showcase of new Web 2.0 tools), I ended up using my laptop. Also, editing my Google Site... not possible with the iPad.

There were several sessions on the iPad: one led by a teacher who was really pro-iPad, another led by Scott McLeod, who brought up some serious questions about the trade-offs between consumption of data vs. production capabilities of the iPad. Lots of great discussion, documented in tweets using #ebc10ipad tag. No conclusions, because it is too soon, but some schools may be ready to replace laptops/netbooks with iPads, perhaps a premature decision. I said to wait until the Android tablets come out, and then compare the capabilities. I can still do more production on a laptop/netbook than my iPad. But there are advantages with battery life and instant on. Some educators are also impressed with the engagement of young students with reading on the iPad.

There were also good discussions on blogging with students, including Blogs as Web-Based Portfolios (PDF) from Jeff Utecht, International School of Bangkok. I also figured out how to organize my apps on my iPhone with iOS4, and touched an iPhone4. I'm trying to figure out when I will be home long enough this summer to buy mine. I want multitasking and iMovie for iPhone! (After updating my iPhone 3G to iOS4, it seems to run slower.) Dinner out with some teachers and more great discussion! Great Day!

Barcelona Beginnings

Today, I began a 2.5 day ePortfolios with GoogleApps workshop with secondary teachers at Colegio Montserrat in Barcelona, Spain. To help me adjust to jet lag, we started today's workshop at 3 PM. For the next two days, we will start at 9 AM.

Today, we started with a version of the presentation that I did at Castilleja School in Palo Alto two weeks ago, but because I only had a half day in that workshop and here I have 2.5 days, I only covered part of the presentation today...  I was conscious that I was being simultaneously translated, so I slowed down my pace. After our coffee break, all the participants logged in to their brand new Google Apps Education domain and I introduced many of the teachers to GoogleDocs for the first time. They wrote up a few notes about what they learned from my presentation, and then I showed them how to share their document with a partner. Their assignment before tomorrow: upload some of their professional teaching documents into GoogleDocs to build their digital archive. I discovered that now GoogleDocs will convert .docx and .xlsx files from MS Office 2007+, but not .pptx. You are still able to upload those newest Powerpoint file types, but they were saved in the original format, not converted to GoogleDocs.

I thought it was a pretty successful short first day. Tomorrow we will begin to use Google Sites to build their professional teaching portfolios. All of the teachers have laptops (mostly Windows Vista) and the secondary students will have netbooks next year. For the school this is the ideal time to convert their existing student Powerpoint portfolios into an online format. The school received training from my colleague Evangeline Harris Stefanakis several years ago, so they have a good grounding in portfolio theory. Tomorrow, I will be sharing strategies for developing Interactive Portfolios using GoogleApps. It was good to start with GoogleDocs today, since it follows my three-level process, beginning with a collection of digital documents. (A version of a journal article discussing this 3-level process was just published in English in a Portuguese Educom journal in PDF.)

Working in two languages is interesting... slows me down and simplifies my vocabulary. The translator told me I was doing fine. Reminds me of the workshop I did in Japan over 3 years ago... the first time I used GoogleDocs to develop ePortfolios. Since that time, I have seen major changes to GoogleApps, into a very rich toolset for developing student-centered ePortfolios, especially in schools and colleges adopting GoogleApps Education Edition for GMail. I can hardly wait until Google releases additional tools inside all versions of GoogleApps. I am hoping that Picasa, Reader and Blogger are available by September; I am also hoping that a protected version of YouTube will also be available soon, since video storage is a major issue in schools. Through the GoogleApps Marketplace, there are other great add-ons inside GoogleApps, some of them free, such as the Aviary Tools for image editing, voice recording and music creation. I wonder if Aviary is also working on a video editing tool? That would almost complete the toolset!

Part 2 of the workshop tomorrow. Should I introduce these teachers to digital stories in ePortfolios? I'm told they all know MovieMaker. Hmmm... Erin, my workshop assistant/daughter, isn't with me. I'll have to ask them tomorrow after we get through Google Sites. I'm not sure I can handle more than 20 teachers doing digital stories, while I am fighting jet lag! Stay tuned!

UPDATE: I introduced them to Digital Storytelling for two hours in the late afternoon, using my hands-on activity using seven images and a single audio file. They were excited to explore further on their own! On the last day, we explored more on reflection and feedback, and I introduced them to ietherpad. Then they used that tool to begin writing a vision statement for ePortfolios in their school.

Fruits of my Work

Today, I received the following email from Scot Hoffman, a teacher I worked with in Mumbai:

... I’ve been reading your blog and can see that holding space for a ePortfolio to be a student owned space is becoming important to define.  We had a great year with the ePortfolios.  They were so successful that we couldn’t really get away from them all year.  We ended up the year showing 35 teachers how to start their own professional portfolios.  I’ve also been busy with a Master’s Program through Boston University.  Hopefully my involvement in the program will give me opportunities to continue to build my practices and maybe even do some research to find out their effect.  Here is a blog post on Shabbi’s new blog that I wrote about ePortfolios.  Shabbi’s new blog is going to be worth following. I suppose that you’re probably the last person in the world who could get anything from it, but I did want to share it with you as a fruit of your work with us.  http://paradigmshift21.edublogs.org/2010/06/16/eportfolios-a-thread-through-the-21st-century/ 

...it seems like you’re continuing to gain momentum, reach, and foment in pursuit of giving students the keys to their futures.

I was very impressed with the work of the 3rd Grade Teachers at ASB in Mumbai. As you can see by this posting, they are preparing their students for the future in very profound ways using ePortfolios. They will be the third grade/primary case study in my book.

Japanese & Portuguese version

I just received a copy of the Japanese translation of my Balancing the Two Faces of ePortfolios diagram.

Translated by Junko NEMOTO, PhD, Kumamoto University, Japan, who told me:

It helped us when we talked and decided our portfolio concept.
I also would like to use sometime to explain the portfolio to the students.

That makes three translations: Spanish, Catalan, and now Japanese. This conceptual model seems to make sense in multiple contexts.

The paper was just published (in English) in a Portuguese Educom journal in PDF.

UPDATE: Now I have a Mandarin version of the diagram, thanks to Andy Birch and Mei Ding, Hong Kong Academy.

Corporate e-portfolios

From the newsletter I received today from Eliot Masie's Learning TRENDS:

Learner Portfolios Emerging - Win for Instructors & Learners: I have been tracking an increase in interest by Corporate Learning leaders to experiment with the use of e-Portfolios for their learners. These are used in Universities, creating a sharable file for each student with an updated resume, personal statement, examples of work and other assets that would be of interest to future employers and current teachers.  A few companies are now conducting experiments with e-Portfolios, allowing learners to build a profile that is of high value when they enroll for internal corporate training programs.  Imagine being able to see profiles of each learner in a leadership development program, with their backgrounds, perspectives, work samples and more.  Some LMS systems are adding e-portfolio options and there are a number of robust open source projects detailed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_portfolio

Sent from my iPad

My Presentations at AAEEBL in July

I am doing three presentations or workshops at the ePortfolio Conference hosted by AAEEBL in July in Boston:

• Workshop on Monday, July 19, 2010: Your Digital Self: Web 2.0 as Personal Learning Environment and E-Portfolio
  Web 2.0 tools facilitate self-expression, reflection, online interaction and feedback. This hands-on workshop will focus on Web 2.0 tools that can be used to construct a PLE for a variety of purposes, and provide a broader look at using these tools within the context of ePortfolios and Digital Identity Development: Web Aggregators/AJAX Start Pages, Blogs & RSS Feeds, Social Networks/Twitter, and Interactive Productivity Tools/GoogleApps. Bring your wireless laptop!
  
  
• Keynote Address on Wednesday, July 21, 2010:
  Blurring the Boundaries between ePortfolio Development and Social Networking
  Electronic Portfolios have been with us for almost two decades, used primarily in education to store documents and reflect on learning, provide feedback for improvement, and showcase achievement for accountability or employment. Social networks have emerged over the last five years, used by individuals and groups to store documents and share experiences, showcase accomplishments, communicate and collaborate with friends and family, and, in some cases, facilitate employment searches. The boundaries between these two processes are gradually blurring. As we consider the potential of lifelong e-portfolios, will they resemble the structured accountability systems that are currently being implemented in many higher education institutions? Or are we beginning to see lifelong interactive portfolios emerging as mash-ups in the Web 2.0 cloud?
  
  
• Presentation TBA: 
  The Future of mPortfolios (m=mobile) for Lifelong Learning
  Most people are carrying powerful computers in their pockets, whether a smart phone, iPod Touch or the emerging iPad/tablet/XO3 market in schools. Combined with web-based portfolio tools, learners have the potential to create/maintain a working portfolio anytime/anywhere. Explore the current status and future possibilities. This session will be more of a conversation/group brainstorm than a presentation.

All of my presentations will be appropriate for both a K-12 and higher education audience.

Another misunderstanding of term "electronic portfolio"

Thanks to Kathleen Wilbanks' tweet today, I read Michigan’s Public Policy Reaction to The Race to the Top. Here is the third paragraph, referencing electronic portfolios:

The increased availability of data to teachers, parents, students, administrators, colleges, and employers is hoped to improve instruction and heighten learning experiences for students. These reforms could include but are not limited to the creation of an electronic portfolio containing the test scores, performance records, and grades of each student and teacher as well as the amount of access to the system (with proper privacy settings) to researchers in order to quickly evaluate and replace failing systems. These reforms also focus on linking individual teachers and individual students regardless of their spatial proximity. In Delaware, a state discussed further later on, The Education Association placed a significant amount of value on the development of a data system that would track student performance from pre-school to college and/or career. The hope is for teachers and administrators to become aware of at-risk students before the student drops-out or becomes "unreachable".

The goals as stated here are very important. However, in my opinion, what is described here, this tracking of performance ("test scores, performance records, and grades of each student"), is an assessment/accountability system, that they are calling an electronic portfolio; but this model is far different from a student-centered electronic portfolio that is a learner's own digital footprint, or their story of their own learning over time. I wish we could be much clearer about the difference between these two paradigms. When "electronic portfolios" are define with institution-centered terminology, the importance of a student-centered process (collection, selection, reflection, direction, presentation) seems to be ignored. How do we raise the awareness of the larger community that there is another side to electronic portfolios? How do we show that an electronic portfolio can be a space for students to explore and showcase their interests, purpose and passions? In the U.K., an electronic portfolio can also include a learner's personal development plan (PDP). I am just asking for a balanced perspective when using the term, or to at least recognize the multiple purposes.

Training in Brooklyn

I just finished four days of ePortfolio training in South Brooklyn and Staten Island. This was my third trip to do training for the New York City Schools under their Title IID grant. It has been refreshing to see a large school district approach ePortfolios from a learner-centered perspective (we started with teachers developing their own professional portfolios using Google Sites) and then transferring that experience to their students. In the second trip, we added digital narratives to the portfolio training (a very intense two days!) but the examples that I saw last week were quite inspiring. This week, we focused on a planning process to implement ePortfolios in a school.

When I think back over the teachers I have met this spring, from the International Schools Conference at the  American School of Bombay (ASB), to Bucklands Beach Intermediate (BBI) in Auckland, New Zealand, to the teachers in New York City, I saw some of the extremes in opportunity in our worldwide education system.  In the private International Schools, the use of technology was assumed... every student had a laptop, or there was a very low student-to-computer ratio. BBI is a public school in a relatively affluent neighborhood, where more than 10% of the students have bought a laptop and bring it to school every day, in addition to the sets of laptops that are available to use in classrooms. In NYC, I worked with both private and public school teachers. Yesterday, I was meeting with high school teachers, and I was corrected about my erroneous assumption that high school students created most of their written work with a computer. We didn't talk about access to technology, although it didn't seem to be as high a need as expressed by some of the teachers at BBI.

My impressions, as I think back over these three examples, is that the "haves" (affluent students) are getting a technology-rich education, but the "have-nots" (low income students) are not reaping the constructivist/creative/collaborative benefits of educational technology that have emerged with Web 2.0 (as contrasted with 1980-90s models of direct instruction/LMS). That is why I am pleased to introduce a student-centered constructivist approach to electronic portfolios to schools in New York City. I've seen this approach successfully implemented in schools from Mumbai to Auckland to rural California (my trip next week). Electronic portfolios should not be just for students in affluent schools; we need to implement this student-centered strategy with all schools. That raises issues of sufficient access to networks and tools, but I think these problems will be solved in the next few years, especially as tablet/iPad-like devices become more affordable. Or until schools allow mobile phones to be used for educational purposes. But that is the subject of a future reflection.

Portfolio Life --at Mercy College

I made a presentation this week to the faculty of Mercy College. I am sharing my slides here in my blog. This presentation is an extended version of the TEDxASB presentation that I gave in February. I am pleased with the response that I received from this presentation. I heard from some of the participants that they weren't expecting a motivational talk about electronic portfolios. I guess that is my mission...and my passion... and I never showed a single digital story.

Portfolio Life --at Mercy College

View more presentations from Helen Barrett.

Add-Ons to GoogleApps

Today, several tweets from Google:

Lots more Google products are coming to Google Apps soon. Which one would you like to see first? #add2GA

Blogger, Picasa & Reader got the most votes! Those & more coming to Google Apps.

Their blog entry today: Lots more Google products are coming to Google Apps customers contains a lot more details. To quote their blog:

We intend to have all Standard, Premier and Education Edition customers moved to the new infrastructure that enables this change in the fall, and customers who would like more control over the timing of this change will be able to make the switch voluntarily during the summer.

I voted for Blogger! K-12 schools need a protected version inside their implementation of GoogleApps Education Education, which just keeps getting better and better! Now we need to resolve audio recording (Aviary's Myna add-on?) and safe, accessible video storage.

Oregon Public Schools adopt GoogleApps

Just announced today by the Oregon Virtual School District:

State Schools Superintendent Susan Castillo announced today that Oregon is the first state in the nation to sign up for Google Apps for Education in K-12 classrooms. Google Apps are available for free to Oregon public schools on a voluntary basis and are designed to help schools improve digital literacy and reduce IT costs while maintaining the security of school and student data.

The website includes the Oregon Google Apps agreement (PDF). Now every school child in Oregon will have the potential to develop a digital archive of their work (in GoogleDocs) and a presentation portfolio (in either GoogleDocs or Google Sites). This is a very interesting development. Here are some articles about this development:

• Official Google Blog
• Mashable: Why Schools are Turning to Google Apps
  1) It saves schools money;
  2) It boosts academic performance and motivation, and;
  3) It prepares students for digital communication in the real world.
  (The article talks about keeping a running e-portfolio of classroom projects with Google Sites).
• TMCNet Educational Technology News
• ZDNet Education
• ReadWriteWeb
• Yahoo News
• Information Week Government

Hopefully Oregon will be the first of many states to make it easy for schools to adopt this tool, not only for GMail, but also as a powerful tool to support learning. Very enlightened approach! The concept of Lifetime Personal Webspace is becoming more of a reality!

Pages in Blogger

Where have I been? In February, Google added Pages to the tools available in Blogger. I realize that I was traveling non-stop in February and March, but I should have noticed the ability to Edit Pages in the Blogger Dashboard! It was when I finally moved this blog from my own FTP server back to Google that I paid attention to this new feature. The addition of (a maximum of 10) pages to a Blogger blog changes my opinion of using this tool for an ePortfolio. Although limiting a portfolio to 10 pages might be limiting for some people with a lot of categories or content, but for many people, this might be a good option for beginners. Just as I recommend using Blogger as a good starter blog, perhaps it will be a good tool for novice portfolio developers.

I have created a few pages so far (Resources on ePortfolio Development, and Versions of my Presentation Portfolio). Now I can develop a new presentation portfolio using Blogger (My Life Portfolio) and a set of instructions on how to develop ePortfolios using this tool (Using Blogger Pages to Maintain an ePortfolio).

My next request of Google: PLEASE include Blogger inside GoogleApps Education Edition. Most K-12 education networks tend to block blogspot.com addresses, and educators need a safe blog that can be created inside their GoogleApps "walled garden" that is protected and legal for students under the age of 13. Many educators use EduBlogs (a version of WordPressMU) but the Campus version for classes of students requires a fee, and the user interface is not as friendly as Blogger. The combination of GoogleDocs, Google Sites and Blogger would be a terrific environment to document learning for all ages!

Which Portfolio Tool?

I have been receiving a lot of emails lately (or reading blog posts) asking the question about the best e-portfolio tool. It seems like I do one of these blog posts every year. Whenever I receive that question about what tools are best, my answer is always, "It Depends!" Context is everything: purpose, audience, technology infrastructure, age of student, budget available, etc. Purpose should determine what tools to use. Different tools have different affordances. There are basically two models of electronic portfolios, as described in the draft National Educational Technology Plan released in February: a student-managed learning portfolio (p.12) and an analytical framework...to serve assessment purposes (p.34). Each type of portfolio requires different tools. I briefly describe these two strategies in my blog.

I actually recommend a variety of Web 2.0 tools for many reasons: authenticity, audience, continuity after graduation, ownership, engagement. I also like WordPress/EduBlogs because of the interactivity/feedback, a good classification system for blog entries, and the ability to construct multiple pages in addition to blog posts. I responded to that same request that was made on the Google for Educators website. To summarize, I think there is a difference between a student-centered e-portfolio that engages the student in their own learning/self-assessment, and an institution-centered assessment management system that is prescribed and pre-structured for the student (much like the Sakai system). The bigger question to ask: what type of assessment do your e-portfolios support? Formative assessment to support feedback/improvement? or Summative assessment for accountability? Those differing paradigms of assessment produce very different portfolios... and levels of student engagement. Last fall, at the IUPUI Assessment Conference, I pointed out the Opportunity Cost of each paradigm of assessment. I posted a version of that presentation online: Balancing the Two Faces of E-Portfolios (the Opportunity Cost discussion is in the last 15 minutes).

I also recorded a TEDxASB presentation in Mumbai in February, where I discussed the issue of Intrinsic Motivation, based on Dan Pink's latest book, Drive, and how the boundaries are blurring between E-Portfolios and Social Networking.

On my website I have a specific page where I show Categories of E-Portfolio Tools which has links to a variety of commercial and open source tools. I should comment that there are very few customized e-portfolio tools developed with K-12 students as the primary user; they were primarily developed in higher education for higher education students. I also have a Delicious list of links.

I am working with educators across the world who want to develop student-centered e-portfolios with Web 2.0 tools. A major consideration is that the implementation of electronic portfolios is a major change process. Schools can select a minimal level of implementation (ARCHIVE: electronic storage of artifacts), a secondary level (PROCESS: documenting learning over time using a reflective journal/blog with linked artifacts), or a higher level (PRODUCT: organizing reflections and artifacts thematically in a showcase/presentation to demonstrate specific outcomes/goals/standards), explained in this article on my website.

I sponsor an open Google Group for K-12 Educators who are interested in exploring the use of GoogleApps for ePortfolios.
I also sponsor a more moderated Google Group on Researching Web 2.0 Portfolios across the lifespan.

I am in the middle of working on a book on Interactive Portfolios, that outlines the use of Web 2.0 tools to build student-centered e-portfolios across the age levels, from early childhood to professional teaching portfolios. The book will be published by ISTE and I will be making a presentation about the main points at the ISTE Conference in Denver in June 2010. I  am writing the chapter in my book right now on strategic planning to implement portfolios, and preparing to lead planning workshops for schools in New York in May, so the issues are foremost on my mind right now. Here is a link to a PDF planning document/decision tree for K-12 educators, covering the many issues to address when exploring that question, What Tools are Best? I'd love some feedback. What questions are missing?

Moving my blog

I needed to move my blog to a new address, because Blogger will no longer support FTP as of May 1, 2010. Making the transition was easier in April than it was when I first looked at it in February. At first, I changed it to a eportfoliosblog.blogspot.com address... then I set up a new domain (at $10/year) and to my pleasant surprise, Google also set up a GoogleApps account. So my blog is now blog.helenbarrett.org and I can work with Docs and Sites once the domain is fully set up. So, there are benefits to migration that I didn't know about in February. Nice touch!

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