Comments on: ePort(able)Folios http://mfeldstein.com/eportablefolios/ What Michael Feldstein Is Learning About Online Learning...Online Sun, 06 Jul 2008 20:27:02 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.5 by: Michael Feldstein http://mfeldstein.com/eportablefolios/#comment-1470 Mon, 26 Feb 2007 15:32:01 +0000 http://mfeldstein.com/eportablefolios/#comment-1470 I agree 100%, Clark. We should be able to take our box o' stuff and go when we want to. That doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be hosted off-site from the get-go. That's one possibility. The other would be a really good, easy, standards-compliant export capability from the college's ePortfolio system. Once you have the collection and metadata, then it should be possible to put it into some other presentation system. That said, there are reasons for colleges to consider maintaining ePortfolio systems for alumni that want it in perpetuity. To begin with, it helps maintain a connection. Beyond that, there is certain metadata around student content (such as grades and teacher comments) that really should be validated by a trusted source (in cases where the student cares to share that metadata). It's analogous to providing an official transcript. I agree 100%, Clark. We should be able to take our box o’ stuff and go when we want to. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be hosted off-site from the get-go. That’s one possibility. The other would be a really good, easy, standards-compliant export capability from the college’s ePortfolio system. Once you have the collection and metadata, then it should be possible to put it into some other presentation system.

That said, there are reasons for colleges to consider maintaining ePortfolio systems for alumni that want it in perpetuity. To begin with, it helps maintain a connection. Beyond that, there is certain metadata around student content (such as grades and teacher comments) that really should be validated by a trusted source (in cases where the student cares to share that metadata). It’s analogous to providing an official transcript.

]]> by: clark shah-nelson http://mfeldstein.com/eportablefolios/#comment-1468 Mon, 26 Feb 2007 15:23:37 +0000 http://mfeldstein.com/eportablefolios/#comment-1468 Great stuff! Another thought - what happens when students leave an institution and want to access their folios? These days most of them are on lock-down in an LMS such as Blackboard, etc... Even Moodle has a simply portfolio plugin - but how will the student access and use after college? Maybe the portfolios should exist on a totally external site managed by the student - so they can access them whenever - then have simple ways for instructors to collect, comment on and work with the folios in an LMS - through plugins or RSS? Even a blog with enclosures (PDF, images, audio/video, etc.) could work quite nicely for that - coupled with some sort of collection and presentation plugin that would create a way to share it with prospective employers? Great stuff! Another thought - what happens when students leave an institution and want to access their folios? These days most of them are on lock-down in an LMS such as Blackboard, etc… Even Moodle has a simply portfolio plugin - but how will the student access and use after college? Maybe the portfolios should exist on a totally external site managed by the student - so they can access them whenever - then have simple ways for instructors to collect, comment on and work with the folios in an LMS - through plugins or RSS? Even a blog with enclosures (PDF, images, audio/video, etc.) could work quite nicely for that - coupled with some sort of collection and presentation plugin that would create a way to share it with prospective employers?

]]> by: Anne Quirion http://mfeldstein.com/eportablefolios/#comment-1371 Thu, 22 Feb 2007 01:11:55 +0000 http://mfeldstein.com/eportablefolios/#comment-1371 Micheal, Iam both an educator and artist and can see what a great tool this would be! I am a fan of Portfolio based Assessment and can relate to that big box of stuff as my closets are filled with years worth of CAD drawings and Playbills from my days as a lighting designer and technical director. After that the years worth of educational materials ah.. and as a current student, yes back to school and a special education educator an eportfolio would make things easier in collecting and gathering all that work! I have used Dreamweaver but I'm not familar with the others you mentioned. Interested in learning more about this topic.. Anne Micheal,
Iam both an educator and artist and can see what a great tool this would be! I am a fan of Portfolio based Assessment and can relate to that big box of stuff as my closets are filled with years worth of CAD drawings and Playbills from my days as a lighting designer and technical director. After that the years worth of educational materials ah.. and as a current student, yes back to school and a special education educator an eportfolio would make things easier in collecting and gathering all that work! I have used Dreamweaver but I’m not familar with the others you mentioned. Interested in learning more about this topic..

Anne

]]> by: Michael Feldstein http://mfeldstein.com/eportablefolios/#comment-332 Fri, 28 Apr 2006 01:44:07 +0000 http://mfeldstein.com/eportablefolios/#comment-332 Thanks for the compliment, Alan. I particularly appreciate it coming from you. I think the first step is to work with LMS providers (vendors and OSS projects) on building in standards-compliant (using the OKI content OSID, JSR-170, or something else) repositories where student content lives by default. Getting that re-architecture done is the hard part. Once the content is in a repository that has easy hooks for calling it out, adding the portfolio part will be a lot easier. At the same, I think we should be spending more energy doing lightweight portfolio prototyping using tools like Dreamweaver, Nvu, Drupal, Xoops, Jotspot--pick your favorite easy web site construction tool--and less time futzing around with heavy portfolio applications that over-specify the portfolio output based on under-specified application development requirements. Let a thousand flowers bloom. None of this is going to happen quickly. Thanks for the compliment, Alan. I particularly appreciate it coming from you.

I think the first step is to work with LMS providers (vendors and OSS projects) on building in standards-compliant (using the OKI content OSID, JSR-170, or something else) repositories where student content lives by default. Getting that re-architecture done is the hard part. Once the content is in a repository that has easy hooks for calling it out, adding the portfolio part will be a lot easier.

At the same, I think we should be spending more energy doing lightweight portfolio prototyping using tools like Dreamweaver, Nvu, Drupal, Xoops, Jotspot–pick your favorite easy web site construction tool–and less time futzing around with heavy portfolio applications that over-specify the portfolio output based on under-specified application development requirements. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

None of this is going to happen quickly.

]]> by: Alan Levine http://mfeldstein.com/eportablefolios/#comment-331 Thu, 27 Apr 2006 20:37:39 +0000 http://mfeldstein.com/eportablefolios/#comment-331 Thanks for this wonderful piece, Michael- it is about the most sensible description and overview of eports I have read in the last 10 years! But now what? Thanks for this wonderful piece, Michael- it is about the most sensible description and overview of eports I have read in the last 10 years!

But now what?

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