My Portfolio - Dr. Helen Barrett
Contents (click on links to go to
each section)
Introduction
Welcome to my Zoho Writer e-portfolio. I am exploring the
capabilities of using this system to maintain electronic portfolios
as part of my research on implementation of online electronic
portfolio systems.
Click on one of the links above to see the pages that I
have decided to include in this version of my portfolio. You can
read my biography, see the artifacts that I have identified as my
best work, and read my reflections about creating this portfolio
and my future goals. If you want to see all of the artifacts in my
portfolio, select Portfolio-at-a-glance. If you follow a link to an
artifact and want to return, use the Back button on your
browser.
Every portfolio has a purpose. My purpose for developing this
portfolio is to show my skills in developing an electronic
portfolio using any number of tools. After reviewing all of my
artifacts (see my Portfolio at a Glance) I found five general
categories of competencies:
- Electronic Portfolio Competency - Knowledge, Skills and
Experience
- Digital Storytelling Competency - Digital Video Editing
Skills
- TechnologyCompetency - Multimedia & Web Page Authoring
Skills
- Teaching & Instructional Design Competency -
Presentations
- Writing & Assessment Competency (My Publications)
My Biography
My Vita can be viewed on my website at
http://electronicportfolios.org/2006Vita.pdf.
I recently retired from the faculty of the College of Education at
the University of Alaska Anchorage and have been researching
electronic portfolios since 1991, publishing a web site on
Technology and Alternative Assessment since 1995 and an Apple
Learning Interchange Exhibit (linked below). I was involved in
Educational Technology and Staff Development in Alaska between 1983
and 2001, first as Staff Development Coordinator with the Fairbanks
School District and then with the University of Alaska Anchorage. I
was in charge of Educational Technology programs for the School of
Education and initiated the development of UAA's New Media Center
for campus-wide faculty development.
As the Assessment Coordinator for the International Society for
Technology in Education's National Educational Technology Standards
for teachers (ISTE NETS-T) Project (2000-2005), I developing
strategies and resources to assess teacher technology competence. I
also served as Vice President for Assessment and E-Folios for the
Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE).
Through the Educause/NLII/AAHE Community of Practice, I provided
early leadership to define pedagogical specifications for online
portfolio systems.
Between 1999 and 2001, I wrote several successful federal
technology grants, the most recent through ISTE to support
technology and assessment in teacher education programs throughout
the United States, providing training and technical assistance on
using electronic portfolios to assess achievement of teaching
standards. I was on loan to ISTE on a full time basis for the
duration of this PT3 Catalyst Grant (2001-2005).
My presentations at numerous regional and national conferences have
explored the emerging field of technology and alternative
assessment and my authoritative articles have appeared in books,
journals and proceedings published by ISTE, AACE, AAHE, and WCCE. I
recently produced a multimedia CD-ROM-based Electronic Portfolio
Handbook. My research about electronic portfolios began with a
study of K-12 student portfolios for the Alaska Department of
Education in the early 90s. In the mid-90s, my research focus
changed to electronic teacher portfolios, and I am currently
exploring both high school graduation portfolios and family
involvement in e-portfolio development in early childhood
education. This newest research focuses on how schools can meet the
Parent Involvement goal of NCLB through the collaborative
development of electronic portfolios to communicate authentic
student learning related to standards, goals or outcomes.
In 2005, I became the Research Project Director for The REFLECT
Initiative, an international research project, underwritten by
TaskStream, to assess the impact of electronic portfolios on
student learning, motivation and engagement in secondary
schools.
I am currently working on several book projects on electronic
portfolios. I am also an Apple Distinguished Educator and a George
Lucas Educational Foundation Faculty Associate.
My Publications
These publications were selected as evidence of my writing skills
and my knowledge about portfolios that support assessment for
learning. I chose examples of my publications from the early 1990s
through to the summer of 2004. I can definitely see a change in my
thinking about portfolios, from learning about e-portfolio tools,
to learning about assessment for learning. The most recent articles
reflect a real change in my thinking, profoundly impacted by the
changes in technology between the early 90s and 2006 (pre-Internet
through Web 2.0) as well as a greater awareness, through my reading
and research, of the impact of portfolios and reflection on
assessment for learning.
Purpose of Digital Stories in
ePortfolios
http://electronicportfolios.org/digistory/purposes.html
This paper was developed for the Digital Storytelling Gathering,
and provides examples of digital stories created for several
purposes.
Authentic Assessment with
Electronic Portfolios using Common Software and Web 2.0
Tools
http://electronicportfolios.org/web20.html
This paper is accepted for an updated version of Coming of Age: an
introduction to the new World Wide Web; it started initially as a
handout for a workshop at the KIPP conference in New Orleans in
early August 2006, that I co-facilitated with one of my REFLECT
teacher leaders. I became very excited about the many Web 2.0 tools
that I found to support IEPs (Interactive Electronic Portfolios) or
what I refer to as ePortfolios 2.0.
AERA paper
http://electronicportfolios.org/reflect/AERAPaper2006.pdf
Roundtable Paper discussed at American Educational Research
Association Conference (April 9, 2006). This paper presents the
REFLECT Research Data Collection Plan, and options for
questionnaire items to be included in the second round of data
collection (for Spring 2006).
White Paper: Researching
Electronic Portfolios and Learner Engagement
http://electronicportfolios.org/reflect/whitepaper.pdf
This 2005 paper was written for TaskStream to cover the literature
for the REFLECT Initiative, a research project on implementing
electronic portfolios in secondary schools.
Article for IRA JAAL Researching
Electronic Portfolios and Learner Engagement: The REFLECT
Initiative
http://electronicportfolios.org/portfolios/JAAL-REFLECT3.pdf
Accepted for upcoming Electronic Portfolio issue of the Journal of
Adolescent and Adult Literacy (JAAL-International Reading
Association) - July 2006. This paper is an update of the White
Paper (below) that was written at the beginning of the REFLECT
Initiative. This updated paper discusses some of the findings from
the first year site visits.
Connected Newsletter
article
http://electronicportfolios.org/portfolios/ConnectedNewsletter.pdf
Using Electronic Portfolios for Formative/Classroom-based
Assessment. October 2006, Connected Newsletter (Classroom Connect),
Volume 13, No.2, pp. 4-6. This paper was a re-write and update of
the REFLECT Brief published in early 2005 as part of the RFP.
Create Your Own Electronic
Portfolio
http://electronicportfolios.org/portfolios/iste2k.html
The latest article that I published in Learning & Leading with
Technology, April 2000, focused on "Using Off-the-Shelf Software to
Showcase Your Own or Student Work." In this article, I moved from
commercial software to the use of common desktop software
tools.
Technology-Supported Portfolio
Assessment
http://electronicportfolios.org/portfolios/compteach0394.htm
This was my first publication on Electronic Portfolios, published
in The Computing Teacher, March, 1994. Reprinted in Student
Portfolios: A Collection of Articles edited by Robin Fogarty
(1996). Palatine, Illinois: IRI/Skylight Training & Publishing,
Inc., pp. 127-137.
Portfolio Competency
This is my collection of artifacts that are selected to demonstrate
specific competencies in portfolio development knowledge and
skills. I have been researching, presenting and writing about
electronic portfolios since 1991. This collection shows the growth
in my thinking about electronic portfolio development between 1991
and 2004.
Apple Learning Interchange Exhibit
on Electronic Portfolios
http://ali.apple.com/ali_sites/ali/exhibits/1000156/
I developed this Expert Exhibit on Electronic Portfolios for Apple
Computer as an Apple Distringuished Educator. I was flown down to
Apple's office in Austin to record the video clips, which I am not
very pleased with the results. Some day I will redo the whole
exhibit, with new video clips.
Publications on Electronic
Portfolios
(click on the Publications in the Navigation Menu)
These specific papers published on my website highlight the change
in my thinking about electronic portfolios between 1994 and
2006.
My Website on Electronic
Portfolios
http://electronicportfolios.org/
This is my web site on electronic portfolios in education. I
started working on this website in 1995, on the server that I set
up for the University of Alaska Anchorage School of Education. I
bought my own domain names in 2000, and have been updating it ever
since. You might say that this web site contains the archive of my
professional work in electronic portfolio development since my
research started in 1991. I actually have three URLs that point to
this same page: http://electronicportfolios.com,
http://electronicportfolios.org, http://helenbarrett.com
My 'Blogger' blog
http://electronicportfolios.org/blog/
I started to experiment with blogs in the spring of 2004. Within a
couple of months, this blog has been highlighted on several lists
of recommended educational blogs. I have enjoyed writing in this
blog, to use it as a way to explore my own thoughts and reflections
on my experiences. As a result of writing in this blog, I am
experimenting with other tools, as well, to see how various
blogging software would work to construct e-portfolios.
My Digital Storytelling Competency
The QuickTime movies below provide examples of digital stories that
I have created over the last three years. I attended the Center for
Digital Storytelling workshop in January 2003, and have been
exploring the practice since then. I have designed and delivered
workshops to help Teacher Education students and faculty to develop
digital stories as reflective artifacts in their electronic
portfolios.
Family Portfolios and Digital
Stories
http://electronicportfolios.org/families/index.html
These documents contain portfolios developed with my granddaughter
for her Kindergarten, First and Second Grade years. The digital
stories for K & 1 are reflections on the year. The digital
story for 2nd grade is her autobiography written as part of a
school project. The "Dad" story is the project we created at the
Center for Digital Storytelling.
Prepare for a Digital Storytelling
Workshop (.mov)
http://homepage.mac.com/eportfolios/iMovieTheater4.html
I created this digital story to help participants prepare for a
digital storytelling workshop.
Electronic Portfolios as Digital
Stories of Learning (.mov)
http://homepage.mac.com/eportfolios/iMovieTheater13.html
This narrated slide show presents the content of my article posted
at http://electronicportfolios.org/digistory/epstory.html This
presentation looks at technologies that are engaging forstudents to
foster intrinsic motivation, specifically digital storytelling.
Choices - A Digital Story of
Learning (.mov)
http://homepage.mac.com/eportfolios/iMovieTheater11.html
Seventh grade provided one of my most vivid memories of learning. I
have made sense of this experience with a reflective digital
story.
Reflecting back on that learning experience as a professional
educator, I realize that the problem was not with me, but with the
assignment. What a difficult task I was given... it takes time to
build those synapses in the brain. Memorization has its place in
learning, but I didn't derive the true meaning of the poem I had to
memorize until much later in life.
My Technology Competency
These artifacts represent my skills in multimedia development and
web page authoring. I have developed a CD-ROM using Adobe Acrobat
and QuickTime movies. In addition, there are Digital Stories that
are posted in another collection, and my web site which showcases
my knowledge and skills in electronic portfolio development.
At-a-Glance Guides
http://electronicportfolios.org/ALI/index.html
Common Software Tools for Creating and Publishing Electronic
Portfolios. These short guides were developed to support the stages
of electronic portfolio development, from the
collection/digitization process, through the selection/reflection
construction/hyperlinking process to the final publication process.
I developed these guides as part of the Apple Learning Interchange
Exhibit.
CD-ROM-based Handbook
http://electronicportfolios.org/handbook/index.html
I developed a CD-ROM in 2002 to use in workshops and to sell on my
website. I made a major revision in the spring of 2004, adding
Digital Storytelling to support deep learning.
Using Adobe Acrobat for Electronic
Portfolio Development
http://electronicportfolios.org/portfolios/sitepaper2001.html
This paper outlines Adobe's Portable Document Format as the ideal
container for electronic portfolio reflections connected to digital
artifacts, describes the software environment, and then describes
the process for converting digital artifacts from many applications
into the Portable Document Format, and maintaining a
cross-platform, web-accesible, hyperlinked digital portfolio. I
received an award at the SITE 2001 Conference as "Best Technical
Paper."
Instructional Design & Teaching Competency
These documents were selected to showcase my competencies in
teaching and instructional design. I have developed and delivered
workshops on electronic portfolio development, from three hours to
three days, and most have been evaluated through my PT3 grant. I
have also developed a set of two-day workshops on electronic
portfolios and digital storytelling for a major technology
company.
Descriptions of presentations and
workshops available
http://electronicportfolios.org/workshops.html
These are descriptions of the presentations and workshops that I
have developed.
Workshop Outlines on Electronic
Portfolios and Digital Storytelling
http://homepage.mac.com/eportfolios/workshop/index.html
These two-day workshops were developed in the winter of 2004 for a
major technology company. The Digital Storytelling workshop was
piloted twice in 2004 through my PT3 grant. The evaluation report
from Rockman et.al. demonstrates the success of the first
workshop.
Distance Courses on Electronic
Portfolios and Digital Storytelling
http://electronicportfolios.org/distance/index.html
I developed this series of courses on electronic portfolios and
digital storytelling, which were piloted with Wichita State
University in 2003 using Blackboard. The courses need to be
updated, but can be offered using any web-based environment.
Professional Development for
Implementing Electronic Portfolios
http://electronicportfolios.org/teachers/profdev.html
My most recent web page on my website, responding to requests by
school districts for information on how to help teachers who need
to support student electronic portfolio development. Includes
Change theory, portfolio and technology skills assessments.
An evaluation of a workshop that I
did in Arizona for Maricopa Community Colleges in 2005:
http://electronicportfolios.org/evals/ePort-dday-eval.pdf
My Portfolio at a Glance
Before creating a portfolio, it is good to create an advanced
organizer, to identify the specific artifacts that I wanted to
include in my portfolio. Below are three versions of my portfolio:
the original Excel version, a PDF version, and a scanned copy of my
original worksheet that was used to classify the artifacts.
After selecting the artifacts, I tried to identify which
competencies or skills each artifact demonstrates. I found five or
six major categories right now, maybe more when I think about it.
But the major categories have emerged. Now, all I have to do is
create a collection for each grouping, and write an overall
reflection plus record the captions. Since I had all of the
artifacts on one of my websites, all I had to do was capture the
URL.
From start to finish this project took me an evening, and most of
the time was spent in selecting the artifacts and writing the
captions. Those aren't really technology issues...they are
portfolio issues.
Excel Version
I spent an evening in 2004 going through my web pages and my hard
drive (my digital archive) to select the specific artifacts that I
wanted to use in my portfolio. I set up this Excel spreadsheet that
let me list the artifacts (21 in all) and then create hyperlinks to
each URL. If your browser will not open an Excel file, open the
next version (in PDF).
PDF Version:
Artifacts.pdf
After creating the list with the URLs, I added comments in Excel to
represent the captions for each artifact. I played around with
converting the document into HTML, but spent too much time fighting
the Microsoft style sheet codes. So I just converted the document
into PDF, which I will use on the WWW. I uploaded the Excel
spreadsheet to this portfolio as a document, but I might prefer
using the PDF.
This is a scanned version of the actual worksheet that I used to
categorize my artifacts in 2004.
My Goals and Mission
I believe that all portfolios need to include three forms of
reflection, focusing on the past, present, and future. These
questions are:
- What? (the artifacts
that I have collected from the past)
- So What? (what these
artifacts show about my learning at the present time)
- Now What? (my future
learning goals)
So, here are my future goals. This version of my portfolio was
created after I retired from the University of Alaska Anchorage. I
am using this portfolio to help me reflect on my strengths and how
that will contribute to my future professional direction.
Researching Electronic Portfolios
I am interested in continuing my research on electronic portfolios in
education with an emphasis on exploring and changing the predominant
paradigm:
• from an institutional focus to a more family and/or individual focus
• from a metaphor of “portfolio as test of skills” to “portfolio as story of deep learning”
• from institution-centered data management systems to more
individual-centered Web 2.0-based, lifelong/life wide interactive
personal learning environments
I have spent the 2005-2006 school year conducting the REFLECT
Initiative, the first in a two-year research project on electronic
portfolios in secondary schools, sponsored by TaskStream. I am
really excited about what we are finding in this research, and
would like to do much more of this work in the future. I am looking
forward to the second year of REFLECT, when I will have an
opportunity to conduct focus groups with the high school students
who have been using TaskStream for the last year. I have also begun
an informal study of high school electronic portfolio
implementation in my home state of Washington.
I am interested in writing grants and conducting funded research
that will extend the knowledge about electronic portfolios and Web
2.0-based tools that would allow learners of all ages to:
• Create digital archives of personal and professional development (collection)
• Maintain purposeful journals/blogs that document the learning journey (reflection)
• Present selected works for a particular purpose and audience (selection/presentation)
• Receive feedback on portfolios to support lifelong learning (collaboration/assessment)
Digital Storytelling
After I finally retire, I want to encourage "baby boomers" and
senior citizens to use digital storytelling to preserve their
memories and life stories for future generations; a mission
statement: "using today's technology to tell yesterday's stories to
tomorrow's generations." The current popularity of scrapbooking and
genealogy all indicate that there is an interest to preserve these
memories. But those who study genealogy know that we can find the
dates and facts about a life, but stories that are not preserved
are lost forever. Everyone has a story to tell. Digital
storytelling is one way to preserve and share our family
legacies.
Perhaps I can also work into the process a "retirement transition"
focus, using digital family stories as a way of finding a new
purpose in retirement after a very busy working life. Learning to
share digital stories could become a powerful transition activity.
And in the process, new retirees could learn technology skills that
they might have missed in their professional careers.
Here is an opportunity for schools, as well, to bring this digital
storytelling process to their communities, to match young people
who have the technology skills with older people who have the
stories to be preserved. Then, we can truly become a community of
lifelong learners who share our knowledge and wisdom with each
other.
My Reflections on the Process
This is the 28th tool that I have used to create my electronic
portfolio. I create ePortfolios in Microsoft Word, so why not an
online AJAX version of a word processor? The process moved pretty
smoothly. I was able to convert all URLs to weblinks. The tool
allowed me to reconstruct my portfolio in less than an hour,
copying the information from various online portfolios, including
my WikiSpaces portfolio,
where I had the URLs on the page (not just links). I easily
uploaded my graphics. All of my other artifacts are web links.
I was able to add links by simply including the full URL and
creating a link. Since I prefer to have the links open a new window
(and the portfolio remains open), I was able to specific each link
to open in a new window. When an artifact is opened, the
reader can close the window and easily return to the portfolio,
rather than using the Back button.
A feature that I really like is the ability to backup the most
recent copies of the individual pages in the site in a variety of
formats and save the file to my hard drive. That is a feature that
I think is a requirement for an ePortfolio system. I'd also like to
be able to backup all of the files (not just one at a time).
There is also no data management tool, to aggregate assessment
data. Therefore, this tool would work for formative assessment
(providing teacher and peer feedback on student work) but not for
summative assessment.
