Cathy Swan's List: Digital Portfolios

• Collection — gather, save, and store information and artifacts.

   

  Selection — review and evaluate information and artifacts, identifying those  which are useful and important.

   

  Reflection — become reflective practitioners by documenting and evaluating  their own growth over

  • Collect, Select and Reflect
    this piece skips the all important "Connect"
• these five functions — storage, information management, connections,  communication, and development — very well could transform higher education by  placing the student at the center of their learning, allowing them to draw  connections across subject matters and across realms of student life

  • 5 functions of ePortfolios that will place the student at the center of their learning

• Creating Online Portfolios Can Help Students See 'Big Picture,' Colleges  Say

  By JEFFREY R.  YOUNG 

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  More and more institutions are encouraging -- or even requiring -- students  to create "electronic portfolios" that highlight their academic work and help  them reflect on their campus experiences.

  • Portfolios offer a glimpse of the "big picture". Universities are beginning to requeire them for graduation.

• Essentially, an e-portfolio is an extensive résumé that links to an online  repository of a student's papers, problem sets, pictures from study-abroad  stints, and anything else that demonstrates the student's accomplishments and  activities. The hope is that students will show off their portfolios to  potential employers or to parents eager to see where their tuition money is  going.

  • ePortfolio definition and hope
• help students reflect on how their disparate activities become a well-rounded  education. Today's busy college students -- many of whom juggle classes, work,  volunteer activities, and more -- can easily lose sight of the big picture.

  • Also true for our busy high schoolers!
• a willingly participating student would find her time well spent on putting  together a coherent, inclusive portfolio which will help her discover strengths  and weaknesses in her education."

  • A willing student will grow and learn. Others less willing will resent the process and not find it useful.

• But she says that the process helped her -- and even drew some jealous  comments from friends.  

  "They've looked at this portfolio and said to me, 'I wish we had something  like that,'" she says.

•  But she says that the process helped her --  and even drew some jealous   comments  from friends.   

   "They've looked at this portfolio and said to  me, 'I wish we had something   like  that,'" she says. 

  • ONe successful portfolio will lead to others.

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  <!---start content here --------->  THE KALAMAZOO COLLEGE  PORTFOLIO   At the recommendation of the Portfolio Director and the Educational Policies  Committee, on 29 November 2004 the faculty voted unanimously to remove the  Portfolio as a graduation requirement, effective immediately. The Portfolio  Director, EPC and the faculty felt that the Portfolio requirement was not  meeting the purpose for which it was designed. Some departments may continue to  require Senior Connections essays as part of departmental activities.

  • What made this project fail? Could it have been the lack of supportive mentoring, lack of pre-planning and piloting, technological frustration? We don't want to fail!

• If you're employed full time, your design or art does not legally belong to  you, it belongs to your employer. Freelancers working directly for a client do  own their work, except for two circumstances: when they create the work under a  non-disclosure agreement or when they've signed a work-for-hire contract. Such  contracts frequently have a clause saying that the company that hires you owns  the copyright to the work. That means you need their explicit permission to show  your work in a digital portfolio.
        Some employers are  more generous than others, but sometimes it's not a generosity issue. They can  themselves be under contract to a company that doesn't want unauthorized copies  of their work distributed. And a digital portfolio -- on the Web or mailed on a  disk -- is definitely "in distribution".

   

  DT&G   Hmmmm, so I'll bet many job seekers  don't know that. When the issues come up, the designer is usually pretty upset.  What's the best plan?

   

  Cynthia:   This is a big topic and every  situation can have its own complex legal issues. Sometimes you can wiggle around  the issue by only showing the work in person, but not always.
         My advice is to try to negotiate the rights to show the work, even if you  won't own it. Do it up front -- as part of the contract, or at the beginning of  a work project. And do everything you can to avoid work-for-hire situations for  portfolio-worthy projects.

   

  DT&G   Make a note folks! Dot the 'i' and  cross the 't' up front rather than later!
  

  • VPA, do you teach your students about property rights? You have some fine artists who may create amazing work for an employer. They should learn from you before graduation about how these laws may negatively impact them in the future.

• Okay, so now I've got a pile of art and samples -- perhaps a few comps from  college or design school. What do I want to zero in on for the main ingredients  for my digital portfolio?

   

  Cynthia:   You're looking to balance work to  show your strengths, and to demonstrate that you have the abilities and talent  people are looking for. A designer, for example, will want to show some variety.  Those comps from school are good, because they're a way to show your process --  how you develop ideas. And of course, it should go without saying that all the  work in your portfolio should be your best.

   

  DT&G   Sounds good -- but many times people  will say: "I just don't have enough outstanding work." Is it okay to  invent or dream up portfolio samples?

   

  Cynthia:   It sure is, Fred.
         Invention is creativity with another name, and it's a great strategy!  Designers have to pay rent like anyone else, and not every job provides you with  exciting and challenging projects. Creating your own projects gets you out of  that rut, and gives you the opportunity to fill in portfolio gaps.

   

  DT&G   Ah, good. Some of the most fun -- and  best creativity -- is in those kinds of projects.

   

  So now we have the pieces to incorporate in a digital portfolio, are there  pros and cons of CD vs. DVD, vs. a web site?

   

  Cynthia:   It depends on what kind of projects  you do. CDs or DVDs may be your best medium if you work with moving image, if  your designs or images rely heavily on detailed textures or if you need to show  your work at a high resolution to emphasize typographic strengths.
         Web sites are great because people can view them anytime on their  own desktops, without any problems with platform compatibility or some of the  other problems you can run into with a CD.

   

  DT&G   So, perhaps a mix of both might be in  order. CD for portability and web site for accessibility. Of course you cover  both thoroughly in the book.

  • Main ingredients for a digital portfolio. Examiniing your portfolio and filling in the gaps to best represent you and your talents.

• What are the goals?

   
   
  • The Digital Portfolio development process will help you explore  and reflect upon what you are learning from your academic and personal  experiences.  
  • It can also help you plan your academic and personal  experiences.  
  • It can help you explore and communicate how your academic,  personal, and pre-professional experiences connect.  
  • Finally, it can provide you with a tool to demonstrate and  communicate the above. 

  • I like the connectivity aspect of these goals. Student tend to learn in isolation and, despite what their teachers tell them, do not acknowledge that what we teach them impacts other aspects of their lives. Writing about this - and seeking these connections, will lead to stronger students who enjoy and appreciate their education to a greater extent

• Interconnectivity of learning and planning ; process as much as it's a product; living document - Cathy Swan on 2009-01-25

• Tips for Getting Started
      - Inventory Your  Systems
      - Establish a  Vision
      - Decide on an  Audience
      - Determine What Information You Want to  Collect
      - Create a  Mock-Up
      - Bring All Participants to the  Table
      - Develop a Pilot
      -  Reflect on the Process and Products
      - Review your  Systems
      - Look for Ways to Scale Up
  

  • Which of these steps have we already taken? Are we really ready to implement? The VPA teachers want instant success and don't show signs of adventurous experimentation that my fail.

• Vision

   
   
  • What should a student know and be able to do?
   

  Assessment

   
   
  • How can students demonstrate the vision?  
  • Why do we collect student work?  
  • What audiences are most important to us?  
  • How do we know what's good?
   

  Technology

   
   
  • What hardware, software, and networking do we have? What will we  need?  
  • Who are the primary users of the equipment?  
  • Who will support the system?
   

  Logistics

   
   
  • When will information be digitized? Who will do it?  
  • Who will select the work? By what criteria?  
  • Who will reflect on the work? When?
   

  Culture

   
   
  • Is the school used to discussing student work?  
  • Is the school open to tuning standards? With whom?
    
   

  As you answer these questions, consider multiple perspectives. Do students,  administrators, parents, teachers, and others see the school's systems in the  same way?

  • This set of questions seem to accompany the action plan. How many have we answered? What will be the consequences of not answering them in advance?
• Digital Portfolios can be a "provocation" to help a school think about its  systems, its vision, and what it wants students to be able to say about  themselves. They can also be just another gimmick that turns off a school to  technology, portfolios, or both.

  • Warning: we certainly don't want to "turn off" our school to digital portfolios. Careful planning is needed plus a pilot with open minded teachers who don't mind failure.

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•  Three questions  were formulated to help schools make   educational  decisions involving portfolio assessment: 

   
   
  •  What should a  graduate of this school know and be able   to do?    
  •  How can a  student demonstrate the skills and knowledge   that a graduate  should have? 

  • What 3 questions would we want to implement to guide our portfolio work at NCPS? K-12, how would the questions need to change?

• Three questions were formulated to help schools make  educational decisions involving portfolio assessment:

   
   
  • What should a graduate of this school know and be able  to do?  
  • How can a student demonstrate the skills and knowledge  that a graduate should have?  
  • How can a school arrange its systems so that all  students can exhibit the desired skills and knowledge? (Niguidula, 1996).  
• assessment as a social process involving discourse about  evidence of accomplishment, using a common language for discussing  accomplishments, and developing of shared values and explicit criteria for  evaluating student work. She sees technology enhancing assessment in several  ways: It makes work in a variety of media accessible, portable, examinable,  widely distributable and allows performances to be replayed on demand (Barrett,  1995).

  • How can a K-12 portfolio strengthen the ties among K-12 teachers? Would portfolios lay the foundation for K-12 discussion and assessment?

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