ePortfolios: Starting Smart Patricia McGee The University of Texas at San Antonio

Context  Urban  20,000 students  3 campuses  New college  PT3  MS/AACTE Innovation

Issues  Technology Initiatives Diversity: supporting a variety of abilities, needs and preferences Skills: technical, organizational, cognitive Literacy: includes technology Integration/modeling best practices  Accountability  Marketability

E-portfolios, what are they?  Collections of work designed for a specific objective to provide a record of the accomplishments.  Reflection, communication with instructors, or presenting examples of outstanding work and credentials to potential employers.  Mary Diaz’s metaphor mirror (reflective about growth over time), map (planning, goal-setting, navigating artifacts), sonnet (expression and diverse ways of looking at and being in the world)

E-portfolios: The advantages  Organizational flexibility  Display flexibility of content and ideas  Ability to connect content to various schemas for representation in multiple ways – standards, key concepts, interdisciplinary connections.  Communication tools  Collaboration tools  Cost benefits oAccreditation oUniform and consistent measures of progress

E-portfolios: Why use them?  To collect, store, manipulate and share information digitally.  To become a vital part of a students' permanent records, and of their management of their own learning.  To support learner-centered teaching and learning to be outcomes-oriented.  To support accreditation review.  To serve as an advising tool.

Development Issues  Improve student institutional learning.  Privacy and ownership issues.  Technical standards and interoperability.  Management of systems and repositories.  Impact on registrars and student services.  Integration with K-12.

What do we want?  Constructing a rationale grounded in institutional values. Promotes equity, fairness, and accountability Develops and applies new knowledge of best practices Prepares educators/leaders to succeed in diverse contexts Builds community within and at large Fosters the holistic development of all its members Uses resources effectively and efficiently so that the College graduates citizens who are engaged in productive contributions to self, society, and the global community.

Activities: E-portfolio Issues 1.Rank order the most important issues. 2.Describe what it looks like, how is it used, how it works, what is in it. 3.Align to Standards. 4.Develop Conceptual Framework 5.Select ePortfolio system.

Examples  Alverno Alverno  Missouri State Missouri State  Penn State Penn State  Stanford e-folios Stanford e-folios  UT Austin Learning Record UT Austin Learning Record  University of Iowa University of Iowa

E-portfolio Systems  Stanford Stanford  Epsilon. This group is looking for institutions to beta test their system which automatically assigns a URL and sets up a Web site for every user. Epsilon.  Learning E-Portfolio from U. of Michigan is an open source initiative. Learning E-Portfolio

E-portfolio: Next Steps  What needs to occur to set determine action plan? Sub-committee Timeline System analysis Institutional fact-seeking Identify benchmarks and assessments/reviews Prepare guidelines, protocols, and processes