Tech Playtesting 2: E-portfolios

An e-portfolio or e-folio is a tool which serves the purpose of aggregating the thinking and learning experiences of an individual, usually with an intended purpose or goal in a specific education program, however, one of the greatest benefit of e-portfolios is that they are created by the user so they can exist outside of just an educational context. An e-portfolio is an online tool that is used to keep a record of different learning experiences, with reflection from the owner of the e-portfolio on their thinking, highlight projects and connections to different real-world experiences. E-portfolios allow the user to showcase what they believe is their most important learning experiences and reflect on their learning; they show a depth of knowledge in certain areas and can speak to the most important learning artifacts they have encountered. Rather than an arbitrary grade number that doesn't take into account actual learning and growth experiences, the e-portfolio gives the reader or appraiser an in-depth look at the learner's projects, experiences and key takeaways to better understand their processing of information and the way they have needed to overcome struggles and misunderstandings to end up at viable solutions. I believe this affordance of e-portfolios, rather than that assessments or number grades, helps future employers or programs understand the learner on a deeper level and gives a better picture of the type of learner they are and how they will work within new teams and experiences.

E-portfolio Examples: 

Unlike exploring blogs last week, e-portfolios were a new technology to me, so I'm thankful to have learned some new technologies that might prove very useful in the future. Here are a few categories of e-portfolios, as well as some specific examples and my takeaways from experiencing each: 

Wikis: I found wikis to be the most confusing and non-user-friendly tools of the bunch. While I understand and see the value of the collaboration aspect for certain projects, I do not think that this affordance of wikis necessarily important to the creation of the e-portfolio on an individual student professional basis. I believe this could be helpful for teams of people that needed to showcase their particular skills (perhaps certain teams at a specific job) but in terms of creating an e-portfolio to show individual work for a professional job outcome, I think wikis are cumbersome and don't allow for a large amount of personalization or creativity, which I think is a potentially positive affordance of an e-portfolio. I don't believe wikis afford this capability as readily as some of the others I explored this week. I feel instead there are so many options out there for creating a website really easily (and free) that can function easily from the backend while also look really appealing. Of the following 3 different platforms I explored, they either were no longer functioning sites (Wikispaces), or functioned similarly with a space to save each page and add to you number of pages. 

• WikiDot
• PB Words
• EditMe

Proprietary Tools: The tools I explored this week were those specifically created for e-portfolios. I do see the positives as these are built specifically for these types of portfolios but I believe that also can inhibit some creativity and expression through these portfolios as I found that the ones that I explored only had certain functionality or templates that you needed to fit your content into rather than a wealth of customizability as in the website examples. 

• PortfolioGen: Next to the websites I explored, I found this tool to be the most user-friendly. There is one general template on this website that you use to create your portfolio and then you can add different achievements, schools and other pages that showcase learning. You can also customize the colors and fonts and add photos to the portfolio pages. While this doesn't allow for a robust customization or template differences, I believe this website would be a good option for someone who has less website experience and is looking for a straightforward way to showcase their e-folio. 

• FolioSpaces: I found this platform less intuitive than PortfolioGen above for the purpose of displaying e-folio information. This platform is divided into separate portfolios for different course work or pages which I feel is a bit of a misnomer and can be confusing for the creator and viewer of the portfolio. There is a comment feature which I find interesting but unnecessary as a main focal point of the site. 

Websites: While they may take a bit longer to manipulate into the desired look or format, I find websites to be the most user-friendly of the three different kinds of tools explored this week for achieving a polished and customizable e-portfolio.  These tools are created in order for people who are not website developers to use and manipulate them to fit their needs. I love the way you can customize websites with your own specific personality and create unique setups for different pages. 

• Weebly: I wanted to explore this platform because many of the example e-portfolios I found were hosted here. While I didn't mind the platform and found the backend user-friendly, I found the e-portfolio templates lacking and wasn't as familiar with some of the functionality. 

• Wordpress: This is the website creator I am the most familiar with due to my experiences in marketing and public relations as I have built and edited many sites on this platform. I find the backend to be extremely user friendly, as well as the menu and page options. I enjoy the number of templates there are and was easily able to find several e-folio templates to use for my work. I believe this will be the best platform for me to build my personal e-portfolio on and have therefore started to further create and build out some of the features.
  

My Folio Thinking

Portfolios are a powerful tool to demonstrate a learner's experiences and way of thinking rather than just showcasing outcomes, which is the case specifically with number graded quizzes and tests. So often other forms of assessment such as test are given grades in silos, they don't take into account the other "wins" of that particular students and the way in which they were able to use their thinking for a particular outcome. While I do believe there is value in specific kinds of tests, essays and other traditional formative assessments, I believe in order to showcase a learner's overall capabilities, growth mindset and holistic learning style, a portfolio paints a more complete picture. Especially if a portfolio boasts the author's personal reflections on the content, readers of the portfolio are able to better understand the thinking behind the final products and the different methodology behind what made that particular project successful. The learner can show the specific ways they were able to synthesize their learning, taking from other parts of their learning and give a reasoning behind why they are proud of that particular work. Papers and presentations, again are often graded and achieved for a specific purpose. All of these pieces are important but don't give a full picture to one's capabilities; a portfolio is able to aggregate all of these elements, along with the learner's commentary in order to better give a holistic picture of their capabilities and abilities to overcome adversity and problem solve to get to a positive outcome, which I believe are the most important skills for the workforce today, especially in the field of education. 

As a learner pursing a graduate degree, I believe that an e-portfolio is the best way to showcase the breadth of knowledge as well as the depth of the different skills that I have learned through the program. It showcases a variety of work in different contexts which I believe help appraisers see flexibility in me. In this way, I feel it is more relevant and meaningful to articulate what I know and have learned about educational technology and share other experiences that allow me to be the best educational technologist I can be, showcasing my different talents and the variety of different experiences that have led me to this point, wanting to pursue a career as a school librarian.  Not only do I find this more meaningful to my learning, because it shows that the educators in the program trust my thoughts and want me to grow through reflecting on my own learning, it is also what I would prefer to use. As a former teacher, public relations strategist and small business marketer, I want future employers to know my different skills in all of these areas and how combined they make me a good fit for a school library; just showcasing grades or specific projects with no context or a cover letter and resume that has very limited text, I believe, doesn't showcase my full potential and abilities in the way that an e-portfolio can.

E-Folio Affordances vs Physical Portfolios

The affordances of e-portfolios specifically for educational technologists, but also for many other career paths, in my opinion, far outweigh affordances of physical portfolios. A main affordance of physical portfolios are that they can be seen in person and touched tactilely. I believe this affordance would be important for certain professions where a physical prototype or creation is involved such as merchandise, print materials (newspapers, magazines, bound books, etc), and also with art where the medium is intended to be viewed in-person rather than digitally. An affordance of these physical portfolios is that you must keep all of the materials together and in some cases you may need to show several different copies to different people as an employer may want to hold on to your portfolio. In this way, an e-portfolio far outweighs a physical one, as a link can be shared with multiple people at one time, providing access to the portfolio instantaneously. The owner doesn't have to worry about keeping track of physical copies, printing stresses and costs and creating new copies with an online folio. The location of the online folio is known and easy to keep track of, however because an affordance of an e-portfolio is that it is hosted online, hosting can therefore become an issue. Sites are known for shutting down after certain periods of time and therefore links can be lost and transferring to a new technology can be a headache and cause you to lose valuable data. Hosting can often also cost money and be hard to keep track of over time. Another affordance of e-portfolios is that you can add information easily, highlighting specific information through the use of font, font sizes and headline text in order to increase scan-ability for the reader. Videos, links to other creation, photos and more can be shared instantaneously through an e-portfolio, an affordance not given as easily to physical portfolios. While photos and more can be added to physical portfolios, size must be given as an option; providing a cumbersome and long dossier to a potential employer might be overwhelming whereas an affordance of an e-portfolio is that it is a website they are used to browsing and can quickly scan through for ease of use and search for specific information about the student. 

In my 4th grade classroom:

As my teaching experiences are at the 4th grade elementary level, I believe the most effective way to create e-portfolios is a tool I have not yet discussed this week which are blogs. A main affordance of blogs is that you can easily create new pages that populate into a main page without needing to reformat each page; the templates are built in such a way that it is easy to find and categorize new "pages" or posts on a blog which I think is an important consideration for the 4th grade classroom. I also see collaboration as a key tool that would help provide these young learners insight in reflecting on their work through a portfolio which a blog also easily affords. Whereas wikis also afford this, I think blogs are more easily customizable and user friendly for today's classroom users. The pedagogical thinking behind my decision to create portfolios as blogs is because at this grade level, for an ELAR classroom, I want the student to spend less time worrying about the specifics of how the website is set up but focus more on reflecting on their learning. I have more experience quickly creating website pages and fitting them to my needs so while a website would be best for me to create and show my versatility, if the goal for the student is to learn to reflect and identify learning and showcase works they are proud of while reflecting, a blog is a better way to do that. I can see students taking pictures of work they are particularly proud of and writing text in the blog format explaining why. I feel this exercise in creating e-portfolios could also feature videos where students explain particular artifacts they have chosen for their portfolio and explain on video or audio why; the goal here being showing an understanding of learning and how they have improved, instead of making an end result that functions neatly. 

Substitution / Augmentation Level Lesson:

In the ELAR 4th grade class, where narrative and expository writing is one of the key standards for the year, I think using e-portfolios would be an incredible tool to augment the writing experience in order to get students thinking more critically about their writing, choosing their best pieces for different subjects (both narrative and expository) and explaining why they see improvement in their own writing. The content standard this exercise, along with creating an e-portfolio to showcase their thinking, is the following from the TEKS: 4.11 Composition: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--writing process. The student uses the writing process recursively to compose multiple texts that are legible and uses appropriate conventions. The student is expected to: (C) revise drafts to improve sentence structure and word choice by adding, deleting, combining, and rearranging ideas for coherence and clarity; (E) publish written work for appropriate audiences. 

I see an e-portfolio project exercise centering around choosing writing that showcases growth and learning as the year goes on through each unit and semester utilizing blog technology as identified above. I believe the blog also affords a great way for students to keep track of their different assignments and thinking at the time of being originally published. I would like students to show examples from early in the year to the end of the year that show growth in certain areas; I would be able to give them certain examples that they can choose from but they must showcase an improvement and reflection on why they think it's an improvement with specific text examples. This showcasing utilizes the "Evaluation" level of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy (pedagogy) where the students are thinking about what they are learning and providing examples of growth and needed change, thinking critically; the affordance of the e-portfolio that allows this use technology is that they are supposed to be shown over time (lifelong) which allows the learner to use this level of "evaluation". The publishing piece which the blog affords is also a key content standard that helps the learner understand and take ownership of their work as it will be seen on a digital, public scale.  

Modification / Redefine Level Lesson: 

In order to redefine the learning experience in a way that incorporates e-portfolios for my 4th grade students I would desire to use e-portfolios to address the following 4th grade Technology TEKS: (4) Critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making. The student researches and evaluates projects using digital tools and resources. The student is expected to: (A) identify information regarding a problem and explain the steps toward the solution;  (C) evaluate student-created products through self and peer review for relevance to the assignment or task. Because creating an e-portfolio requires text reflection which is an ELAR skill, I believe creating an e-portfolio in an ELAR classroom is a great way to showcase writing skills while evaluating their own student-created products from different subject areas and creating an e-portfolio as a final deliverable. I would choose to also use blogging for this employ of e-portfolios as they can easily categorize information and share photos and reflections throughout their different experiences in the grade level. I would have students identify projects they are the most proud of from all different core competencies as well as one specials class and reflect on why they think these show their learning. I would also ask them to reflect overall on what kind of learner they are, what their favorite subjects are and why, helping them to see the way that the different learning experiences they have works together. I would have them present a favorite aspect of their e-portfolio to the class that they are particularly proud of, modeling the real-life application of the e-portfolio that it can be used in interviews for different positions in the future. I believe creating the blog with these different artifacts and sharing feedback with other students through the blog format allows for the "Create" level of Blooms' Revised Taxonomy with a final product that showcases the width of their knowledge across the grade level subjects. 

Wrapping Up...

I'm personally excited about the potential of creating a personal e-portfolio that can show my depth of knowledge and experiences while highlighting the work I'm proudest of and forcing me to think about my thinking. Showcasing different subjects and personal and work experiences and how they have come together to create the learner through my Wordpress e-portfolio site will, I believe, paint a more full picture of my specific talents and assets as a educational technology team member.