Becoming a Millennial

211. Using a Wiki to Assess Student e-Portfolios

We have pulled off a significant initiative over the last few years in repurposing our course management system, Blackboard, to facilitate student e-portfolios.  The Blackboard Learning System has all the capabilities to organize and post artifacts, in a professional-looking format. 

This fall we figured out (actually, it was the brainchild of one of our education majors) how to use Blackboard's wiki tool for assessment purposes.  This is now in place for Education portfolios, and Social Work is working on something similar. It's a fun thing to come up with unintended applications for some of these digital tools. Click here to view a short video to see how this all works.

184. e-Portfolios

We are continuing to refine our e-portfolio solution (using Blackboard Learning System).  Essentially we create a "course" for each of our 1900 students, and enter them as the instructor so they have access to the Control Panel.

Our education department has moved away from the paper portfolio to the new e-portfolio.  If you're interested in seeing an example, here is Arlene's portfolio that she put together this past weekend.  She is currently student-teaching and will graduate in a few weeks.

You might be interested in seeing Neal's portfolio.  He graduated two years ago.  His portfolio helped him land his first job, working at USA WaterSki in Florida.

164. Blackboard e-Portfolios (An Interview)

Bill Vilberg, Assoc. Director of Instructional Advancement at Miami University (FL), contacted me the other day.  A mutual friend from Blackboard had given him my name.  Bill is the chief Blackboard person at Miami University and is doing something creative with his Blackboard Faculty Support Group blog.  Each week he records an interview and posts it to his blog. 

We set up a time last week and he interviewed me for 45 minutes over the phone.  He used Skype on his end (so the phone call was free) and I used my office phone.  In places it is a bit scratchy but overall the recording quality is pretty good.

Click on the above link to his blog if you would like to listen to our conversation.  We talked about the Bb e-portfolios that we have set up for every student at Taylor, as well as some of the Web 2.0 technologies that are impacting the teaching and learning environment. 

You can browse the Taylor e-portfolio catalog by going to http://courses.taylor.edu ... login using username=guest and password=welcome ... select the Courses tab ... and choose the appropriate category (e.g. 2006 Senior Portfolios).  We are still a year or two away from fully facilitating this to the point where every graduating senior will have completed his/her portfolio.  The infrastructure, however, is all in place supported by our Educational Technology Center and Career Development Office.

If you want to take a peak at a student portfolio, click on the link below.  My son, Neal, graduated in January 2006 with a Communications Degree and a Digital Graphics Minor.  Use the same guest login as described above:  https://courses.taylor.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=%2Fbin%2Fcommon%2Fcourse.pl%3Fcourse_id%3D_3593_1

45. ePortfolios for Faculty Promotion & Tenure

If Blackboard can be used to facilitate e-portfolios for students, why not use it for faculty?  For our tenure and promotion process we are offering faculty the option of submitting all of their materials in a Blackboard portfolio.  No longer do a couple thick binders need to be passed around to all the committee members.  All can view it at any time online.

44. The Power of Electronic Tools

Neal (see entry #4) graduated from Taylor this past January with a degree in Mass Communications and a minor in Computer Graphics. 

This spring he got his first (real) job with a company in Florida called USA Water Ski, the national govening body for organized water skiing in the U.S.  It was pretty amazing because they hired Neal sight-unseen.  A friend of Neal who works for USA Waterski put in a good word for him, Neal emailed in his resume along with the link to his online portfolio, they had a hour-long phone interview ... and he was offered the job the next day.  A neat example of what can happen over a distance of 1000 miles because of today's technologies.

Here you can see what Neal's portfolio looks like.  We've tried something innnovative at Taylor, using the Blackboard course management system to facilitate student e-porfolios.  This spring 90% of our 1850 students had an electronic portfolio in progress.  The senior education majors no longer create the 3-ring binder porfolio -- they do it all electronically.  Other departments are considering making this a requirement for their majors as well.

Freshmen are introduced to the e-portfolio in the COS104 required computer literacy course.  They post their picture, autobiography, resume, and some other artifacts.  Over the course of their study they add to their portfolio.  In their senior year our Career Development office will assist them in polishing up the porfolio for external presentation to employers.  This has been a 4-year effort spear-headed by the Educational Technology Center and Career Development office.  We really think we're on to something here.