ISTE Workshop Outline

Outline of ISTE Workshop

June 22, 2013, 8:30 AM – 3:30 PM, Room 007CD in the San Antonio Convention Center

Purpose & Objectives

• • Participants will gain limited hands-on experience with the various Google Tools as they can be used to develop ePortfolios.

  • Participants will explore examples of ePortfolios created in K-12 schools using GoogleApps

  • Participants will see how the entire process can be managed with Teacher Dashboard.

  • Participants will begin a plan for implementing ePortfolios in their classroom, school or district

  • Participants will learn about free online self-paced class, K-12 ePortfolios with GoogleApps

This session will provide participants with a vision for using GoogleApps, freely available on the Internet to facilitate assessment FOR learning (classroom-based assessment) in electronic portfolios. A special emphasis of this session will be to focus on creating ePortfolios that facilitates feedback to improve student achievement. 

Outline

• • Introduction to ePortfolios in K-12 using GoogleApps and the open courseware online class that is available to explore after the workshop. (60 minutes)

  • Develop a plan for implementing ePortfolios with GoogleApps. (integrated throughout activities with GoogleDocs template) (30 minutes)

  • Create and store Portfolio artifacts in Google Drive/Docs and Picasa. Set up Collections in Google Drive to serve as “tags” for student work.  (60 minutes)

  • Create learning portfolio/reflective journal using Blogger  (30 minutes)

  • Create showcase/assessment/presentation portfolios using Google Sites. (60 minutes)

  • Collect assessment data on student achievement demonstrated in artifacts and/or reflections, based on rubrics. (60 minutes)

  • Manage student files using Teacher Dashboard. (30 minutes)

  • Access further resources available for learning more about GoogleApps, Q & A (30 minutes)

Supporting Research

This session will provide participants with the results of three years of participatory research supporting schools using GoogleApps, Web 2.0 tools freely available on the Internet, to facilitate assessment FOR learning (classroom-based assessment) with electronic portfolios. At the time this proposal was submitted, five states have signed agreements with Google for statewide adoption of GoogleApps  in K-12 schools (Oregon, Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, New York). A special emphasis of this session will be to focus on students creating ePortfolios that facilitate public audiences and feedback that demonstrate improved student achievement.

The presenter is publishing a book through ISTE, entitled, “Interactive Portfolios: Using Web 2.0 to preserve memories, share stories of deep learning, document achievements, and envision the future.” As research for the book, during the 2009-2011 school years, the presenter has followed several districts and individual teachers as they implement a new model of ePortfolios using the framework of Web 2.0, which is called ePortfolio 2.0.

Just as Web 2.0 changed with the architecture of interaction, we could say that portfolios have the potential to change with the pedagogy of interaction, especially as used within a paradigm of assessment for learning. With these new tools, students can post work and invite co-authors and feedback, as in a GoogleDoc Document; they can post work and invite an audience, as in a GoogleDocs Presentation. Fortunately, these tools keep track of the changes, so that authorship can be tracked, if that is important for accountability.

The “two faces of ePortfolios” will be discussed: process and product, workspace and showcase, conversation and presentation. Blogs are beginning to become a part of the learning process in K-12 schools, and form the foundation of the process/workspace/conversation side of the ePortfolio process, documenting learning over time. From this foundation, blogging tools like Blogger or the open source WordPress/Edublogs, provide the flexibility to add the product/showcase/presentation, encouraging learners to self-assess and “prove” their own achievement of specific outcomes, goals or standards.

Google Sites tool, a wiki modified by Google, has been successfully used for ePortfolios in schools like High Tech High in San Diego. The presenter will also outline the controls in GoogleApps for Education, giving the site administrator complete control to protect student privacy, by limiting access by users outside the domain.

Finally, there are strategies for using GoogleForms and Spreadsheet to collect and aggregate teacher assessment data on student portfolios, if required. The Teacher Education program at Seattle Pacific University provides an example of using a spreadsheet to collect/aggregate/analyze this data.

Presenter Background

The author is a recognized international expert on Electronic Portfolios, having researched the topic since 1991. She has made presentations at numerous national and international conferences on this topic, and publishes an internationally-known web site: http://electronicportfolios.org. For four years, she worked with ISTE under a federal Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to use Technology (PT3) Catalyst grant to support technology and assessment in Teacher Education programs. For two years, she conducted research on high school e-portfolios. She has published refereed journal articles on her research, chapters in several books, and is publishing her own book on Interactive ePortfolios through ISTE. She is currently providing training and consulting for several school districts on implementing ePortfolios across the grade levels, and has worked with schools, colleges and universities to help them plan their e-portfolio implementation strategies.