1. Syllabus
Instructor Information Your instructor for this course: Dr. Helen Barrett, a retired teacher educator in the field of educational technology and an international expert and consultant on electronic portfolios.
Between 1991 and 2005, Dr. Helen Barrett was the educational technology faculty member at the College of Education at the University of Alaska Anchorage; after her retirement she now lives in Puyallup. From 1983 to 1991, Dr. Barrett was Staff Development Coordinator for the Fairbanks School District. She has been researching strategies and technologies for electronic portfolios since 1991, publishing an internationally-known website (http://electronicportfolios.org). She was on loan to the International Society for Technology in Education between 2001 and early 2005, providing training and technical assistance to teacher education programs throughout the U.S. under a federal PT3 grant. She currently has a book contract with ISTE, to write a book on Interactive Portfolios using Web 2.0 tools.
In the fall of 2007, she received a courtesy appointment as a Research Associate with the Center for Advanced Technology in Education (CATE), part of the College of Education at the University of Oregon. She has also taught Educational Technology graduate courses for the College of Education at Seattle Pacific University.
Dr. Barrett's addresses:
Google Voice account: 253-693-8801
email: eportfolios@gmail.com
Twitter and Skype accounts: eportfolios
Course Description
Description: This course provides a generic introduction to electronic portfolios in K-12 schools, without emphasis on any one specific tools; it provides an overview of the different purposes/tools for developing ePortfolios, with an emphasis on collection, reflection, and direction/goal-setting. The major outcome of the course is an implementation plan that focuses on three levels of portfolio implementation in schools:
1. ePortfolio as Digital Storage
2. ePortfolio as Reflective Journal/Blog
3. ePortfolio as Assessment/Showcase
Participants will gain an understanding of: the potential for the portfolio development process to support deep learning; how to support student metacognition in an online portfolio; how to support students to responsibly develop a digital identity through electronic portfolio development; the difference between workspace and showcase, process and product in the portfolio development process; how to help students use Web 2.0 and mobile tools to Capture & Store Digital Evidence; Reflect on Learning; Give & Receive Feedback; Plan & Set Goals; Collaborate; Showcase Selected Work; how to evaluate student online portfolios based of rubrics and clearly-articulated goals and vision.
Objectives
Participants will understand the multiple purposes for developing portfolios in K-12 schools, as well as the various processes involved in developing an electronic portfolio
Participants will develop a plan to maintain a digital archive of all of student work to use as they develop their electronic portfolios.
Participants will explore a variety of tools to develop and maintain an electronic portfolio, and choose the best online portfolio strategy
Participants will create a plan to implement ePortfolios with their students in K-12 schools.
Participants will maintain a blog throughout the course (if they don't already have one), with weekly entries summarizing their learning activities for the week... It might be called a learning portfolio, as compared to the showcase portfolios they will be building by the end of the course.
Participants will be introduced to a variety of online tools to facilitate professional collaboration (Etherpad, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) as online professional learning communities.
Please refer to the Schedule document for details and timelines.
Assignments with each Lesson
Readings and Discussions
As you read through the assigned readings and videos, explore some of the resources identified. Participate in an online discussions through the online course management system (Schoology).
Implementation Plan
Specific tasks will be assigned during each lesson to help you develop your portfolio implementation plan. In the first lesson, create a copy of the implementation plan as a GoogleDocs Document and share the document with your instructor (eportfolios@gmail.com). The final version will be part of the summative evaluation for the course.
Reflection in Blog - 3-5 paragraphs summarizing the week's topic, what you learned, what you still want to learn. The last reflection will be a summative reflection for the entire course.
Final Project:
Plan for Implementing Electronic Portfolios with K-12 students
OR
Professional Portfolio
Activities & Grades
Regular Discussions - (6 lessons)
Blog Reflection on each Lesson - (6 entries)
After the course work for each week has been completed, you will write a post in your blog, reflecting on what you have learned during that week.
A link to your blog should be shared with the instructor during the first week of the course. If you do not have a blog, you should go to wordpress.com or blogger.com
Add a tag to each weekly entry with "portfolio"
Your final blog post will be a meta-reflection where you summarize key thoughts related to course content and related program standards. This reflection should be of a similar length
Each week's reflection is worth 10 points and will be self-graded by students using the following rubric:
Attached below is a PDF file containing the credit course requirements approved by Seattle Pacific University in 2012.