I am embarking on a new form of research, to be conducted online.

Participation is open to K-12 teachers or teacher educators. To be a full participant in this open action research project, teachers need to do the following:

1. Set up a new blog to document your process of implementing ePortfolios with your students. Use Blogger, WordPress, Edublogs, or any blog that has RSS feeds. Send your blog address to Dr. Barrett by

email: eportfolios@gmail.com. In this private email, describe your context (grade level/subject, type of school, state where you are located, whether you are urban, suburban or rural, etc.).

2. Create a blog entry that outlines your goals for implementing portfolios with your students - and create a web page that describes those goals for both students and parents. This web page could be on your school web space, or a Web 2.0 space such as Google Sites. Send the web page address to Dr. Barrett by email, when you get it posted.

3. Maintain weekly blog entries about the process, including what you did, what your students did, examples of instructional materials that you used (or developed). Dr. Barrett will follow your RSS feed and will respond as time permits by commenting on your blog.

4. This Google Group on K12 ePortfolios will be used to support teachers participating in the project. In this group, Dr. Barrett will post suggestions and answer questions about the ePortfolio development process using Web 2.0 tools. Due to limited time and resources, answers will be limited to the use of blogs, wikis, GoogleApps and other free Web 2.0 tools, not on using commercial or open source tools. The primary communication will be through email posts to the group. (This group is now moderated to avoid spam.)

5. For those who like to Twitter, use the following tag #web2eportfolios or join the group: http://www.twibes.com/group/web2eportfolios

6. Use the following resources to support implementation of ePortfolios in K-12 schools:

http://sites.google.com/site/eportfolioswp/ (ePortfolios with WordPress or Edublogs, developed by Dr. Helen Barrett) http://sites.google.com/site/eportfolioapps/ (ePortfolios with GoogleApps--Docs & Sites, developed by Dr. Helen Barrett) http://sites.google.com/site/reflection4learning/(Reflection for Learning -- ideas for scaffolding reflection in ePortfolios developed by Dr. Helen Barrett and others)

7. If you are alone in your school, trying to implement ePortfolios, find a partner and get your principal's support! My previous research shows that it really takes a school team and strong leadership to effectively implement ePortfolios. Let's see what we all learn together!

If you maintain weekly blog entries, you may schedule regular Skype conversations with Dr. Barrett to discuss your specific implementation strategies, issues and concerns.

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For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/k12eportfolios?hl=en

... perhaps the greatest potential for ePortfolios in our era is to connect that growing Personal Historical Learning Consciousness (to coin a phrase) to a rich, Personal Futures Learning Consciousness. I don't believe that the ePortfolio community - nor futurists - have explored that notion much.

...

We need to impart a rich, disciplinary view that provides a perspective of changes in the bedrock of human knowledge. We need to provide that enhanced Time Perspective that comes with it, a sense of the collection of events unfolding along a particular trajectory and the ability to project forward into it to determine the possible, probable, and preferable futures. We need students to learn to artfully choose and proactively enact so as to be an agent OF the future. A future-focused ePortfolio could assist people to gain that perspective despite the challenges that:

• The future is surprising and beyond our capacity to predict.


• The future for us today is very different than the future was for most people in ages past.


• We largely assume - wrongly - that tomorrow will be pretty much like today.

http://hothousestrategies.com/tefblog/?p=71

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• Types of ePortfolios

... That reminded me of a statement made by Thomas Friedman in The World is Flat: CQ + PQ > IQ (Curiosity plus Passion is greater than IQ) in the learning process. As I look at my work on ePortfolios, I feel a real disconnect between my vision of the ePortfolio as a way to document the story of deep learning, and the pervasive implementation of ePortfolios as a source of data for accountability and accreditation. As I quoted Hartnell-Young and Morriss in an earlier blog entry, portfolios created for this purpose 'tend to be heavy with documentation but light on passion.'



As I wrap up my current study on ePortfolios in secondary education, I know what I want to study next: this issue of passion, ... excitement, flow and engagement. ... I want to find examples of where students are excited about learning, using ePortfolios as a way to demonstrate that excitement for learning. ... My passion for the last decade (or more) has been ePortfolios, and the related processes that enrich the experience (reflection, digital storytelling). I realize that I have changed my vision from the early days, when I was more focused on assessment and standards-based portfolios. Today, ... my vision has broadened to a more lifelong, life wide perspective. ePortfolios aren't just for schools... in fact schooling may be ruining the experience for a lot of learners. I hope that we can find the passion again in documenting, and better yet, celebrating learning within a worldwide community. That is a future worth working toward.

In its short and dynamic history, the ePortfolio has rapidly moved from the status of simple paperless portfolio to sophisticated ePortfolio Management Systems. Today, the explosion of new social practices emerging from the use of new media, such as social networks and what is commonly referred as Web 2.0, tends to blur the frontiers of ePortfolios. This will have an impact on the technology developed by ePortfolio Management System suppliers, as well as on the standards for making them interoperable with other related information systems.



Is MySpace an ePortfolio? Is 43things an ePortfolio? Is Elgg really an ePortfolio? What is the relationship between an ePortfolio and an ePortfolio Management System? What standards do we need to make ePortfolios interoperable? What ePortfolio parts shouldn't be made interoperable?



The objective of this position paper is to describe an ePortfolio architecture where the response to these questions will be offered, providing a pathway for innovation and standardisation, keeping the power of free personalised expression and interoperability. This will be done through the description of an ePortfolio enabled environment based on the interaction between ePortfolios, personal ePortfolio Systems and organisational ePortfolio Management Systems.

Is MySpace an ePortfolio? Is 43things an ePortfolio? Is Elgg really an ePortfolio? What is the relationship between an ePortfolio and an ePortfolio Management System? What standards do we need to make ePortfolios interoperable? What ePortfolio parts shouldn't be made interoperable?