Research Diary: Blogs and Eportfolios in Higher Education

Eportfolio Project Day 1 (Launch Site Zero)

Fall quarter 2005 classes started today at Foothill, and so I want to launch my daily eportfolio project-journal too.  The goal is to provide a fun, informal running record of my research, brainstorms, roadblocks, adventures, anxieties, discoveries, and disasters -- unedited and uncensored, just as they occur.  Too much info for most ordinary readers, admittedly, but I can boil the raw stuff down later into a concise report for the rest of you.  Meanwhile, a select few may be honestly interested in my quest to merge eportfolios and blogs into some kind of coherent system.  So let the blogs begin.

In Memorium, Professor John Lovas

My colleague John Lovas was the primary inspiration and instigator of my eportfolios project -- a true pioneer in the field of blogging-across-the-curriculum (not just in my district, but nationwide).  I was so looking forward to collaborating with him.  Then, suddenly, tragically, he died of melanoma while I was teaching in Paris last spring.  In his last email about blogging to me he wrote:  "So you are right:  this is an area ripe for inquiry, experimentation, and development."  Encouragement, inquiry, experimentation, self-development. Those were indeed John's bywords his whole life long. It seems only fitting that I was able to read the dozens of testimonials presented at John's memorial service on a blog specially created for the occasion. And of course it includes a link to John's own blog about teaching:  a lifetime living legacy.  Our first true eportfolio.

Memorial Blog  http://faculty.deanza.edu/johnlovasfestschrift/

John's Blog  http://faculty.deanza.edu/jocalo/

Teacher Creature

You'd think a professor on sabbatical leave would celebrate missing the first day of school.  But I spent a good chunk of the day helping students anyway. Go figure.  Nothing spectacular.  Just ordinary stuff like helping a former student with a med school application, or fielding a random phone call from another former student in trouble.  Helped  a new teacher in Daly City schools get on her feet.  Even in the cellphone store -- where I went to shop for new gear for my adventures in the blogosphere -- the young earnest salesperson ended up cornering me for advice on where to go next with his academic career for over an hour.  I recommended Foothill, of course.  No escaping it: I'm a teacher creature by nature (even, or especially, on a one-year sabbatical).

GOAL:  Use technology to bring teachers closer to students, always, always: never to push them away.

What the Heck is an Eportfolio?

To paraphrase Evelyn Waugh, "There are only three rules for making Eportfolios.  Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."

But the concept -- the goal, the endgame -- is crystal clear.  Just as art/photo/design students have always presented a paper "portfolio" of their best work upon graduation or when searching for jobs, all students should/could create an online portfolio which contains examples of their best work in college.

Of course, what defines "best work" is wide open to different definitions.  Could be academic categories, such as work which demonstrates "critical thinking," "writing skills," "research skills," "scientific skills," and "computational skills."  But clearly no one set of criteria will suffice for all situations. So creating the criteria for inclusion in an eportfolio would be part of the process.

Portfolios.com

For a real-world example of Eportfolios in action, surf over to portfolios.com (which showcases the work of thousands of professional artists, photographers, and designers).  Be sure to turn on your speakers or headphones, because they even have a "virtual assistant" named Alex who will take you on a audio-visual guided tour.

No one has to explain the concept of eportfolios to artists (or their corporate employers) anymore.  It's educators who tend to be "behind the curve" in grasping the vast potential of this technology.  (Note:  I clipped the pics for the last two posts from an artist named Roy Scott, who will have to be paid if this site ever goes commercial).

portfolios.com

The What-About Waiting Game

Confronted with the concept of Eportfolios for the first time, most educators I've met use their razor sharp critical thinking skills to cut the whole idea to shreds.  I call it the "What About" game. 

As in, "What about issues of student privacy?" 

Or "How will we know this is the students' own work?  What about plagiarism?" 

Or dozens of other Frequently-Asked-Questions which (although important) are not nearly as overwhelming as we educators like to make them sound.  See a future posting for a full list of FAQs.

Reality check time:  Eportfolios (broadly defined) are already standard practice in the business world, from corporate webpages marketing product information, to digital resumes for jobseekers, to the more familiar "portfolios" presented by artists on portfolio.com

If business (with billions of dollars on the line) can avoid playing the What About waiting game, why can't we?  These are important concerns, but they are not insurmountable.

Moving Target

Another factor which makes ePortfolios desperately -- or delightfully! -- difficult to define is the rapidfire pace of technological change.  Think of it: the internet, as a widespread popular communication tool, is less than ten years old at this time.  Cellphones were once science ficition, like Dick Tracey's two-way wristwatch in the old cartoons.  Now we can't live without them.

Even on a month-to-month basis, what techies call "convergence" is merging functions so fast that a trip to the local cellphone store can be a dizzying descent into the maelstrom. Witness the latest crop of techie toys and trends this year (I shudder to list them, because I know this will sound hopeless out-of-date before I can post it):  podcasting; universal broadband internet access; mobblogging; streaming video on a cellphone. 

Any one of which could alter the future look-and-feel of whatever we choose to call an eportfolio forever.  So don't expect a stable, timeless definition of ePortfolios out of this researcher.

Judge Roberts and the Blogosphere

The "Blogosphere" refers to the collective chattering of some 5-10 million blogs currently online at this time -- the sum total of all blogs on the net.  It is vast -- and increasingly powerful. 

Both NPR and CNN have commented on the reaction of the "blogosphere" to the Roberts nomination.  Both concur, somewhat surprisingly, that Roberts' testimony has upset conservatives more than liberals.  Like AM radio, the blogosphere is dominated by people of more conservative perpectives. To put it mildly.

"George's Employment Blawg," for example, provides a fascinating compendium of various comments on Roberts gleaned from the blogosphere by a Human Resources professional. Come to think of it, he's assembled a kind of online eportfolio all about the new nominee.

Once you start looking for them, ePortfolios are everywhere!

employmentblawg.blogspot.com/2005/07/supreme-court-nomination-hot-links.html

Since the Dawn of the Diary

The biggest problem with blogs?  Feeling the obligation to post everyday.

The biggest advantage of blogs?  Feeling the freedom to write everyday.

Many of our students now "blog" every day on their own -- not because their teachers told them to, but because they want to. Blogs have done more to get people writing daily than any invention since the dawn of the diary.  For that alone they deserve attention.  And study.  And a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Revolutionary Blogs

Now that you know about the blogosphere, consider this fact:  It is already far, far too large for any one human being to fully grasp anymore.  There are now dozens, hundreds, sometimes thousands of blogs on any given subject.  Personal blogs.  Political blogs.  Sex blogs.  Business blogs.  And, of course, Education Blogs.

Spent today just roaming the blogosphere randomly, trying to get a handle on It All.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, my two favorites were the most topical (like TV, blogs seem best when focused on breaking-news situations). 

Case in point:  Salam Pax (not his real name) presents a witty, incisive, often tragic point-of-view from the heart of U.S. occupied Baghdad.  His blog, currently titled "Shut Up You Fat Whiner" can be found at justzipit.blogspot.com

Equally perceptive is U.S. journalist Dar Jamal's "Dispatches" from Iraq at dahrjamailiraq.com/index.php

Both give "standard journalism" a run for their money.  And show how the "power of the press" has been redistributed/revolutionized by the advent of internet technology (even in the midst of the Age of Clear Channel monopolies). 

Plugged-In Perspective

Here's a posting from my student\personal blog reflecting the (typical?) views of the new plugged-in generation.  He posted this from his laptop via WiFi at the San Francisco airport, waiting for his flight to Singapore.

"Plugged in.
Logged in.

It is almost not too absurd anymore, in a day like this, burning the remaining two hours…you have left before your plane takes-off with your laptop connected to an airport-wide wireless network.

Striking as it may, time seems to be less of a thing to fuss about anymore: internet is a click away from your laptop, and off you go. Once you're logged in you can practically do anything: from hacking another guy's wired laptop to downloading the latest porn video from an online on-demand porn video website; from paying your overdue PG&E bills to checking out last minute details like what amenities do they offer on an economy class cabin.

Time, today, is more like your soon to be divorced partner."

Hurricane Blogs

Here's more evidence that universal access blogs are blowing away the world of traditional print journalism completely.

Is this the biggest change in publishing since the Gutenberg invented the printing press?  The "means of production" in the hands of the people?  Everyman his own Publisher?  Well, maybe.

Appropriately, I pulled this news item off someone else's blog:  "As Hurricane Rita approached, editors at the Houston Chronicle decided to experiment:  they hand picked about a dozen web-diarists and asked them to post regular dispatches."

AudioBlogs Explored

Today I've been exploring the new wide world of Audioblogs -- where folks post voice recordings in lieu of written text.  Might be a great tool for speech classes, lit classes (reading literature out loud?) or anywhere spoken word works.  I'll experiment with an audio posting myself soon.

Forbidden Writing

The common thread in my last two posts is the quality of  "forbidden writing" that seems the essence of the blogosphere now.  Is this possible???  Students writing because they want to???  Amateurs and outsiders doing a far better job than professional, accredited journalists because the truth matters more than money.

Sounds subversive (and exciting).  Blogging is the art of exposing what is hidden -- hidden by the mainstream press, hidden by taboo or intolerance, or just hidden by ordinary everyday obscurity.  Andy Warhol to the contrary, we can't all be famous, even for 15 seconds.

But what happens to this essential, elemental forbidden quality of blogging when we turn it to the task of teaching?  Does making something into a homework assignment, however creative it may be, kill the forbidden quality of blogging?  Will we end up blogging a dead force?

PodCasting Possibilities

The San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, and (it suddenly seems) everyone else is already offering free "podcasts" to Ipod and MP3 owners who want to download audio content.  The only difference between a podcast and an audioblog (see my last posting for examples) seems to be the way you choose to access them.  Podcasts are downloaded onto your iPod for easy listening anywhere.  Audioblogs are accessed via the internet and that means you can choose to listen to any of them you choose instantly from the archives.

As a student of language and ideas, what amazes me most is the rapidity with which memes like podcasting enter the language and become so standard that general ciruclation daily newspapers start featuring them on the front page -- virtually without explanation, definition, or all the usual academic anxiety about "what this new technology means" and all the associated dangers it may pose.  Dangerous it may be, but like it or not, the age of the podcast is already upon us.

Blog-by-Phone Begins

Voila: my first ever message composed as a "blogcast" entirely from my new cellphone (the size of a palmpilot but with full internet connectivity).  Basically it's like a mini-computer, including pocket Word, Excel, Internet Explorer.  The Works!  And better yet, it does seem to work (so far).

I have to type with my thumbs, but I hear there's a whole generation of Lightning Thumb Typists out there who can enter text with blinding speed. 

Eat your heart out, Dick Tracy.  This little miracle is good enough to be featured on Star Trek or Star Wars.  Especially the voice-command dialing. 

Of course in a few months you'll all wonder what I was getting so "hung up" about.  Today's wondertech is tomorrows standard.

Colleagial Conversation

Talked with a young colleague (Part-time in English at Foothill) about the possibilities for using blogs in his composition classes this year.  This particular teacher -- Tim Maxwell -- is already proficient at using ETUDES and has his own class website -- which he designed himself in HTML, no less.  So he is admittedly a quite sophisticated tech-teacher already.

Basically we discussed three possibilities for him to explore:

1.  Use a Class Blog to post questions/assignments from the instructor only.  Students respond via the "comments" button.

2.  Use a Class Blog to post questions/content from all students (not just the instructor).  This makes students co-authors of the Class Blog -- not just "responders" to the instructor's prompts.

3.  Have each student design his/her own personal class blog, posting assignments etc. there.  Gives students full ownership and individuality.  Possibilities unlimited.

Downsides Discussed

During the same conversation with my young(er) colleague -- see my previous post -- I also stressed that blogs are no "magic bullet."  Like any technology -- like any teaching tool ever invented -- blogs have to be used carefully, intelligently, creatively, and appropriately structured and tested and modified or they will fail faster than a leaden lecture at 8:00 a.m.  Among the problems to watch out for, I mentioned:

1.  Badly structured teacher prompts/assignments still lead to bad student writing.  The only difference is that blogs make bad writing all the more public (and painful). 

2.  Low-tech students will always have more trouble.  Access and support are essential if graded schoolwork on blogs is to be required.

3.  Students need incentive.  It's easy for a teacher to invest more time/energy in a class blog than students do. 

Honors Class Eportfolios?

Emailed the Honors Program at Foothill today to propose a winter quarter online Honors Seminar in which each student would custom-design his/her own personal portfolio.  Advantages:  30 young minds working to solve a complex problem with multifaceted results. By the end of winter quarter, I'll have 20-30 ePortfolio designs to display, compare, contrast, copy, and contemplate.  Alternative method: one aging mind (mine) working to solve a complex problem with limited results.  Seems like the seminar method wins, hands down -- I mean hands on!

Blog Dating Dilemmas?

One thing I sure as heck didn't realize when I first proposed this Blog-Research project was how many of our students regularly use their blogs as a way to "hook up" for dating.  Ooops.  Essentially, personal blogs become a way of introducing yourself to potential partners -- kind of like showing "someone special" your private diary.  Except it's not so private after all.  Of course pictures and comments from friends round out the package.  No real academic implications I can think of. 

But wait, come to think of it, I guess it is yet another example of an online ePortfolio!  Just of the romantic (rather than academic) variety. 

It also demonstrates -- once again -- that all those student who tell us they "hate writing" spend hours and hours per day writing blogs, Instant Messages, and emails.  The disconnect between "our" world and "their" world is profound (and disturbing).  I'd like to use blogs and ePortfolios to help bridge that divide!

GoogleBlog

In keeping with the exploding size and popularity of the blogosphere, Google now has a special search engine focused solely on blogs.  Titled Googleblog, you can find it at http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch

Could be a great tool for blog-based research and writing projects.  Example:  students find a subject they're interested in, and compare/contrast several different blogs on the subject -- plus start one of their own!

Blogs Make Front-Page News Again

Every time I turn around there's another front-page story about blogs staring me in the face.  Even in France there were splashy front-pagers about students suspended for blogging nastily about their professors, or the spread of blogs generally among "les ados" (what the French call their teens).

Today it was no less than the New York Times with an article titled

What's Online:  No News Is Good Blogging
By DAN MITCHELL
The joint news conference by Google and Sun Microsystems was so vague that bloggers and analysts have since been constructing wildly disparate interpretations of it.

Blogs Hotwire Music Scene

Yet another front-page article, this time in the Bay Guardian, talks about the impact of blogs on the national hip-hop music scene.  The reasons remain consistent: blogs create community.  They catalyze intellectual/artistic interaction.  And no one is "getting a grade" for doing any of this, either (or getting paid, for that matter, since these are all underground blogs with a limited audience).  Somehow all this writing energy has to harnessed to help energize college writing classrooms.  A tricky transfer.  Call it a hotwire.

Ipod Video

Today Apple CEO Steve Jobs showed off the latest new iPod -- this time with video playback capabilities.  Watch "Desperate Housewives" on your iPod for just $1.99 an episode?  Or maybe your favorite MTV video for the same price?   

That's the vision.  No, too late: that's the reality.

Could this be the future of eportfolios also?  We'll carry them around in little iPod like devices (shrinking ever-smaller but for the screen).  And our ePortfolios will include video and audio along with graphics and text.  With bluetooth connectivity -- and whatever comes next -- ePortfolios could be exchanged faster than passing a business card to a new acquaintance or handing a paper resume across the desk at the HR office.

Soldier Blogs Banned?

On Oct 10, Terry Gross of National Public Radio's "Fresh Air" featured an interview with Jason Christopher Hartley, a National Guard soldier who wrote a wildly-popular (and profane) blog about his day-to-day experiences on the ground in the midst of the. war.  You can read his original blog for free online at

http://cbftw.blogspot.com/

The NPR interview is available at

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4953949

The best of his entries have recently been published in book form under the title My War.  The blog (and the book) have both earned rave reviews from the press for their honesty, humor, and documentary value.  But the Military is now attempting to censor and shut-down blogs by active-duty soldiers, citing concerns that such blogs may accidentally reveal sensitive military information.  Of course, they may also make the chain of command look bad.

Free Blogs for Beginners

Part of my task this month is to review all the various blogging "platforms" that are available so I can better guide others who are just getting started.  Let's say you want to start your own blog.  Which company, which provider, which "platform" is the best.

Like most things in life, there's not one answer. But blogger.com seems to come close to perfection. First and most important, it's free.  Second, it's easy to use. Third, it has most of the standard features -- the bells and whistles -- anyone but an expert could want.  So even though the blog you're reading here is not hosted by blogger, that's the one I'll be recommending to faculty next year.

Lord of the Blogrings

I 've been exploring the wonderful world of "Blogrings" today.  Basically, these are just ways for blogs by people of similar interests to link together.  The hope is to generate a sense of community -- and more readers.  Academic implications?  Well, of course a class could be made into one big "blogring."  Blogrings would also be useful as a research tool.  If students were reading/writing about one particular blog, accessing a related blogring would be a quick/easy/effective way to broaden the research focus.  Blogrings = online learning community.  "One ring to rule them all/ One ring to bind them"

ePortfolios Consortium

Through a Maricopa Community College website I discovered that there's an Eportfolio Consortium it might be well worth joining.  The Consortium is a creative collaboration between " IUPUI, University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, UCLA, Penn State, and Bowling Green University that is aiming to develop an eportfolio system. Visit the ePortConsortium site for more details on the project and visit epsilen for information about the software."  Their site, in turn, links to numerous other ePortfolio sites, projects, collaborations, and consortiums.  Gee, I guess I wasn't the first one to think of all this after all (just joking).  Blogs and ePortfolios are among the hottest things in education right now, as these weblinks demonstrate in detail.

Epsilen Eportfolio System

IUPUI Cyberconsortium developed a whole ePortfolio System for K-12 school systems several years ago.  Looks impressive on their website, and I've been exploring some of their ideas.  As usual, I have concerns about 1) Cost; 2) Flexibility; 3) Portability; 4) Security and 5) Obsolescence.  One advantage of blogs:  they are updated and upgraded constantly -- for free -- to take advantage of the latest technological innovations. And as all my posts this month demonstrate in detail, the tech innovations are coming faster than I can keep up with them these days.  So I worry that, after all that money spent, Epsilen is already outdated.

http://www.epsilen.com/product.aspx

Grokking ePortfolios

A new super-search-engine called Grokker -- from the old 60s gestalt term for 'getting it' -- entered the market recently.  One of my ex-students, now in the Math Dept at Berkeley, was part of the research team that put it together.  It's significant breakthrough is grouping (both visually and in outline form) the search info so it doesn't come out as one long jumbled list.  Sort of an ePortfolio for Raw Information. Get it?

Blog Humor

You know a new trend has really, really caught on when it starts showing up in jokes and casual humor. Case in point: The Onion, a national newspaper devoted to political satire, had a frontpage headline today titled:  "Poll: More Americans Getting Their News From Bev."  The lead went like this:  "MARSHFIELD, MA--With an increasing variety of news media options, including 24-hour cable channels, websites, and blogs, more Americans have been tuning to laocal resident Beverly Tollefsen for their news, a poll released Monday shows."

Needless to say, Bev has a blog!

Earlier this year The Onion ran another article with excerpts from "George Bush's Blog."  Everybody's bloggin' it, bloggin' it!  Even W has one.

Pupil Pages Product

A company called Online Solutions for Educators is offering an impressive "packaged" ePortfolio product -- perhaps the best I've seen so far.  It's called Pupil's Pages  http://www.pupilpages.com/site/info.htm. They offer a free trial period if you want to try setting one up for yourself or your student(s).  Might try using it for my nephew and neice to get a feel for the site.

What I like so far:  simple, clean, intuitive design.  Flexible common-sense format. Pleasing graphics.

Blogging Bottlenecks

Typepad, the service I use for this Blog, is running into bottleneck problems due to its explosive growth -- which mangagement, alas, failed to anticipate in time.  So while they're installing new servers the system has grown raggedy, slow, and unreliable.  If you see gaps in this blog, that's why.

Reminder that computinjg power and tech support are LIMITING FACTORS of ePortfolio designs.

What happens when the whole system crashes?  Goes bankrupt?  Changes owners?  Changes formats?

No one knows.  It's all part of the uncertainty of life on the cyber-frontier, I suppose.

Irony of ironies:  when I tried to post this, my Typepad Serice jammed and crashed!!

Paris Blog Conference -- Les Blogs 2.0

Typepad, the company that I use to make this particular blog, is sponsoring an international conference on blogging, titled "Les Blogs 2.0" on December 5th and 6th in Paris.  Looks like mainly a business/industry focus, although plenty of (European) educators will be there.  Am I tempted???? You bet...Time to check airline prices.  Allons y!

Busted for Blogging??

OK, it's not like I'm a regular reader of Teen People magazine.  But I came across a fascinating news article online (yes, there) about a new blogging ban at a New Jersey private Catholic school.  The school's reasoning is that blogs attract sexual predators.  But 87% of those polled by Teen People objected to the ban on First Amendment grounds.

Tahoe Blog Begins

The bad news: my application to "switch projects" (from this ePortfolio inquiry to writing a book about Lake Tahoe) was turned down by the PDL committee -- for contractual reasons.  Can't change horeses in midstream and all that jazz.  But they did suggest starting a Tahoe-based blog as part of my PDL sabbatical project.  So I'm going right to work to set one up today.  Think of it as my ePortfolio as a writer.  Should be a good "spur" to write something new -- and entertaining -- about Tahoe every single day.

London Centre for Distance Education

Checking out participants in the Les Blogs 2 conference in Paris, I found a Centre [note that spelling!] for Distance Education at the University of London.  Might be another place to "drop by " on my way to Paris, no?  Interesting that the Europeans are beginning to plunge into distance ed wholeheartedly.  But hey, how about a Center for Distance Education at Foothill?

MySpace Groups

Found out about a MySpace feature I never saw before -- perhaps perfect for educational uses.  MySpace is one of the many blogging/meeting-friends platforms out there.  Very popular with college-aged students, BTW.MySpace Groups allows you to create a Group Site where anyone can login, publish forum topics, and generally meet as a kind of online club  Come to think of it, this would work well for Clubs at Foothill also!

Lifetime Personal Webspace

Just finished an excellent article arguing that ePortfolios are just the tip of the iceburg -- that what we're really moving toward is not just a limited portfolio but a Lifetime Personal Webpage.  Not sure I agree entirely (remember when there was a craze for a lifetime personal email address?).  But I do agree that Moore's Law will enable far more extensive online archiving and display of anything and everything in our lives.  The author also points out -- correctly -- that paper archives are just as fragile and tenative as digitized ones (witness the memories lost to Katrina recently).

http://www.educause.edu/apps/eq/eqm04/eqm0441.asp?bhcp=1

Eportfolio Guru

Discovered my personal ePortfolio Guru online today -- thanks to a googlesearch (as usual).  Her name is Helen Barrett, and she's been doing research on computers-in-education now for fifteen years.  Our instincts about education are so similar, but I can benefit endlessly from the wealth of knowledge, information, and insight she's gathered over the years.  Finding her blogs and publications leap-frogs my own research by about fifteen years too!  http://electronicportfolios.org/blog/

ePortfolios en francais

Found a conference on ePortfolios coming up in Quebec next April.  But mon dieu, sacre bleu, the whole thing is going to be in French.  Even after Paris campus abroad, I'm not 100% certain my listening/speaking skills are up to snuff for conference-level participation yet.  But what a great incentive to keep learning and improving -- even if I'm not living in Paris anymore.  BTW this is yet more evidence (as if more was needed) that the Europeans have caught onto the ePortfolio craze in a big way. Canadians too, apparently!  http://www.eife-l.org/portfolio/epq06/

Eportfolio in New Zealand?

There's another big ePortfolio conference coming up in New Zealand -- the sequel to the London conference I read about earlier.  I'm tempted, despite the distance, becuase the international dimensions of the ePortfolio movement continues to amaze me.  My favorite new guru, Helen Barrett, will be keynoting, too.  So don't be surprised if I start posting from south of the equator. www.eife-l.org/portfolio/epq06/

How Not to Blog

Gothamist.com for Dec. 8, 2003, one of the biggest blogsites going, has the following poignant advice about "how NOT to blog."  To wit:

1. Don't use the word blog without realizing what it means. Blog blog blog - our ears are bleeding from it. Using Meg's definition as a guide, blogs are made up of posts that have "links + commentary." Commentary, not Joyce-ian stream-of-consciousness. They can be personal, but more in terms of point of view, versus a webcam of yourself. It's more fiting to call your website a website. Call yourself a journalist, or a writer. Having special names for everything smacks of 1999 newspeak. Sure- it's sad that the word blog has gotten all used up but c'est la vie, time to move on. "Bloggers" have come to be irrevocably associated with 16 year old girls, writing in bad grammar on LiveJournal, the label has become inappropriate for the rest of us.

2. Therefore, for the love of God, do not write about yourself. Do not write about your friends. Do not write about your family. Do not write about your pets. Or airport travels. Do not write about that girl at the bodega on 4th avenue and how she's giving you the eye. Do not write about your dates. Pick a real subject or series of subjects and stick to it – if you have to use the word "I" more than once a week, you are doing something very, very wrong.

ePortfolios Upside-Down

In my online research, I came across a schematic which claims to show a hierarchy of ePortfolio development.  Except I think they have the whole thing upside down.  Basically, the more bureaucracy and rigidity -- i.e. control -- is built into the systems, the better (according to those who made the schematic).  My idea is the opposite:  the more flexibility, individual freedom, and open-architecture is built into the system, the better.  So as far as I'm concerned, their graph is upside down!  Aside from that, however, I think the article provides an excellent (if rather dry) overview of the development and current state of various ePorftfolio systems.

http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/eportfolios.htm

Killer Blogs

FORBES magazine this week had a huge splashy cover story about how Blogs Can Kill Your Business.  The premise was that many companies -- this includes Foothill College, BTW -- have been subject to organized attacks by very small, but very savvy groups of bloggers who use the power of the internet to spread misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies.  Information on the internet travels so fast that most companies face a tidal wave of public backlash before they can even begin to respond.  What the article fails to address, however, are the many, many business benefits of blogging.  So it seemed a bit too much like 'the bogey man is gonna get you' journalism to this reader.

http://www.forbes.com/home/free_forbes/2005/1114/128.html

Veterans Day Blogs

OK, so I'm working on Veteran's Day (even though it's an official holiday at Foothill).  Took this opportunity to investigate blogs by soldiers/veterans -- of course there are thousands.  Adds a whole new dimension to the time-honored tradition of 'letters from the front." Here's the titles of just a few of them

Iraq Veterans

The Brain Housing Group
E-Rocky-Confidential
A Line in the Sand
2Slick's Forum
My War
Just Another Soldier
One Veteran's Voice
Sisyphus Today

Military Blogs

Thoughts of a Soldier-Ethicist
Intel Dump
Blackfive
The Indepundit
Froggy Ruminations
Confessions of a Military Recruiter
Incoherent Ramblings
Murdoc Online
Mudville Gazette
Disgruntled Grunt
Thoughts on America

ePortfolio Metaphors

More from ePortfolio guru Helen Barrett's website:  Fill in the blank!  An ePortfolio is like...

a mirror (see myself)....a map (overview)...a sonnet (simple structure)....a theoretical act (design variables)....a story (of learning)....a journey (of learning).....a laboratory (of learning).....a test (of learning).....a celebration (of learning).....a comparison (with others and with my past).....campfires around which we tell our story (pass the marshmallows)....my digital clone (mini-me)...my work companion (practical)....my dashboard (speed, mileage, temperature)....my butler (ask jeeves)....my toothbrush (daily habit)....a caterpillar (emerging)....a kaleidescope (endless combinations from simple sources)....a window (to the world)....

ePortfolios for Elementary Schools?

My ePortfolio guru, Helen Barrett, is building ePortfolios with her 2nd grade and 4th grade grandkids -- with great success so far, as she reports in her blog at  http://electronicportfolios.org/blog/2005/10/online-eportfolio-research-elementary.html

All this parallels my own inspirations perfectly.  I've been planning to work with my neice and nephew, Austin (2nd grade) and Ashley (4th grade), to build ePortfolios for them at school.  They already have paper portfolios of all kinds (art, poetry, math, stories, presentations) so it's mainly a matter of scanning and arranging and categorizing and such.  If I get really lucky I'll get the whole school involved.  Prediction: the first really usable ePortfolio platforms will emerge from the connected, creative world of K-12 education!

EuroPortfolios

EIFEL (European Institute for E-Learning) has a splashy, exciting website full of promises to "achieve the goal “ePortfolio for all”, to make Europe the most competitive knowledge economy by 2010."  Here's another quote from their preamble.

Technology has rejuvenated the concept of personal portfolios, which are now increasingly being seen as a powerful tool for personal development. The interest of a digital or electronic portfolio resides in its multiple dimensions: it is at the same time a tool for learning and a tool for assessment.

Vive la revolution!  http://www.eife-l.org/portfolio

Webfolios

Ooops, another techie-term to add to our ever-growing glossary.  "Webfolios" seem to be just another word for ePortfolios (but some authors have drawn a distinction).  Overall, splitting hairs about terminology is about as useful as, well, splitting hairs.  Call it what you will, let's build some online ePortfolios....er, um, Webfolios....er, um, whatyamacallits! In the words of one site: http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/eportfolios.htm

"Portfolios have long been the showcase tools of artists – expressions of competencies and work completed. Eportfolios and webfolios are digital enactments of portfolios. Some authors have drawn distinctions between terms, (Love et al, 2004) defining eportfolios as information that resides on a CD ROM or other physical media, and webfolios as web-based portfolio. This distinction is reminiscent of the discussions deciding on which term to use “elearning” or “web-based-training”. The debate was resolved through common use of the term elearning to encompass both."