QCePortfolios

Today is cold!!! But the dogs had a great walk in the park...http://qc.edu

This is a test

I just wanted to share with you all that our first attempt at eportfolios in the school library media program has gone really well. I introduced the idea in our LIS 761 course, Organization and Management for Library Media Centers. This is rather the ‘intro’ course for the LMS course sequence. I wanted students to have an opportunity to construct eportfolios so that they would be available to them throughout the rest of the LMS program.

Since this is not a lab course and we have a tremendous amount of material to cover as it is, I made the eportfolio assignment optional this first time. Students had a choice of writing a more traditional paper or constructing an eportfolio. I talked to them about eportfolios and showed them the models on the LaGuardia site. Tom graciously shared his templates with us. I made some minor tweaks in the area titles so that they would be more appropriate for teacher education students. Thus, our portfolio areas included Personal Background, Goals, Teaching Philosophy/Reflection/Growth, Lesson Plans/Units/Other Projects, Field Work/Student Teaching, Resume, and Links. Lessons were linked to national and state standards. In addition, I told students that they might add to these areas if they had other material they wanted to share. So, for example, one student made her areas Personal Background, Goals, Teaching Philosophy, Curriculum, Programming, Field Work and Student Teaching, Resume, and Links.

Just under half the class chose to construct eportfolios and these were submitted only last week. I was very pleased with this first effort. Several of the eportfolios submitted are really quite good. Students shared their eportfolios with their classmates during presentation time. Some students, after seeing what others had done, were inspired to work on their own eportfolios some more. One student who did not elect to construct an eportfolio for this course has already asked me about constructing one next term. Students seem to really like shaping this presentation of themselves and I think it will help them immensely to look at and reflect upon their own work and progress. I am very excited about working with students constructing eportfolios next term and I plan, this time to make it a requirement for everyone in the class.

Linda

Hello ePortfolio team!

During an extensive meeting with my chair today that touched on how to make the portfolio a more intricate part of the program she was interested in approaching the SEYS faculty with a proposal to integrate the portfolio as a departmental assessment. She wants me to present to the faculty next semester. I'm going to come up with a framework of how each class in the minor and post bac can integrate portfolio assignments into a digital portfolio while meeting QC and program standards. She also seemed interested in having other folks come in and speak at our program committee about how different programs have their own requirements but work off of a central piece. If we have some support in place in the fall for helping students with the data entry and making it little burden on the faculty I think this might fly soon.

Any hope that we could be in on the pilot (funds) for instituting a portfolio next fall? That might be a carrot that would get more attention. I'd like to get some ideas from all of you about how I can milk this to the best extent to sell it to my department and bring everyone on board. When you all have a time to catch your breath and think that will be fine. Maybe next week at our Making Connections meeting we can spend a little time talking about this.
Jackie

Hello all,
Just wanted to remind you that we have homework for the Dec 12 meeting. As I informed all of you in the emails I recently sent, I made an appointment with Laura Silverman in the advising center for next Thursday Dec 11 from 11-12 to get some initial information for the next meeting. You are welcome to come but I understand if you're busy. It is crazy this time of the year!

Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving and I look forward to seeing you next Friday!
Jackie

Just wanted to let you all know that I gave up using Tom's template. I still have not gotten a lab to use and I am not allowed to take the laptops to another building (where my classes are held) so I am continuing with the folders on a CD as I did before. I would have to make arrangements with space management for classrooms in Powdermaker if I did this and this late in the game no vale la pena!

I am also planning a curriculum change at the graduate level to move the first research course in the first or second semester of the masters program. This way I can start them with the portfolio early and it solves other logistical issues as well.
Jackie

Hello Tom, Claudia, and Linda,

You were missed today. I wanted to give you a summary of what we did and some heads up on what they would like us to do before the next December meeting. I was glad to hear that Susan spoke to Claudia at length the other day about our submission to prepare for renewal but she filled me in briefly at the end of the meeting. I got folders for all of you BTW and I'll try to get those to you at the meeting next Thursday if not sooner.
Claudia, did Susan talk a lot to you about coming up with solutions to our problems that we delineated?

1) We had a check-in session for each group and I brought the power point from Ed Tech and used that as a guideline to brief the group what we're doing. Kudos to Tom on that and could I have an electronic copy for my promotion materials? A reporter from each of the two groups formed reported a summary to the entire group.
2) We viewed presentations by Paul (He's a VP or some upper administrator Brett's boss) and he did an insightful presentation on their Gen Ed use of the portfolio at the conference. I attended his session so if you were there it was some similar information.
Jim from accounting also presented how his program developed their assessment system
Clarence shared the Physical Therapy program competencies and information about their assessments.
All presentations are on the MC BB site at LGCC>
3) We had a short session where we responded in writing to how the presentations informed us and could apply to what we were doing. We then met in working groups to discuss those answers. I spoke to someone in the CUNY online bacc program and we got into an interesting discussion about articulation.
4) Then we talked about what we were going to be doing in December. This is the last meeting of the program (unless we renew our application now due on Nov 24- a few extra days).
a) they want us to think about what we learned in the year and give them some feedback. Perhaps we can blog separately and paste and copy what we come up with to give them or a link they can go to. They want to know what was helpful and what needs to be improved. (Just as an aside, Brett shared that he went to a conference and they loved LAGCC's model of communities and they plan to implement that).
b) They want to address tranfer briefly next meeting. They want us to do some work on campus between now and then looking at key players for discussions about transfer (Laura Silverman in advising would be good for one). They want some written paper about the system that we can use for discussion. If you like I'll contact Laura and see if I can get some of that from her. Any other ideas?
This is our Homework for the next meeting and it will inform what the MC group does in the spring.

Hello everyone,
Ken Lord sent me an email inviting us to present on Tech Day about the Eportfolio. Message pasted below. Is everyone as interested in doing this as I am? I told him I'd get back to him about it.
Jackie

Sep 18
Hi Jacqui,

I am contacting you as point person for your ePortfolio group. As I mentioned at
UCC, I would love to have a group presentation/panel discussion about ePortfolios
at EdTech Day. Would you be willing to discuss that with your group?

EdTech Day is Friday, October 24th. It runs all day, and I can fit you in where
convenient, though late morning through 3pm is best.

Thanks very much!

Ken

=======================================
Dr. Kenneth Lord
Assistant to the Provost for Educational Technology (www.qc.cuny.edu/edtech)
Chair, Undergraduate Curriculum Committee
Lecturer, Computer Science
Queens College, CUNY

Here is what the template will look like when the laba are completed. I will be adding illustrative material that will serve as examples for each category. Another document will document what I intend to do.
http://qcpages.qc.edu/GSLIS/eportfolio/index.html
Note the "older than dirt" Viking in Newfoundland.

Chirp!
elt