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Book Prospectus

To ISTE from Helen Barrett


Interactive ePortfolios and [with/using?] Web 2.0

Using Web 2.0 to preserve memories,
share stories of deep learning,
document achievements,
and envision the future.


Chris Dede is the Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. His fields of scholarship include emerging technologies, policy, and leadership.  "Over the past few years," he writes, "the array of free interactive media for communities to create and share knowledge has greatly expanded. The menu for classroom use now includes writers’ workshops and fanfiction, online discussion forums, wikis, mashups, photo/video sharing, social networking sites, blogs, podcasts, social bookmarking, and collaborative social change sites."

1. Abstract

Provide a 200-250 word abstract of the work, noting the scope of its coverage and its approach to the material.


This book will cover both teachers’ and students' use of emerging Web 2.0 technologies to support  electronic portfolio development for a variety of purposes.  This book has three parts: (1) an overview of the multiple purposes for developing electronic portfolios across the lifespan, with an emphasis on formal education, with various scenarios for implementing portfolios, from early childhood, through all the levels of elementary, secondary, and teacher education, to professional teaching portfolios; (2) a multi-level model of implementing electronic portfolios in K-12 schools, from the ePortfolio as storage, to the portfolio as reflective workspace and ultimately to the portfolio as showcase; and (3) the variety of Web 2.0 technologies that are changing the future of reflection and portfolios.


This book will cover various strategies for designing and authoring electronic portfolios using Web 2.0  tools, including goals/purpose of the portfolio, evaluation criteria, audience, content, context and multimedia materials to include in the portfolio. There are many authoring software which allows the creation of hypertext links between goals, student work samples in multiple forms of media, rubrics, and assessment. A theme that will permeate the book is the "heart and soul" of portfolios: reflection and metacognition.

2. Audience

Describe the work’s intended audience: who would be most interested in this work? Who would benefit most from it? What kind of technical background will readers or users need? For what age group or grade level are the materials written?


This book is appropriate for several audiences:

Student teachers who need to develop their own electronic portfolios

Classroom teachers who want to implement electronic portfolios in their own classrooms

Administrators and computer coordinators who need to plan for system-wide implementation of electronic portfolios.

3. Outline

Provide a detailed outline of the work, including section headings, chapter headings, subheadings, and appendices, with explanations as necessary. A brief synopsis of each chapter can be submitted in lieu of subheadings. Include a brief overview that describes why the book is structured the way it is and the logic that ties the contents together.


This book has three parts. The first section will provide the “big picture” overview of the role of electronic portfolios in lifelong learning and the general electronic portfolio development process. The second section will outline various age-related scenarios for implementing portfolios, from early childhood, through all the levels of elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education, to professional teaching portfolios. Each chapter will include at least one case study that illustrates the technology tools that may be most appropriate at that level. Another component of each chapter will contain ideas for creating electronic portfolios to demonstrate achievement of the NETS at appropriate levels. The third section discusses the technology tools to create electronic portfolios. Many of these materials are already published on Dr. Barrett’s website. The Appendix will include how to evaluate commercial e-portfolio systems, rubrics for evaluating electronic portfolios, a brief discussion of research on portfolios in education, and an annotated bibliography on current books and websites on portfolios.

I Why Electronic Portfolios for Educators Today?

  1. Definitions:

What is a portfolio? 

Processes: Collection, Selection, Reflection, Direction, Presentation

What is an electronic portfolio?

Why develop an electronic portfolio?

What does the research say about using ePortfolios as a learning tool?

Moving ePortfolios from the desktop/CD/DVD to the cloud

Web 2.0: A Pedagogy of Interaction

Horizon Report for K-12 and future directions for technology in K-12 & higher education


  1. Planning for the Electronic Portfolio

What is your purpose for developing an ePortfolio?

Strategic questions, basic decisions, multiple purposes:

ePortfolios for Learning

ePortfolios for Assessment

ePortfolios for Employment/Marketing

Matching different purposes to available tools - a decision-making process

        Categories of ePortfolio Tools

        Open source or commercial tools


  1. Electronic Portfolios: A Developmental Process

Balancing the Two Faces of ePortfolios

Stage 1: ePortfolios as Storage

Stage 2: ePortfolios as Workspace

Stage 3: ePortfolios as Showcase

II Developmental Contexts for Electronic Portfolios

  1. Young Child and Family Portfolios

“Beyond the Baby Book” - Birth through 3rd Grade
Tech Case Studies: Digital images, audio and video plus parent involvement

Reflection in Early Childhood: Finding Voice and the Language of Reflection


  1. Middle Level Student Portfolios

“Beyond the Report Card & Cum Files” - 4th–8th Grade
Tech Case Study: Blogs, Wikis & VoiceThread

Reflection in Middle Grades: Learning to Learn Portfolio Model


  1. High School Student Portfolios

Beyond GPA and SATs” - High School
Tech Case Study: GoogleApps (Docs, Sites)
Reflection in High School: Construction of Self, Planning for the Future


  1. Student Teacher Portfolios

“Beyond Transcripts”
Tech Case Study: Tagging and Social Networks

Personalizing Standards-Based Portfolios: Choice and Voice

Modeling ePortfolio Development for Classroom Application

Reflection in Teacher Education: Demonstrating Competence


  1. Professional Portfolios

“Beyond Resumes and Vitas”
Tech Case Study: Micro-Blogging (Twitter/Edmodo) and Second Life
Reflection on the Job: Sharing Experiences, Building a Community of Learners

III Tools and Strategies for Constructing Electronic Portfolios

  1. Developing the Digital Archive – Archive Creation & Digital Conversion

The Raw Materials

Digitizing and Using Text

Digitizing and Using Images

Digitizing and Using Sound, including Music

Digitizing and Using Video

Online Storage Strategies - The Personal Web


  1. Organizing Electronic Portfolio Artifacts for Easy Storage & Retrieval

Authoring tools to construct electronic portfolios

Common Software and Web 2.0 tools

Navigation Models & Portfolio Construction Processes

        Chronological Organization: Documenting Growth over Time

        Thematic Organization: Showcasing Achievement of Outcomes/Goals/Standards


  1. Digital Storytelling in Electronic Portfolios

What is Digital Storytelling?

Multiple Purposes of Digital Stories in ePortfolios

Storytelling across the Curriculum (with emphasis on Writing and Social Studies)

Storytelling and Reflection

Digital Storytelling Process and elements of a good digital story

Digital Storytelling in the community; involving parents & grandparents

Case Studies: Wales, UK; Scott County, KY


  1. Publishing the Electronic Portfolio

CD-ROM

WWW server

DVD

Web 2.0 Media Sharing Sites and Mash-Ups


Appendix

  1. Buy vs. Make Your Own – Evaluating Commercial ePortfolio Tools
    (Excerpt from David Gibson’s article) plus CSU CDL & Regis University websites

  2. Rubrics for Evaluating ePortfolios and Digital Stories

  3. Research on ePortfolios and Digital Storytelling

  4. Resources on Portfolio Development – an annotated bibliography

4. Outstanding Features

List what you consider to be the outstanding, distinctive, or unique features of the work. What does your work offer that previous or similar works do not?

This is the only book in the field that covers the entire education spectrum, from early childhood to post-graduate school. I will also incorporate many examples from my four years providing training and technical assistance to teacher education programs across the U.S., and my last four years researching and implementing ePortfolios in K-12. I will also insert examples from an international perspective, beginning with my experience with the first international conference on the e-portfolio held in France in October 2003 and other international conferences through 2009.

5. Technology Focus

Describe the specific role that technology will play in your text.

Web 2.0 tools will be used to construct different types of electronic portfolios at different age levels.

6. Pedagogy

Indicate the pedagogical approach your text will adopt (if applicable). Does the text highlight any specific learning theories?

There will be two themes in this book: reflection  (the role of reflection in portfolios to support lifelong learning) and the role of technology in the portfolio process. One theme will combine principles of learning (from How People Learn) and using electronic portfolios to foster learning that lasts.

7. Market

Specify the factors that, in your opinion, might have an impact (positive or negative) on the market for your submission. How is the market changing? If you have done any market research of your own, summarize your findings.

This will be the most definitive work on the subject, providing a comprehensive publication on electronic portfolios that does not currently exist in a single publication. Not only will it discuss the various scenarios for publishing electronic portfolios across the age span, it will provide practical “how-to’s” covering the multimedia tools and skills.


As I make presentations on this topic at local and national conferences, I find there is a lot of interest in this topic and there is currently no book on the market which specifically addresses this subject and the technology skills. There are many books on multimedia skills, and other books on portfolios for both teachers and students. However, no one has put it all together in one book. For the first time, in one book, find the philosophy of using electronic portfolios across the age span, from early childhood to professional portfolios, and the practical, hands-on technology skills to make it happen using either Mac or Windows software. This will be a definitive, even-handed source of information as well as a comprehensive synthesis of strategies for developing electronic portfolios, covering a range of age levels written in an accessible and easy-to use style.


8. Competition

List any existing products you know about that your work will compete against, and discuss their specific strengths and weaknesses. Include the author, title, publisher, publication date, and price of each competing product. Spell out how your materials will be similar to and different from competing products.


A more comprehensive bibliography on portfolios in education is posted on my website at: http://electronicportfolios.org/portfolios/bibliography.html. Below are books that specifically address electronic portfolios.


Existing Books

Comparison (similarity and differences)

Baron, Cynthia (1996). Creating a Digital Portfolio. Indianapolis: Hayden Books

ISBN: 1568303262 (out of print)

Baron, Cynthia (2003) Designing a Digital Portfolio. New Riders $24.50

ISBN: 0735713944

A book designed for graphic arts professionals. This book includes a CD-ROM and provides some interesting examples of web-based and CD-ROM-based portfolios using a variety of construction tools, including HTML, Director and Acrobat..

Hartnell-Young, Elizabeth and Morriss, Maureen (1999). Digital Professional Portfolios for Change. Arlington Heights: Skylight Professional Development $26.95 ISBN: 1575171651

The first book that addresses a model of putting multimedia professional portfolios on the World Wide Web. Covers strategies developed by Women @ the Cutting Edge in Australia.

Ash, Linda E. (2000) Electronic Student Portfolios. Arlington Heights: Skylight Professional Development $28.95

ISBN: 157517281X

This book addresses K-12 student portfolios using the ACOT levels of adoption as the framework for adopting specific tools.

Yancey, Kathleen Blake and Weiser, Irwin (eds.) (1997) Situating Portfolios: Four Perspectives. Logan: Utah State University Press $21.95

A great compendium of articles focusing on theory and power (primarity in writing portfolios), pedagogy, teaching and professional development, and technology. This book is "both reflective and forward-looking, practice-oriented but well-grounded in theory,"

Kilbane, Clare and Millman, Natalie (2003) The Digital Teaching Portfolio Handbook: A How-To Guide for Educators. Pearson Allyn & Bacon $32.00 ISBN: 0205343457

This book is aimed at pre-service teachers, and focuses only on web-based portfolios created in HTML.



Timetable and Format

Give us an idea of when we could expect a complete manuscript, and what form it would take:

  1. What is your timetable for completing the work?

My goal is to have the first draft completed by NECC 2010.

  1. What portion of the work is now complete?

It is in many disjointed pieces, that need to be pulled together and made more consistent.

  1. What, in your estimate, will be the size of the completed work (in number of 8.5 x 11 double-spaced pages)?

Approximately 300

  1. How many illustrations (charts, graphs, photos, artwork, etc.) will be included?

I have no idea, but most will be screen shots and diagrams that I have created to explain the conceptual basis of ePortfolios.

  1. What electronic format will the work be submitted in? We prefer Microsoft Word files (Mac or Win), but if you are using a different platform or software, please list.

I would like to write the text in GoogleDocs, which can be converted into Microsoft Word.


Sample Chapters

If the manuscript is not complete, send one or two chapters that are an integral part of the work:

  1. The chapters do not have to be in sequence; for example, you might submit chapters 3 and 7 of a 12-chapter book, so long as these chapters are representative of the content and writing style of the text as a whole.

  2. If possible, submit chapters that are particularly innovative or unique, or that provide the clearest indication of your main ideas.

  3. Sample chapters should contain rough sketches, charts, and a description of photographs to be included. However, the material need not be in final form.

  4. In preparing the sample chapters, emphasis should be on readability. If the work includes data files, please include copies.


Here is a link to the chapter on Balancing the Two Faces of ePortfolios.

Vita (Biography)

Include a copy of your vita or a paragraph or two of relevant biographical information.

My Vita is linked from my website at: http://electronicportfolios.org/2009vita.pdf


In 2005, Dr. Helen Barrett retired from the faculty of the College of Education at the University of Alaska Anchorage and is now living in the Seattle area. She has been researching strategies and technologies for electronic portfolios since 1991, publishing a website (http://electronicportfolios.org), chapters in several books on Electronic Portfolios, and numerous articles. She was on loan to the International Society for Technology in Education between 2001 and early 2005, providing training and technical assistance on electronic portfolios for teacher education programs throughout the U.S. under a federal PT3 grant. In 2005, Dr. Barrett became the Research Project Director for The REFLECT Initiative, a two-year research project, underwritten by TaskStream, to assess the impact of electronic portfolios on student learning, motivation and engagement in secondary schools.

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, where she will be researching emerging strategies for electronic portfolios and digital storytelling to support lifelong and life wide learning. She is currently working on several book projects on electronic portfolios. She is also an Apple Distinguished Educator and a George Lucas Educational Foundation Faculty Associate.

At the European ePortfolio Conference in Maastricht, October 2007, Dr. Barrett received the first EIFEL Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to ePortfolio research and development.

Prospectus for book on Electronic Portfolios