Nothing much exciting

Yesterday I actually started creating some of the HTML pages for my portfolio. So far, I haven't done anything exciting to report. However, this evening I was browsing my RSS feeds and saw a link to today's Jakob Nielsen article. He writes about three design approaches: mastery, mystery, and misery. Guess which one I think I should follow!

Dr. W - Let me know if you get this as an email. :-)

Fun with Adobe products

One of the richest artifacts I can include in my portfolio is a copy of my former school's SACS plan. It offers evidence of leadership, technical skill, vision for technology integration, professional development experience and ability to secure funding. My problem was that the document was an old PageMaker file. I thought I would have to impose on someone for help, but it turns out I was able to convert it using Adobe InDesign. Then I needed to convert those multiple files to one PDF file and bookmark so portfolio reviewers could easily navigate the document if desired. Ironically, this task was something I had wanted to do back when we had our SACS visit. We wanted to offer an electronic version to the SACS Visiting Team members but we a) ran out of time and b) thought they might prefer paper.

As I was inserting all the bookmarks, I noticed a comment feature. I gave it a try and thought it would be useful, too. It works almost exactly like Word's comment feature, displaying a little speech bubble in the document. When you run your mouse over the comment icon, you can read the author's comments. I'm using this to annotate and/or highlight some of the relevant things in the large document. I was afraid it would only work on the full version of Acrobat, but the comments behave correctly when viewing documents in Adobe Reader, too.

I'm so excited! I had intended to use the commenting tool on a handful of Word documents (such as a syllabus) but I'm always reluctant to assume everyone has Word. I know most people do, but I disagree with this in principle.

I woke up thinking

Yesterday, Dr. Baumbach finished drafting the rubric for my portfolio. Two of the dimensions are "synthesis of information" and "theory to practice." I spent a lot of time thinking about the artifacts I would need to provide evidence in these areas. Of course, that involves thinking about relationships - which is what I found myself doing at 5:30 am. The problem with this thinking was that I was trying to store lots of things in short-term memory and still leave room for thinking. It doesn't work! We know about the magical number of 7 (plus or minus 2) for working memory. At 5:30 am, I am definitely at the -2 end of that range! So I dragged myself to the computer, fired up Inspiration, and started capturing some of my thoughts. The beauty of using Inspiration (or a similar product) is that it frees up brain cycles to generate more thoughts. The diagrams simply beg to be extended. I had a pretty fair idea about the artifacts I'll need for this project before breakfast.

Somewhere in that process, I started thinking about metacognition. At a SITE conference workshop, Helen Barrett mentioned work from Portland State that indicates portfolios generate more metacognitive processes among their freshmen. That was certainly my experience this morning! I need to find out more about that work, but didn't see anything on their website. (I probably didn't look carefully enough).

I was also thinking about the connection phase Dr. Barrett discusses when talking about portfolio development. It seems to me that, in addition to connecting with hyperlinks, portfolio authors need to put a lot of effort into making intellectual connections as well. I know that probably falls into her reflection stage, but for me, it was important to explicitly look for those connections. This part of the portfolio process has been an intensely intellectual exercise already and I'm just starting.

This reminded me of a 250-word reaction I wrote to a Maxine Greene reading we had in Advanced Curriculum Theory class this summer. Following is an excerpt:

"I intend to use a different metaphor for the curriculum – concept maps. Though concept maps are insufficient to completely represent the fullness of one’s knowledge, the metaphor adds richness to the discussion that I believe Greene’s map metaphor lacks. ... Greene concluded that “curriculum can offer the possibility for students to be the makers of [relationship] networks” (p. 148). I agree, and suggest that concept maps can make these networks of relationships visible. "

I continue to be fascinated with cognitive psychology and the idea of concept maps is something I can understand. I'm considering a concept map metaphor (if only for myself) for writing the portfolio narrative. It's not as poetic as some of the other metaphors Barrett has collected on her website, but at the moment it is useful for me.

Multicultural competence

Today was productive. Dr. Baumbach finished up a draft rubric to evaluate my portfolio. Not surprisingly, it's wrapped around the program standards - one of which is multicultural competence. How do I document multicultural competence? That's been on my mind for over a day now. Thinking about this bothers me because it leads me to thinking of people, friends, and classmates according to a skin color or label. I don't like doing that to a friend.

Ideas for this piece of my portfolio include pointing out specific teaching strategies that are helpful to the non-native English speaker, use of technology with multiple cues (audio & video), and the practice of providing outlines or notes ahead of class for the teaching section of the portfolio. It strikes me that those are simply good teaching. Dr. Baumbach reminded me that I might be able to get a little demographic data from the SEIR*TEC courses. They collect data with distinctions such as rural, urban, and Title 1. Student leadership activities have me working with a lot of international students. I suppose I'll include that. I've also worked on class projects with people from other places and I've done some international travel. Perhaps I need to plan an international excursion for later this semester. I've been wanting to go to Greece and that has nothing to do with the Olympics!

Program standards

People interested in accountability always seem to be looking for program standards which they treat as a checklist. Many portfolios (especially exit portfolios) are organized around such checklists. This isn't the vision I have for my portfolio, but I need to be prepared to answer the "Checklist Charlies" of the world. Today I was musing about how I might defend my work to the accountability crowd without turning my portfolio into an exit portfolio. I believe I've decided how to handle it.

I have a list of the program standards which I will link to from my narrative. I've decided to annotate the list of standards with brief explanations of what is in my portfolio that shows evidence of meeting each standards and why it demonstrates evidence. Naturally, I'll provide hyperlinks to the artifacts under discussion. Fortunately, most artifacts will offer evidence of more than one standard.

The ISTE Resources for Assessment book discusses their Leadership team's decision to recommend specific entries to best meet the NETS-T standards. According to this book, only five artifacts are required to demonstrate meeting all NETS-T standards. Their example demonstrates the power of the wise selection of rich artifacts.

Workshop feedback

Today I was scrambling around trying to wrap up a proposal that's in the works. I didn't make any interesting progress on my own electronic portfolio. However, earlier this evening I ran into someone who attended a workshop I did on teaching portfolios just over a week ago. As a Graduate Teaching Assistant, this young lady had the option of doing a paper-based or electronic portfolio to satisfy the requirements of a program she's in. We had a nice little chat and I learned several things from her. She decided to do the electronic portfolio and was pleased with the result. It was the first time she had ever used any kind of HTML editor. Despite this, she didn't think it took any more time than a paper portfolio would have and it was definitely more cool! But here's the part that made this teacher's heart sing! She said "Seriously, I'm glad I came to your session because you did a really good job. There wasn't anything I didn't know how to do!"

Favorite quotes - so far

I wrote a proposal regarding my eportfolio project. I had to look up Lee Shulman's definition of a teaching portfolio and realized I hadn't included it in this blog. I must! It's a lovely summary of what a teaching portfolio entails:

"A teaching portfolio is the structured, documentary history of a set of coached or mentored acts of teaching, substantiated by samples of student portfolios, and fully realized only through reflective writing, deliberation, and conversation" p. 37. The full citation is:

Shulman, L. (1998). Teacher portfolios: A theoretical activity. In N. Lyons (Ed.), With portfolio in hand: Validating the new teacher professionalism (pp. 23-37). New York: Teachers College Press.

Which brings me to a favorite quote from Helen Barrett....
"An electronic portfolio is really a living history of lifelong learning" from the Expert Showcase on Apple's website.

The Narrative: The Chicken or the Egg?

I find I don't know where to start on the Narrative. The irony is that I should know better! As I start to think about the things I should include in my narrative, I am continually distracted by random thoughts about content I want to include. I know I should use the narrative to "tell my story" and to document mastery of the learning objectives my professors have of me. Why am I so drawn to the other thoughts? Perhaps I'm trying to put the cart before the horse, but perhaps I'm also experiencing a small part of "the multiple purpose dilemma" Joanne Carney wrote about. I know I'm creating a reflective learning portfolio and I have no intention of using it as an employment portfolio. Nevertheless, I frequently think about being able to repurpose large sections which brings me back to the fascination I have with some of the artifacts I'd like to include but probably won't.

I'm beginning (but just beginning!) to get my head wrapped around this project. I think I need to start making some concrete plans and Inspiration is my favorite tool to do this. That should focus my efforts at writing a narrative!

The Look

In yesterday's post, I mentioned that I needed to come up with the "image" I wanted to portray. Last night and today, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the adjectives I'd like people to use as they describe my electronic portfolio. Since I'll be sharing this creation with academics, I'll want to avoid anything too slick and commerical. I especially want to avoid anything that looks like a gratuitous Flash animation! I think I've settled on "sophisticated elegance" as the look I want the graphic designer to achieve. I think that's appropriate for the audience I'll be trying to reach. If we use CSS I can readily change the look and feel (much like Zen Garden) at some point in the future.

In Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity, Jakob Nielsen writes about the allocation of screen real estate (also available on the web). Because my portfolio will primarily focus on content, I need very small navigation and headers. I would like to see a lot of consistency in each header (perhaps a muted graphic of my name?) with a more prominent label of the section name (i.e. narrative, teaching, etc.). The only problem with that idea is that it seems a bit egotistical to have my name plastered all over everything, but I don't have a better idea.

The Structure

For much of the day, I've been thinking about how to structure my portfolio. I want to hire a graphic designer to create a template. (There's a nice design principle for any professors looking at my portfolio - consistent look and feel across the pages.) A template is the way to go to achieve that consistency.

I'll need to understand the structure to speak intelligently to the graphic designer about the navigation. After scribbling the structure on pages and pages of paper, I think I've finally come up with the following:

• Home
• Narrative
• Vita
• Philosophy
• Teaching (including Face-to-face, Online, and K-12 Workshops)
• Scholarship (including work in progress and completed research). I wonder if I should include a research plan for the future, too.
• Service (including academic, service to students, and service to the community)
• Index or site map

That gives someone reading my portfolio eight choices. I think Jakob Nielsen (usability guru) said choices on a web page should be limited to no more than six to eight. I just squeaked by on that one!

Now I need to think about the image I want to project with the portfolio and how I can describe that to the graphic designer. Hmmmm.....

The Beginning

Today, Dr. Baumbach and I met to discuss my EME 6313 (Instructional Message Design) projects. We have agreed that my primary task for the semester will be to develop a reflective electronic portfolio focusing on teaching, scholarship, and service. The development process will focus on design principles of usability, accessibility, perception, and memory. The portfolio will be designed to be scaleable in order to serve me over the next several years. I will be following the process Helen Barrett has outlined in some of her writing and keeping track of some of the many decisions and tasks one must address when developing an electronic portfolio. I think it will be interesting to review these postings in the future. I imagine I'll be facing a number of the decisions and dilemmas [pdf] Joanne Carney identified in her work.

In addition to developing the portfolio, I will submit a record of the research-based principles used in the development process, the decisions I made during the development process, and the justifications for those decisions. This blog is where I plan to keep that record. I've been reading Dr. Barrett's blog and decided I wanted to give blogging a try. I'll keep this up unless it becomes too overwhelming!