It’s HERE!!!

This Monday we released an improved file management system to Foliotek Presentation.  From this point on you can create folders, and better organize your files.  As you build your career portfolios, professional development portfolios and online identities, you will love having the ability to organize you’re your files repository.  You may not already be aware of this, but Foliotek Presentation not only lets you store files you can upload, but it will also allow you to store links to web content.  If you have articles you have read online, web sites you like, blog posts you want to remember for later use, you can store all of those in the Files Manager.

What can you do with the File Manager:

• Store any type of file (even web content!)
• Create folders to organize your content
• Rename files
• Drag and drop files for easy file management
• Download all of your uploaded files into a zipped document
• Search for files
• Sort files by: name/size/type/date added

Also released this Monday in Foliotek Presentation

• Mandatory Chrome Frame install for all IE 7 users who want to use the File Manager
• Optional Chrome Frame install for all IE7 & IE 8 users to improve their user experience
• Video Gizmo controls are now the same as the Image Gizmo controls (borders, captions, etc…)
• New registration process

WHAT’S COMING

Assessment

• External Form Report
• Request Review of Individual Files
• New User Activity Timeline

Presentation

• Image Slideshow Gizmo
• Image Grid Gizmo
• Image Splat Gizmo

As much as we would love to create software where every feature is easy to find and easy to use for every person that uses our system, that just isn’t the case.  To this end we have built a help system to aid you along in your web portfolio building jubilation.  We will still work extra hard to keep the system as easy to use as possible, but we will also build advanced functionality where our help system can assist in “helping” you complete your projects.

Foliotek’s new Help System for Foliotek Presentation will walk through the basic eportfolio creation steps and provide tutorials for  more advanced template editing controls.  Items covered vary from simple design tips when constructing an ePortfolio to basic content editing.  Below is a listing of categories covered in the new Help System.

• What’s a Portfolio
• Create a Portfolio
• Customizing a Portfolio
• Management
• Content Editor
• Gizmos
• Files
• Pages
• Design
• Sharing

In addition to our help system, we made a few UI tweaks.  New users who have never created a portfolio, will be prompted to walk through our tutorial.  Returning users have a new feature posted and will see a notification box showcasing that new feature.  The design of each of these items has been improved to be more consistent with the overall theme of Foliotek Presentation.

Releases for Foliotek Assessment consisted of minor defect fixes.  Over the next few weeks we hope to be releasing a new External Form report that will display a list of individuals who have not completed external forms sent to them through Foliotek Assessment.

WHAT’S COMING

Assessment:

• External Form Report
• Request Review of Individual Files
• Single Login Page for Presentation and Assessment Users

Presentation:

• Video Gizmo Controls (same as Image Gizmo)
• Image Gizmo Control UI tweaks
• New Registration Process
• New Gizmos (Image Splat / Image Grid / Image Slide show)

Last week was Foliotek’s first expedition into notifying all of our partners via email regarding Foliotek’s weekly release notes.  We know that everyone likes to stay up to date on our weekly changes so we have employed a new medium to keep you informed, the Foliotek Blog.  If you want to continue to receive our updates via email, you don’t need to do anything.  If however, you would prefer to check the blog on your own or keep tabs with our development on Facebook or Twitter, then send us a note and we will remove you from our subscriber list.

Now, let’s get to the new stuff released this week and take a look at what is coming in the not too distant future.

RELEASED

Foliotek Presentation

• Tool Tips allow users to receive information about the function of certain tools as they work in the portfolio editor.  These tips are automatically displayed when users hover over the desired tool.

• Foliotek Presentation has a newly designed tutorial accessed by clicking the ‘Help’ link.  This tutorial has a brand new look, but still provides the same helpful information to users as they build their Presentation Portfolios.

WHAT’S COMING

Foliotek Presentation

• The new Files Manager will be accessible on the top black bar and opens in a new page when clicked.  This new manager still allows for uploading new files but now has the added options of creating folders and emailing your files to your presentation account (design not final).

• Image Grid – This Gizmo will allow you to have a grid of images (rows and columns) where a smallish version of the image is displayed.  When a viewer clicks on any single image, a full screen version of that image appears and allows the user to scroll through each image in the grid.

• Image Slideshow – This Gizmo will allow you to group images into a single spot on a page only displaying one image at a time in the same location.  Viewers of your portfolio can then press forward and backward arrows to move from one image to the next.  Clicking on any single image will allow the viewer to see a larger version of the image and scroll through all larger versions of the image.

Foliotek Assessment

• External Evaluation Report – Administrators will soon have access to a new report that will detail the status of external forms sent out to their external faculty.

• Hashed Passwords – Users will no longer be able to have an original password emailed to them when they forget, but instead will be given a link to create a new password each time.  This added level of security will further ensure that accounts are not accessed by unauthorized users.

The newest member of our Gizmo family in Foliotek Presentation has arrived!  We thought it fitting to include a document Gizmo along with the video, image and other Gizmos already in place in that area of the presentation portfolio builder.  Now, students have the ability to add files to pages from the ‘Files’ area and through this new Gizmo.  Check out this new feature from a student account and let us know what you think.

When it comes to scoring artifacts against standards/competencies I often see two approaches.  

APPROACH 01 [one-to-many]
Program has ARTIFACT A that has been aligned to three standards and they want to score those standards as the pertain to ARTIFACT A.  I call this approach one-to-many because there is one artifact to many standards.

APPROACH 02 [many-to-one]
Program has STANDARD A and it has been aligned to three different artifacts and they want to score that standard as it relates to those three artifacts. This approach I refer to as many-to-one, because there are many artifacts that are related to one standard.

Now there are variations on each of the above options, but for the most part standards based assessment can be broken down to these two types of scoring.  The question is, where does your program fit?  This post focuses on “Approach 01.”   I will be covering the second approach in another post. 

Approach 01 (one-to-many) can be broken down into the following questions:

• As a program, have you analyzed the assignments that are a part of each course in your curriculum so that, regardless of the teacher assigned to that course, there is at least one assignment that is the same for all sections of that course?

  

• If you have done the above, have you taken the next step to associate that assignment to the specific standards that the assignment is supposed to address?

  
  

• Now that you have done the above two, have you created a rubric for scoring that assignment that all teachers will use?  If you have created that rubric, is the rubric designed to score the standards, or other expectations for that assignment?  The structure of your rubric determines how you will report on the data.

  Below are two options.  “Option A” represents a rubric that explicitly scores the standards the assignment has been aligned to.  “Option B” represents a rubric that is scoring other content related to the assignment, however that assignment is still aligned to the standards. 

  OPTION A
  
  
  
  
  
  OPTION B

  

  

  There is one HUGE difference between these two rubrics.  As you can see,in “Option A” the data that will be generated will break down each standard for that assignment into its performance level (does not meet,meets, exceeds).  In “Option B” the overall score on Assignment X will be assigned to each standard to which Assignment X is aligned.  So, if Assignment X, overall, receives a score of “Exceeds” then that is the equivalent of saying Standards 1, 2, & 3 receive a score of “Exceeds” as well.

  So, you can see that how you choose to set up your rubrics will determine how granular your data will be related to the standards aligned to the Assignment.

Now that you have looked at the key questions related to this approach you have the knowledge to decide if this style of eportfolio implementation is correct for you.  In general, the benefits from a one to many eportfolio implementation are:

• Granular standards based data
• Clear depiction of mastery for standards related to an assignment
• Very defined and predictable eportfolio structure

The drawbacks are:

• Very scripted portfolio structure
• Boring for student interaction
• Can cause duplicate work for faculty members (depending on implementation)

I’d love to hear your thoughts/comments/ideas.  I’ll be posting on Approach 02 sometime over the next month.  Approach 02 is a more holistic approach.  More to come.

As this is my first entry for the Foliotek blog, I feel it is necessary to first tell you a bit about my background in order to provide some context for my article. I have been working for Foliotek Inc. for the past six years. In that time, I have worked with hundreds of academic programs to implement our online assessment application.

Prior to my time working at Foliotek, I spent a year and a half working at the University of Missouri. I was a Program Coordinator as well as an adjunct professor for the last two courses in the sequence prior to the student teacher experience for the College of Education. These courses dealt directly with the completion of the required assessment portfolio as well as the creation of a presentation portfolio. The presentation portfolio was used as a means for perspective student teachers to apply for their internship placement. This process was fruitful as it led our student teachers through a simulated job search experience. Our aim was to match them with an appropriate placement and help them with the necessary skills to obtain employment once they finished the program. I enjoyed my time with the University of Missouri; I was given the opportunity to revamp our entire process for assessing the required assessment portfolio. We changed the process of technical writing to prove proficiency in each of the state standards to a more balanced process which included a performance based evaluation to be executed during the student teaching internship. Along with a few products to be specified BY well, an, well, the, a, it, aligned, IBY well, an, well, the, a, it, aligned, IBY well, an, well, the, a, it, aligned, Ieckpoint. This is to facilitate competency based assessment at each checkpoint without pulling unwanted portfolio elements by competency. A set of competencies can be established for each checkpoint. This can be done whether or not there are any differences in the competencies between checkpoints. This process will result in the automatic pulling of the correct work as aligned by competency for each checkpoint.

The Crossroads of Assessment offers two distinct paths; the first is by course, the second by program checkpoints. Many programs select to go down one road or the other. However, as I continue to implement more programs I see more hybrid combinations being constructed every day. Every program has its own goals and needs. The data being sought often drives the process of selecting the appropriate path. My aim is to work with each program to help them accomplish their goals in a clear and streamlined fashion.

BIG CHANGES AROUND THE CORNER

Over the next few weeks there will be some mighty significant changes coming to my.foliotek (presentation portfolios). We have been working feverishly on a new template editor.  This new editor will allow you to do just about anything, especially if you are using a new browser.  Because of new technologies in CSS3 we will be able to allow users to create transparent backgrounds, rounded edges and drop shadows.  But that only scratches the surface of what we are rolling out.  

Aside from the new custom template editor, we will have a new GIZMOS tab.  Gizmos are little tools you add to your page that can do a variety of functions, such as: connect to a twitter feed, put a feedback form anywhere on any page, insert images, add videos.  Those are just the tip of the iceberg to what will be coming.  

Because we have taken the time to add so many new features we figured we should do a bit of a face lift as well (I mean… why not right).  So the entire UI is cleaned up and cohesified (new word, I’m submitting it to Webster).   Below are a few screen captures of what is coming.  Post your thoughts, we soooo want to hear them.

GIZMO TAB

Gizmos can be added to a page in an entirely new way.  Gizmos will include features like: twitter feeds, images, videos,and feedback forms.  Now that we have the infrastructure in place,look for many new gizmos to come.

FILES TAB

Same great files storage tab, just a bit of a facelift.  Be looking for drag and drop file adding from your desktop computer sometime in 2011.

PAGES TAB

Prior to this UI update, a user couldn’t have a page in their portfolio that wasn’t published.  Well…. now you can. 

DESIGN TAB

This is the heart of the new release, the custom template editor.  Once complete, a user will just about be able to do anything with their design.  Upload images as backgrounds, apply rounded edges to content areas, put in drop shadows and make content blocks transparent, and that is only the beginning.  This new editor will be the talk of the town once you get your hands on it. 

Like many of you, I have a variety of searches I follow on twitter related to education.  Just a few moments ago I saw this tweet come through

I’m a huge proponent of how much learning is done outside of the classroom.  I for one learned far more on my own and with my peers that I ever did formally.  Case in point, my current career is solely based on the experiences and knowledge I acquired after graduating from college.  While learning about education in college helped me understand the industry I am in today, it wasn’t until hitting the real world that I began my studies in software engineering, user interface design, and human computer interaction. 

What MattLewis84 is doing for his students isn’t revolutionary, it’s been going on for years.  But using the portfolio as a medium for students to express what they have learned informally is an avenue that has been missing for the learner or at least over looked.  It is encouraging for me as an educational advocate who learns in the real world from a variety of sources and experiences, that educators behind the walls of universities are also realizing the value of learning beyond the boundaries of their classroom.

Today I want to continue to discuss the varying types of eportfolio implementations I have seen over 8 years of assisting schools implement the use of the portfolio in their classrooms, programs, and campuses.

In my last post I addressed what I feel is the simplest type of portfolio a person can create.  I’ve termed it the Uber-Resume.  Basically, it is a portfolio that showcases samples of a person’s best work.  Its purpose is to present a reviewer with the best possible representation of oneself and is generally used to attain employment.  Other use cases could be for presenting to colleagues to prove worth on a committee or even for a student to support their reasoning as to why they should be considered for a graduate level degree program in higher education.  Whatever the purpose, the construct of the Uber-Resume remains simple.  Store all of your work over time, and then grab from those samples to present a well formatted, well organized deep representation of yourself for personal promotion.  I ran across a good article about a high school teacher that has put the uber-resume concept into practice.  The article does a good job explaining the benefits of this type of portfolio.

Now having discussed that type of portfolio in my previous post, I’d like to move on to type two.  The Capstone Project.

Often times in upper level courses, regardless of the concentration area, I see the program requiring students to create a “capstone project.”  Now just because I see the project occur in higher cognitive courses does not mean that the assignments look anything alike but they do often have a consistent theme.  That theme goes something like this:

“Thoroughly analyze what you have learned over the past X number of years, and put together a project that demonstrates/proves you have learned what you think you have learned.”

Again, this assignment could take on many forms.  I work with a slew of engineers who all were required to create a capstone project and I’m not sure an eportfolio would have been a good solution for them.  However,there are a plethora of cases where it is very powerful.  In my mind the clearest would look like this:

Have students look over work they have produced in courses throughout their tenure at your institution and choose from those artifacts that best represents their understanding of certain competencies they need to achieve for graduation.  Have them assimilate those into a portfolio aligning each artifact to a specific competency.  Then have them write a reflection (defense) on why they feel the artifacts they selected best prove their attainment for each competency.

The hardest part for students during this project is finding work from previous courses.  That’s where they benefit from have a digital repository to store all of their work.  Especially if all the while they have been storing that work,they could have been aligning it to certain competencies.

This is just one idea for a capstone project.  I’d love to hear some other thoughts from you.  As I work with our educational partners, they are always interested in hearing what other institutions are doing.  Please leave a comment or two and I’ll pass along the thoughts.

I’ve been helping schools implement the use of the eportfolio in programs and classrooms for over seven years.  Throughout that time I have seen a variety of ways that institutions want to approach how they will use the eportfolio on their campus.  Some of these strategies are neatly packaged simple projects aimed at developing students into lifelong learners while other programs are more data driven.  Their interests are focused on gathering assessment data against competencies to present reports to various accreditation boards.  Whatever the approach is, no one approach is better than the other in its philosophical roots.  However, choosing the appropriate implementation for your classroom or campus will define whether or not you are successful with your objectives.  I liken it to the show American Idol, there are a lot of kids on that show who can sing circles around other kids, but if they choose the wrong song to sing, they get the boot.  Careful planning and a good understanding of your environment will drive the success of the eportfolio introduction to your school.

Because I have done well over 200 eportfolio implementations across the US, I thought I would kick off Foliotek’s new blog with some details on the most common practices and how to successfully deploy those solutions for your individual locations.  Over the next few weeks, I’m going to work to condense the information I share to a single post for each basic implementation type.  I’m going to encourage you to leave feedback and let us know if you have used these types of roll outs on your campus and maybe leave some details on the success/failure rate you experienced.

Below is a list of various types of implementations.  I will break down each type over the next few weeks, but for today we’ll start with the simplest.

• Uber-Resume (Online identity generator)
• Classroom capstone project
• Artifact level scoring against many competencies
• Competency level scoring against many artifacts

THE UBER-RESUME
The portfolio in its simplest form is a collection of artifacts collected over time that can be used for individual reflection and/or showcase.  These artifacts should in some way demonstrate growth over time. However that last little bit isn’t always the case.  The Uber-Resume, as I like to call it, is a project for a single course generally at the end of a student’s career with the school.  This implementation involves a professor providing or working with the students on finding a suitable application (often web based) for the student to construct a portfolio (web site).  This web site is meant to showcases the best aspects of who the students are through documentation created in previous course work and any extracurricular activities done during the student’s tenure at that school.  Often a simple assessment is performed on this portfolio where the instructors review each portfolio for acceptable design practices and use of content.  The professor’s responsibilities are not to re-grade the student’s work, but merely insure the presentation and use of the work in the eportfolio is executed well.

Success rates for this eportfolio implementation depend on a few things. 

• One,the application the student’s use to create the eportfolio needs to be easy to use.
• Two,it is easier on the teacher if the students all use the same application.  This allows the instructor to learn a single tool because inevitably the students will come to the professor seeking assistance.
• Three, the rubric used to measure the eportfolio shouldn’t be overly complicated.  It should focus on some aesthetics, use of content, and organization of that content.  Many times, to simplify this process even further, schools will eliminate any complexity to the rubric and simply score the eportfolio as a complete/incomplete artifact.  This is done because the professor sees the creation of the eportfolio as the learning project and no authentic assessment can be performed.  They see each eportfolio as too unique to be scored against any defined matrix.
• Fourth, the eportfolio must have a higher purpose than simply for the “student’s benefit”.  If the student’s don’t see the value in this project, the product they produce will be of low quality and very little learning/reflection will have taken place.  Success at this level usually is generated through a significant portion of the student’s grade being associated with the completion of the project.  I’ve also witnessed schools requiring the student’s to submit their eportfolio to potential employers as part of the class project.

The Uber-Resume eportfolio is a great starting place for schools that want to get rolling with integrating an eportfolio into their pedagogy.  This first step can then be a starting block to springboard various programs into using the eportfolio for more complicated assessments.