I created this blog which was kind of neat. As far as I understand this blog is supposed to be a time log for our work at the ETLab, but as a reflective professional I decided to always post 2 things that might be of interest to anyone who comes across my blog.
I updated the Lap Tops in 220J.
Following up a conversation with Yeonjeong about the Active Board, I drew a diagram to sort of "guide" the exploration of the Active Board.
I wrote a short text about the ePortfolio experience at the Lab and sent it to Yeonjeong as my contribution for the abstract she was putting together for the AECT conference.
I also started an ePortfolio especially allocated for my Smart Board Project.
Finally I stared working on the presentation on Smart Board that I am going to be doing on March 25th at the Lab.
- Diagram for the Active Board:
- Here is what I wrote about the ePortfolio expererince at the ETLab:
The ePortfolio experience at the ETLab
The work of an ETLAb assistant includes everyday tasks, routine maintenance and project work. It allows for the development of very specific technology skills as well as problem solving and critical thinking.
Documenting the lab activities and projects with all the course work and personal projects may be a difficult task that will add one more burden to our already busy schedule.
A solution we found to document our course work was the development of an ePortolio. As described by Dr. Barret (2000), “a portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the student’s efforts, progress, and achievements in one or more area".
The main advantages the ePortfolio refer to the multipurpose use we can make of this tool. Besides using the ePortfolio to document our coursework and assistantship projects, we can also showcase our best artifacts, our “cool stuff” . We can use it as professional development page or a detailed business card.
Our ePortfolios are not assessed, however it is for our own benefit that we develop it to the best of our abilities. It can be very useful if we are having a job interview and we can, not only talk about our technology and communication skills, but we can also demonstrate if by sharing our ePortfolio.
The process of creation of an ePortfolio is very reflective and it demands a lot of formative evaluation from planning through development and implementation to evaluation (Barret, 2000). In this sense if may enhance self-regulation and self-efficacy as well. Though the motivation was not driven by assessment purposes we all wanted to do a good job and display good quality work as demonstrative of our skills and knowledge.
The process of creation of the ePortfolio fosters ownership and engagement of individuals (Barret, 2007). Ownership and engagement appeal to individuals have internal locus of control and intrinsic motivation whereas the visibility and rich capabilities of the tool appeal to individuals who have external locus of control and extrinsic motivation as they may be seen by everybody they know and a lot of people they do not know as well (Bandura, 1977).
There are several options of free web pages with the capabilities to be used as an ePortfolio. However, at the ETLab we decided to use the ePortfolio within Scholar (Virginia Tech’ course management system) because it is consistent with Virginia Tech’s identity; we have very good assistance from the ePortfolio team and it has very rich capabilities. Besides, although it is within Virginia Tech’s content management system, it gives us a URL with WWW visibility and we will be able to keep that URL even after graduation.
References:
Barrett, H.C. (2007). Researching electronic portfolios and learner engagement: The REFLECT Initiative. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 50(6), 436–449. doi: 10.1598/JAAL.50.6.2
Barret, H.C. (2000). Create your own electronic portfolio: Using off-the-shelf software to showcase your own or student work. Learning & Leading with Technology Volume 27 Number 7.
Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
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