During the poster session at the TLT Symposium this past Saturday, I had the chance to talk with Glenn Johnson, the Project Manager of Penn State’s e-Portfolio Initiative. I had previously attended one of Mr. Johnson’s training sessions last semester so I was familiar with the e-Portfolio Initiative. The initiative provides students with help in creating their own portfolio. Although there is no set template, students can model their portfolio off of other sample portfolios. I have had previous experience in creating an e-Portfolio. As a Masters student at The College of New Jersey in 2005, I created an e-Portfolio for my expertise in Mathematics and Computer Science Education. I coded in html using Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Flash to bring together images and video for an interactive page. I was very happy with the site but it was what we would call web 1.0 or 1.1 technologies. At the poster session, I was interested in how e-Portfolios could be combined with web 2.0 technologies, so I engaged Mr. Johnson in conversation. Mr. Johnson suggested going away from the normal old e-portfolio and instead using blogs@psu.edu or similar technologies to form an electronic portfolio.This brings me to my idea for further research. I would like to take Mr. Johnson’s ideas of combining e-Portfolios and web 2.0 technologies and go one step further. In the near future, I would like to create an e-Portfolio system (SaaS) that serves as a Mash-Up of our Identity on the internet. Instead of just using a blog or other tool as an e-Portfolio, I would like to make a Mash-Up of all the communities, blogs, and technologies that we are involved in on the internet. In other words, I would like to create an application that is very similar to Pownce but with the specific goal of using it as an e-Portfolio. For those that do not know, Pownce puts links to users many accounts on one page. On my Pownce page, I have a link to my facebook, myspace, flickr, aim messenger, msn messenger, and twitter accounts.My research question would be to find out if students (who use this new e-Portfolio Mash-Up) are less likely to post incriminating pictures and vulgar text or blog posts. I think this research would be significant because it could provide a start of responsible social networking and web 2.0 living. In this context, responsible = fun yet smart, appropriate, and professional.
JOHN JOSEPH DOLAN says
This is an intriguing idea, Mike, though I think that students are getting wise(r) re: the posting of incriminating info. PSU has done a big campaign that you probably have seen (its.psu.edu/takecontrol) trying to educate the student population about the risks of irresponsible postings. It would be interesting to know how this campaign is being measured for success.
MICHAEL DENNIS MONTALTO-ROOK says
I didn’t realize the campaign existed. Thanks for the info!
tam974 says
Having constructed an e-Portfolio last semester using FrontPage and PASS I very glad to see a move to using the blogs as e-Portfolios. This design is much more creator-friendly. As for uniting all of our online activity, I am not sure people would want that. Suppose you have a digg or delicious account that you share with your friends and a separate one you share with your students. Do you necessarily want to share all the links for your friends with your students? I’m not familiar with access control, but would you be able to set up a “Limited Profile” a la Facebook? There are often reasons people don’t harmonize everything.
MICHAEL DENNIS MONTALTO-ROOK says
Good point. I am pretty sure a “limited profile” option would be available. Either that or make sure that the user was prompted as to what accounts would be added.
ELISEBETH CONNOLLY BOYER says
You have been tagged! Check out my blog entry for the rules!
http://www.personal.psu.edu/ecs184/blogs/psugal/