Hello, participants in the WPA 2007 Assessment Institute! We (Darren, Michael and Margaret) look forward to working with you on July 12.
The purpose of this blog is to offer everyone a chance to “meet” each other before the institute takes place. It also includes some preparatory materials that may be helpful to you. (Preparatory materials are not required reading–attend to them as you are able.) We can also use this blog after the institute to post material and exchange ideas for those of us working with ePortfolios in our classes, programs, and/or institutions.
Please take a minute to introduce yourself and offer any information you’d like your fellow participants to know. (Click on “Comments” to read others’ introductions.) Some starter questions–
What brings you to this institute?
What interests you about electronic portfolios?
What do you hope to get out of this institute?
(Or make up your own questions … )
WPA 2007 Assessment Institute 
July 2, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Hello. I’m Michael Neal, one of the institute leaders this year. I started using portfolios in my composition classes when I was in graduate school, but I didn’t get a big picture for their large scale use until I helped lead 3 years of an 8 year project using high school writing portfolios for placement into first-year composition.
In general, I integrate quite a bit of digital work into all my classes so it wasn’t a difficult choice to transition into electronic portfolios when the technology became readily available to my students. When I was the director of fyc at Clemson, I worked with a program-wide ePortfolio as well as an institutional ePortfolio, which were separate entities.
I’m most interested in ways in which students working with ePortfolios can make connections between and among projects, knowledge, and skills inside and outside of school. The potential for integrating digital audio and video with written composition in ePortfolios interests me as well.
At the institute, I hope to share a little from my experience and reading I’ve done in the area and learn about what others are doing around the country in this exciting area.
July 2, 2007 at 9:03 pm
I’m Margaret Price, also one of the facilitators. My first experience with electronic portfolios was at Wayne State University. Because I had no knowledge of portfolio-building tools or web-authoring software, my students and I all built portfolios on Yahoo! Geocities (and then we learned a thing or two about the tyranny of pop-ups).
At Spelman College, where I now teach, I was asked to help the Comprehensive Writing Program shift its First-Year Portfolio from paper-based to digital form. In the three years since beginning that project, I’ve become the director of a college-wide electronic portfolio initiative called SpEl.Folio.
One of my major interests with electronic portfolios is how they challenge, and perhaps transform, the conventional divide between “personal” and “academic” concerns, content, and genres. Another interest, which has just been developing this year, is fostering development of all faculty in digital-writing initiatives, with a focus on groups who may be underrepresented in such initiatives (faculty of color, dis/abled faculty, or non-tenure-track faculty, to name a few).
At the institute, I’m looking forward to learning about others’ institutions and programs — especially what concerns and questions are at the top of others’ lists.
See you soon.
July 3, 2007 at 8:20 pm
I’m Darren Cambridge, the last of your leaders for this year’s institute. Although I’m neither a WPA or a faculty member in a writing program, I bring to the Institute eclectic expertise with electronic portfolios that I hope will interface with yours interesting ways. I trace the roots of much of what I value about electronic portfolios to this community, and I’m eager to keep it connected to the rapidly expanding discourse about portfolio happening beyond it.
Electronic portfolios interest me because they (can) live at the intersection of a range of ideas and practices I found intriguing, such as the role of technologies in teaching and learning as both means of communication and calculation, ways in which the self is constituted through literacy practices, the mechanics of educational change, and how reflective learning can shape the relationships between individuals and institutions over a life course.
In my work, I’ve tried to engage some of these questions through a combination of reading and writing about theory (lately, lots of sociology of education and work), doing grounded theory research on the experiences of portfolio authors (currently, participants in our leadership portfolio pilot from last Spring), and trying to put what I learn into practice through my teaching and through technology development (at the moment, this consists of further development of the Open Source Portfolio and a revision of the IMS ePortfolio Specification).
At the institute, I’m looking forward to thinking through with you the connections and disjunctions between what WPAs value about portfolios and the wide ranging contexts I’ve had the privilege to explore over the last couple of years.
July 6, 2007 at 2:56 pm
I’m posting this on behalf of Ellen Barton.
Introduction
I am a Professor in the Linguistics Program and the Composition/Rhetoric Program in the Department of English at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. Wayne State is an urban public institution (Research Intensive) with 30,000 students. The Department of English offers approximately 100 sections of freshman-level writing courses a term (1010, 1020, w/ the latter required). My research interests in Composition/Rhetoric are in research methods and research methods, technical/professional communication, and the
discourse(s) of medicine. I was appointed Director of Composition this summer.
I am attending the Assessment Institute for several reasons: the main one is to acquire some intensive training to be a Director of Composition without an extensive background in composition pedagogy, program development, or assessment. The Department of English supports what we call a Digital Literacy Initiative, so I am interested in e-portfolios as a digital technology that would be of interest and use to students as well as a valid means for assessment of student writing, the latter in response to
an expectation (which I regard as legitimate) of my chair, dean, and provost.
July 6, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Hi. I’m Joel Wingard, from Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA. I’m getting to be an old fart: tenured full professor etc.
But I’m also WAC director here and as such I’ve been involved in assessment for the past several years. I’m also part of an ad hoc group on our campus that is part of a 5-college grant-funded assessment project that’s in its 2nd year of 3.
Wearing another hat, I’m advisor to the Writing track in our English major, and that program has a required junior-year portfolio. And in teaching fycomp, I’ve had students submit end-of-term portfolios for more than 10 years. Both of these are paper portfolios, though, and I would like to move these and perhaps our entire comp program to e-portfolios.
Finally, I will be taking sabbatical in spring of 2009 with the declared goal of learning as much as I can about new media and writing so as to incorporate that in our curriculum: in my own section of fycomp, in a new course or courses in the English major, and (we’ll see!) across-the-curriculum. So the Assessment Institute w/ its focus on electronic portfolios will be a nice start for me.
I recognize some names from Margaret’s original email. I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones in Tempe next week!
JW
July 6, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Hi, All. I’m a definite “newbee” to the group. I’m an assistant professor at North Carolina Central University, an HBCU in Durham, NC. We have about 8,000 students including our undergraduate, graduate, and law programs.
I “resurrected” my university’s Writing Studio two years ago and this fall, I’m sort of taking on a WPA position. My school is just getting its writing program off the ground. Last year, we instituted a writing intensive/WAC requirement for all students.
So, I’m here to soak in as much as I can. Our program is just gaining structure and stability. The e-portfolio is probably some years away for us. At this point, I’m looking for some rather quick and easy assessments I can implement for this year, with the hopes of expanding and growing over time. But, this institute, I expect, will give me some ideas on where we can go and what we can do as a program.
–Karen Keaton Jackson
July 6, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Hola, I’m Brad Benz, and I’ll be coming to Tempe from Durango, Colorado. It’s been hot here in the Four Corners area, but Tempe will broaden my sense of hot I’m sure. I’m an Associate Professor in the English Dept at Fort Lewis College, “Colorado’s public liberal arts college.” I’m moving into my second year as Director of the Writing Program abd I teach History of the English Language, Linguistics, and several writing courses, including fyc and a jr level “writing for the web” class at FLC. Like Joel, I’ve been using portfolios in my writing classes for quite a while and I’m interested in creating an e-portfolio system for the Writing Program, using Moodle if possible. Safe travels to everyone.
July 7, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Hi, Sandra Jamieson from Drew University in Madison, NJ. Well, I guess I’m the other “old fart” with Joel. I’m also a full professor, a part of the same 5-college grant-funded assessment project, and director of composition (which includes WAC to the extent that we plan these things). Hey Joel!
I’ve been assigning print portfolios in comp classes for 20 years (a rather terrifyingly long time . . .) and 60% of Drew’s composition course grades come from collaboratively graded mid-term and final portfolios. I’ve been using ePortfolios in my own classes for the last couple of years, but now we are looking at the possibility of going college-wide as part of our revised general education program and the English department is also exploring using them for English majors. So far our resistance has come from the tech folks (who are understaffed), so I’m looking for a VERY user-friendly software and strategies to sell the idea and then introduce and keep it going campus-wide. We might adopt either Sakai or Angel (not Moodle I hope) in the next few months, so my emphasis is on the strategies part at this point.
Anything I learn at this workshop will be helpful, both practically but also so that I sound as if I know what I’m talking about… ahh rhetoric. See you all soon!
July 7, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Darsie Bowden here. I’m the director of First-Year Writing at DePaul, and we’ve been working on trying to initiate electronic portfolios for about 15 years, with little success. The administration waxes enthusiastic, then the hubbub fades, then the e-portfolio idea reemerges as if brilliantly original and brand-spanking new. I’m kinda tired of this rollercoaster and want to know more so I can better formulate plans, proposals, arguments that will make e-portfolios stick, at least until I can afford to retire…about 80 years from now.
July 8, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Hey Everyone. I’m Jason Esters, another wide-eyed rookie in the e-portfolio game. I serve as the WAC/WID Coordinator at Lincoln University, a Historically Black, liberal-arts university located 40 miles west of Philadelphia, PA. Lincoln has approx. 2000 students and has charged me with the task invigorating its WAC program and revamping its student portfolio system, which have been both defunct and marginalized in the past 5-10 years. I have two important projects in the works right now: First, I am planning to institute a digital portfolio system to address student portfolios for departmental majors, and need some help thinking through the logistics of a pilot this academic year. I’ve been researching third party e-portfolio vendors for the past year and have selected ChalkandWire for our university pilot.
Second, we are constructing a drop-in Writing Center on campus, but have yet to nail down funding (or a plan) for staff, policies, procedures, etc.
In the meantime, I am also trying to complete my dissertation in the English Department of Temple University. My dissertation, A Glitch in the Matrix, a Ghost in the Machine: Notions of Technology and Progress in 20th Century African-American Writing, attempts to map out the ways technology has affected the African American experience throughout the 20th century and how African Americans leaders and thinkers have engaged and appropriated technology differently within “progressive” movements.
Looking forward to meeting you all and having good conversation over long draughts of bottled watter…
Stay Hydrated,
j
July 8, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Hi. I’m Laura Patterson. I’m an associate professor of English at Seton Hill University (sometimes mistaken for the similarly-named Seton Hall), a small, social justice Catholic liberal arts college in Greensburg, PA (near Pittsburgh). I’ve been the director of undergraduate writing programs at SHU for three years. During this time, we’ve revamped our first-year writing program and we’ve created a writing intensive program that will begin during the next two years. We’re in the process of deciding how to assess the new writing programs, and I’m leaning toward ePortfolios for many of the reasons others have already stated. Our faculty currently uses print portfolios in many of the majors, so ePortfolios could be useful outside of writing assessment too. I think there is some level of anxiety about which system we will choose and how much training will be needed to get started. Or that may just be my own anxiety. My big-picture goal is to learn enough about ePortfolios to present the idea, with specific system options, to our administration and faculty. I enjoyed learning about ePortfolios at last year’s Institute, and I’m excited to learn more very soon.
July 9, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Greetings everyone,
My name is Melissa Nicolas and I am an Assistant Professor and the Writing Program Director at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Don’t let the name fool you, though. We use zero technology in our writing classes which probably shouldn’t have surprised me since the writing curriculum I inherited was from before the PC was invented.
At any rate, I was hired last year to bring the program into the 21st century so I am hoping to learn anything I can about e portfolios. The main reason I am attending, however, is so that I can do something with technology so that the other professors on campus (you know, those scientist types) will think I am cool!
Looking forward to meeting all of you (or seeing you again),
Melissa
July 9, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Hi All,
I’m also new to the group. My name is Sarah McLemore and I’m tenure track in the English Division of Glendale Community College (the one in California, not the one in Arizona for those anxious to cognitively map the locale). I’m not a WPA but I am our Division’s campus-wide Student Learning Outcomes and Assessment representative which basically means that I’m in charge of coordinating all of our division’s course level and program level assessments. I’m also the college’s WAC co-coordinator so I’m looking forward to chatting with, at the Institute, some other folks who are involved in running campus WAC programs.
The Assessment Institute’s topics have important intersections with what we’re doing about outcomes and assessment for English 101 (First Year Comp) courses. We plan to use a form of e-portfolio assess our SLOs. I’m hoping to learn more about the different ways that others have approached the e-portfolio process and, more broadly, to meet others engaged in similar work at their home institutions.
I use paper portfolios in almost all my comp courses and I’m a huge fan of technology in the classroom (in a variety of ways) as are many folks in our division. Everyone has been pretty happy about developing an electronic form of assessment and, in particular, using some form of e-portfolio because of the potential it offers us to learn more about our students and our teaching. Hopefully I can bring back some good ideas to my fellow faculty members based on our dialogue at the institute
Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Sarah
July 10, 2007 at 6:26 pm
I’m posting this on behalf of Jimmy Fleming:
Hello, everyone. I’m new as well and may very well be the odd duck in the group. My name is Jimmy Fleming and I am an English marketing specialist with Bedford/St. Martin’s, college publishers.
I’m the anomaly in that I am probably the only one in the group who is not a teacher and has never taught writing. I hope I can bring other experience to the group. I am fortunate to have been in publishing for nearly twenty-five years and with Bedford almost since its inception. I began as an assistant (though not my first publishing job) and have had stints as a sales rep, sales manager, editor, and now as an English specialist.
Through the years, and even more so in my nine years as a specialist, I have traveled around the country to talk with and meet writing instructors of all stripes: WPAs, comp directors, adjuncts, GTAs, etc. My primary roles at BSM are to promote our books and media to be sure – the sales and marketing background – but I am also involved in “field research.” I travel to meets like the WPA and the Cs, but more regularly I visit writing programs on-site. I’m there to observe and learn what compositionists and writing instructors are thinking, doing, researching, and talking about – all to better inform my colleagues in editorial and new media about the work instructors and students are doing. All of this pointed to the central questions: What should our publishing program look like next year? Three years from now? Five years from now?
My primary reason for signing up for this workshop – admittedly it’s my first – is to better understand what writing teachers are talking about when they talk about portfolio-keeping and e-portfolios.
I am grateful to Margaret, Michael, and Darren for allowing me to participate. I trust that I can acquit myself with having some experience in the field, albeit not as an instructor.
I very much look forward to meeting everyone.
Jimmy
July 11, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Hi, all:
I’m Linda Adler-Kassner. I’m the Director of FY Writing (which includes more than just FYC, but there it is) at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, MI. I’m happy to be able to participate in half of the institute, though I’ll have to leave after that (which I’m sorry to do!); also looking forward to being here with many smart old friends like Joel, Darsie, Sandra, and Jimmy and meeting new ones.
I’m attending the institute less b/c of my role with FYC and more because of my role as a member of our Gen Ed Assessment Committee. We have a new Gen Ed curriculum that will officially begin (if that’s the right word) this fall, and assessment is a crucial part of it. It’s a great opportunity to do some really terrific work, and eports may be a central part of the method we use to collect student data. I’m sure I’ll leave thinking in broader, more creative, and more interesting ways about the possibilities. I’m looking forward to it!
-Linda
July 11, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Hi. I’m Terra Williams. I am on my way out of my third year as an Instructor at ASU and getting ready to begin life as Coordinator of the Writing Program at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. I am sad to be exchanging the heat for the humidity, but excited to begin my new WPA role at my new institution. I’ve wanted to be a WPA since my first days as a grad student at UNLV almost ten years ago.
One of my first very exciting challenges in my new position is to get a campus-wide eportfolio system up and running, but I think first my colleagues and I have to decide what the purpose of the eportfolio should be/will be: Do we want to use the eportfolio to track students’ writing progress over their four years? Do we want students’ to be able to take their eportfolio with them into the job market? Should eportfolios do both of these things successfully? I know I’ve got budget constraints and a thousand other issues to consider, too, but I just keep coming back to that question of purpose. And even in my day of campus interviews, whenever the subject of eportfolios came up, each person I talked with had a somewhat different view of what these things should accomplish. In short: this Institute is coming at the perfect time for me.
I’ve been using paper portfolios in my writing courses for as long as I’ve been teaching. The WPA at UNLV required all grad students to use the portfolio method rather than grade paper-by-paper, and I never really moved away from that model. I don’t think moving my individual classes from paper portfolios to eportfolios would be too difficult, but once I start thinking about developing a system that students use to track their writing progress through all four years of their college experience, the little mouse in my brain basically ignites from running so fast on its wheel. I’m looking forward to learning about eportfolios and finding out what everyone else in the group is doing, has done, or is planning to do.
As somewhat of a Tempe native (three years is sort of like a native, right?), if anyone has questions about eating, drinking, hiking, etc. or needs directions, feel free to ask. I’m happy to share whatever I know about this amazing area.
Terra