Thinking Outside the Binder: Online Portfolios for Professional Review

Thinking Outside the Binder:

Online Portfolios for Professional Review

John BarrittAcademic English StudiesLewis & Clark College

Online Portfolios Process = professional development

Cultivate technological literacy

Exposure to new tools for classroom

Getting Started Identify / bridge gaps in tech literacy

Adopt a pedagogical stance that targets “multiliteracies”

Multiliteracies The New London Group (1996)

Literacy includes “negotiating a multiplicity of discourses.”

Take into account “culturally and linguistically diverse and increasingly globalized societies.”

“[T]he proliferation of communications channels and media supports and extends cultural and subcultural diversity.”

Future of EAP Preparing learners for participation in global

discourse communities

Peer networks

“Cultural and subcultural diversity”

Alternatives to western-centered research discourse (e.g. journals)

Documentation Blogs

Videos

Podcasts

VoiceThreads

Discussion Forums

Moodle Pages

PowerPoints

Images

PDFs

Tagging Non-linear organization

Facilitates sharing across global peer networks

Indicate interrelationships

An added layer of meaning

Student Work Public

Portable

Private (password protected)

Connected

Advantages Over Binders Preservation of artifacts in a digital format

Portability

Accessibility

Multiple Intelligences Support your own learning preference

Photos / videos of classroom activities and field trips

Video commentary

Audio commentary

Mindmapping (lesson design)

Workshop presentations

Promotional Materials Accessible

Showcasing use of Web 2.0 tools in classroom

Increase visibility of program

Remembrances of Things Past

The changing face of the technological landscape

The case of Ning

Archiving Artifacts Jing

Screenshots

PDFs

Social Media = New Opportunities

To engage students linguistically

To receive input / produce output

Situate language learning in contexts that are socially meaningful to them

Portfolio 2.0 Opportunities to master Web 2.0 tools

“Communicative competence” for the digital age

Wash over to paper-based colleagues

Exposure to new tools for enhancing & extending the classroom experience

“Hybrid” courses, “blended” learning

References

McKay, S. (2002). Teaching English as an international language: Rethinking goals and approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review. 66(1). Retrieved fromhttp://wwwstatic.kern.org/filer/blogWrite44ManilaWebsite/paul/articles/A_Pedagogy_of_Multiliteracies_Designing_Social_Futures.htm

Stevens, V. (2005). Multiliteracies for Collaborative Learning Environments. TESL-EJ. 9(2).

Swales, J.M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.