Exploring ePortfolio Technologies: Reviewing Platforms and Approaches for Teaching, Learning and Beyond -- a Webinar Series

Background

Three leading organizations in the eportfolio community teamed up to develop and produce a webinar series for eportfolio practitioners and consumers.  EPAC, ePortfolio California and AAEEBL presented Exploring ePortfolio Technologies: Reviewing Platforms and Approaches for Teaching, Learning and Beyond during the fall of 2011 and the winter and spring of 2012.   The series offered an opportunity for eportfolio providers and academics to discuss how various eportfolio platforms could serve the needs of educators and learners in the knowledge economy. Sessions were be based on a set of questions asked and issues raised by the eportfolio community during the spring of 2011. The focus of this webinar was primarily on how a given platform supports the teaching and learning process.

A primary goal of this webinar series was to generate a number of useful resources for the eportfolio community.  Resources for the series included recordings of webinar sessions as well as resource Web pages with information provided by webinar guests.

• Vendors offered an interactive webinar session with a demonstration of their software. These sessions were archived and are available on this site and the ePortfolio California site.  To access the recorded sessions, use the links below.
  
• Vendors provided answers to a survey addressing the issues and interests raised by the eportfolio community, available as a resource. To go to the resources use the links below. 
  
• An extensive list of vendors/developers were interviewed by Trent Batson, executive director of AAEEBL and appeared in a Campus Technology article that provided additional information about eportfolio technologies.
  
• An ePortfolio Comparison Matrix was compiled by Patricia Donohue of ePortfolio California in response to requests for a simple way to compare, side-by-side, various eportfolio platforms. (Excel file.)
  

“This webinar series came about,” explained Stanford’s Helen Chen of EPAC, “because no matter how much we emphasize that the teaching and learning with eportfolios is a priority over the technology, questions always arise about eportfolio platforms.  Therefore, we thought it would be a good service to the eportfolio community to offer this webinar series and to address specific issues that arise in relation to the technologies of eportfolios.”

One eportfolio vendor or developer was represented during each free webinar session. Facilitators for the sessions rotated among: Helen Chen. Stanford University; Gary Brown,  Portland State Uninversity; Patricia Donohue, ePortfolio California; Trent Batson, AAEEBL; John Ittleson, PESC Academic ePortfolio Workgroup; and Judy Williamson Batson, AAEEBL. 

2011 Fall -- Links to Resources