Legal Issues Regarding ePortfolios

Here, There, & Everywhere

* By Dian Schaffhauser
* 11/01/09

Electronic portfolios can follow a student beyond graduation into careers and other life pursuits-- but not if the university can't guarantee access, or if the data won't transfer from one system to another. A look at how ePortfolios can be true repositories of lifelong learning.

--David

New Media Technologies and Teaching/Learning

Dear Readers,

Most recent issue of Academic Commons:

"New Media Technologies and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning," edited by Randy Bass (with Bret Eynon and an editorial group at the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship at Georgetown University) explores the intersection between new media, teaching and learning in higher education today. In addition to essays by Bass and Michael Wesch, Cathy Davidson talks about learning in the new humanities, and Eynon, Kathleen Yancey, Barbara Cambridge and Darren Cambridge discuss the state of our e-portfolios.

The issue also features "The Difference that Inquiry Makes," a collection of teaching-and-learning case studies from Bass and Eynon's Visible Knowledge Project, exploring work from twenty different institutions. If you haven't already discovered it on your own, take a look. It's a fascinating read and a font of provoking ideas, re-imagining the ways in which we teach and learn.

And the best part? There's more to come. Look for additional essays and case studies soon. You can find the full table of contents here .

We also want to announce that a HASTAC Scholars Discussion Forum , based on key ideas in this issue, will launch March 23. Details to follow.


Best wishes,

The Editors at Academic Commons

New study on Undergraduate Students and IT

Some interesting points, as summarized by ACRLog's Steven B , on 11/6/08:

The annual ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology is a good indicator of the state of college students’ application of technology. The report provides insight into our students technology tools and their skill and comfort levels with different types of technology, and their preferences for learning technologies. The 2008 Study contains information of interest to academic librarians.

There’s a lot to learn from this document. For example, despite claims that students seeking information go everywhere but the library website, the ECAR Study suggests that’s not the case. In fact, there were three technologies that were most frequently used by many respondents. Two were spreadsheets and presentation software. The third was the library website. An average of 68% of students reported accessing the library website during the semester. That sounds encouraging, but without knowing more about what they are accessing the library website for I would withhold my excitement. Are we talking about just using the library catalog? Does that mean just going to the library home page to click on a link to a database? At what level of engagement are the students using the library’s website? Table 4-4 on page 47 tells us what Internet and technology activity in which students report they are engaged. Social networking sites and course management systems are heavily used (in the 80% range), contributing to blogs and wikis is less popular (in the 30% range) and virtual world activity is still quite low at only an 8% participation rate. That may help us make better sense of how we can get the most out of “being where the students are”.

Read the key findings.
Read the full study.

Digital Natives

John Palfrey and Urs Gasser have just published a book called "Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives." In this interview, they talk about some of the concepts they cover in the book. Here's a really interesting description of how digital natives gather information:

"Digital natives gather information — as a building block in any learning process — through a multistep process that involves grazing, a deep dive, and a feedback loop. Digital natives are good at grazing through the vast ocean of information online. While browsing the Web, digital natives might decide to go beyond the headlines of a story and to take a deep dive, for example by following a hypertext link, listen to a commentary, or download a video clip on the topic of interest. In this way, they are searching for what’s behind the bit of information that got their attention in the first place. The feedback loop, finally, includes some sort of enhanced interactivity with the content they’re interested in."

There are also some suggestions for how institutions should adapt to handle digital natives including:

• having libraries figure out how to best "acquire, catalog, and make e-resources accessible to users"
• educating student in basic digital literacy that goes beyond the standalone computer class by being integrated into what people learn throughout their educational experience.

Teaching with Twitter (and introducing 12 Seconds)

Hear how David Parry, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, uses Twitter, a messaging service, for his courses here.

See 12 Seconds for a video tool that functions in a similar manner.

Avoiding the 5 Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs with Students

1. Ineffective Contextualization
2. Unclear Learning Outcomes
3. Misuse of the environment
4. Illusive grading practices
5. Inadequate time allocation

Read more on this at: http://www.campustechnology.com/articles/68089_1/

Encyclopedia of Information Technology Curriculum Integration

New in the Campus Library reference collection (1st floor)!

Encyclopedia of Information Technology Curriculum Integration
(ebook version, too)
Edited By: Lawrence A. Tomei, Robert Morris University, USA

From the publisher:

As more and more universities, schools, and corporate training organizations develop technology plans to ensure technology will directly benefit learning and achievement, the demand is increasing for an all-inclusive, authoritative reference source on the infusion of technology into curriculums worldwide.

The Encyclopedia of Information Technology Curriculum Integration amasses a comprehensive resource of concepts, methodologies, models, architectures, applications, enabling technologies, and best practices for integrating technology into the curriculum at all levels of education. Compiling 154 articles from over 125 of the world’s leading experts on information technology, this authoritative reference strives to supply innovative research aimed at improving academic achievement, teaching and learning, and the application of technology in schools and training environments.