building the eportfolio city in augusta, arkansas
DESCRIPTION
Presentation at ePortfolio 2010 / London Learning Forum, London, July 6, 2010TRANSCRIPT
Building the Eportfolio City in Augusta, AR
Darren Cambridge ePortfolio 2010, London
July 6, 2010
What is a portfolio?
• Collection of authentic evidence • On which the author has reflected • Synthesizes and communicates what the
author has done, can do, and hope to do in the future
• In relationship to a shared conceptual framework
Augusta Community Literacy Advocacy Project
• Partnership with University of Arkansas• Local full time local advocate• Based in White River Rural Health Center• Multiple sponsors (Brandt, 2001): Programs distributed throughout local
institutions– Schools– Libraries– Churches– Health centers – Doctors’ and dentist’s offices
• Civic communion (Procter, 2005): Community celebrations • From 3 to 33 graduating high school seniors entering higher education in
two years
Controlling Metaphor: Museum
Controlling analogy: NMAI
Social software
Goals of the Augusta Portfolio
• Make visible to the world the impressive reading and writing of the people of Augusta
• Spark conversations about Augusta’s heritage, achievements, and future
• Provide an online place to conduct and share such conversations
• Help people in Augusta develop 21st century literacies
Three layers
• Exhibits – Designed by readers and writers in Augusta with the assistance of media experts
• Collective reflections – Results of discussions using the portfolio as a conversation piece
• Individual contributions and reflection – additions to and online conversations about exhibits and collective reflections
Analogous Tensions
Heritage History
Resilience Critical reflection
Fidelity Accessibility
Activity Persistence
The Reviews
Unscholarly!Random!
Sales booths!Trade show!
Responsibility!
Heritage | History
History tells all who will listen what has happened and how things came to be as they are. Heritage passes on exclusive myths of origin and continuance, endowing a select group with prestige and common purpose.
--David Lowenthall
Contextualizing Failure in E-portfolios
We all fail sometimes. Even with carefully established goals and conscientiously executed work, we do not meet the goals because of any number of circumstances. Yet we set up systems that condemn students, faculty members, and institutions for not meeting goals. Portfolios can be part of such systems if we choose to include in them only those pieces of evidence that bear good news. … Although we know that learning can and often does occur at times of dissonance or moments of difficulty, we look there not for the learning but for the problems.
--Barbara Cambridge
Resilience | Critical Reflection
• “Survivance” (Vizenor)• Gold, Guns, and God• Abstraction
• “Genocide”• Intentional and explicit
government policy• Resistance
– American Indian Movement
Resilience | Critical Reflection
• From 3 graduates going to college to 33 in two years
• Rich narratives of identity and personal history
• Globalization• Corporate welfare• Anti-labor policies• Legacy of segregation
Activity | Persistence
• Interpreters• Demonstrations• Cultural events• Space as contact zone
• The museum is the exhibits
• Ephemeral
Activity | Persistence
• Community reflection events
• Social software capabilities– Comments– Augusta@College– Gallery on National
Gallery of Writing
• Ownership• Trust• Protopubic Spaces
(Eberly, 2000)
• Middle Spaces (Bass and Bernstein, 2008)
Community Photography
Community Reflection
Civic comm
union
Digital Storytelling
Community Reflection
Civic comm
union
Published by Stylus, 2009
R. Rice & K. Willis (Eds.). (Forthcoming). ePortfolio Performance Support Systems: Constructing, Presenting, and Assessing Portfolios in Public Workplaces. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press.
[email protected]/darren (slides here) Available from Jossey-Bass
November 2010
