CoP Meeting Summary – Oct 2005

During this month’s CoP meeting (see agenda here), Bjorn Thomson & Alison Wong lead a demo of the KEEP Toolkit, another one of the e-portfolio tools we’re looking at.

Background Information
The KEEP Toolkit was originally intended to be used as a faculty/instructor presentation tool by Carnegie Mellon. In the recent past, users have been using it as a showcase e-portfolio tool. It is a free tool that is currently hosted on Carnegie’s servers in the U.S. There are plans afoot to allow schools to install the software’s source code in order to host the software at their schools. This is an important step for Canadian users concerned about privacy & the U.S. Patriot Act. The KEEP Toolkit has been used in 2 of our pilots over the last year, Teacher Education and Master’s of Education. The UBC Transitions Program (provides university instruction to gifted high school students) has also used KEEP.

Some Features Outlined

• highly customizable; works well as a middle ground tool
• widgets allow inclusion of up to 20MB of multi-media
• works well as a presentation tool/showcase e-portfolio
• create presentation pages called snapshots that can be “stitched” together to create a showcase e-portfolio (note the KEEP-specific terminology!)
• advanced layout options are available to control colours, navigation positioning, etc.
• includes a gallery tool that allows users to share a number of different e-portfolios (they appear in a clickable list)
• privacy: can only send snapshots to other KEEP users; but can copy & paste snapshot URLs into emails to external reviewers (ie., non-KEEP members)
• users are able to download snapshots as zip files (series of HTML/web pages) that users can upload elsewhere
• contains a rich text (WYSIWYG) editor
• does not have a set limit for storage (except for media files)
• does not have a central file manager view; users do not get a display list of all the files they have uploaded to KEEP

A Case Study
The KEEP demo was followed by a presentation from Marion Porath, an instructor in the Master’s of Education program. Last year, Marion’s students created e-portfolios to document their capstone experience or their culminating reflection using the KEEP Tool Kit. The students were asked to do the following:

• present artifacts that demonstrated mastery of their educational and professional goals
• link theory and research to practice
• generate and apply ideas across courses

Instructor Findings
Marion found that the KEEP Tool Kit was a great middle ground tool that allowed technically advanced students to be creative while supporting those who were not overly tech savvy. Her students were very engaged in the process of creating an e-portfolio; the e-portfolio spurred them to think deeply and engage with their learning on a new level. The built-in reflective nature of the folio thinking process helped Marion’s students conceptulize their throughout the program and articulate their culminating experience.

The e-Portfolio Process
Marion’s students truly bought in to the e-portfolio process. They were well-supported on the technology side, with a comprehensive introduction provided by Bob Bruce’s CMS group and ongoing support provided by Bob’s group as well as a graduate student assistant. The students also participated in the Community of Practice’s collaborative research project (they completed online surveys and participated in a focus group).

What was Learned?

Marion showed a number of student examples that demonstrated creativity, strong conceptual integration, individuality and thoughtfulness about learning goals. Students chose a metaphor to represent their journey through their master’s program.

Students learned…

• mastery of content and technology
• new ways of thinking
• how to build strengthened collaborations

Thanks Marion for such an informative presentation! It’s clear that one of the key reasons the e-portfolio was so well-received by the students was the effort their instructor put into the process!

UBC-O Joins the CoP Meeting
Peter Arthur, UBC-O’s Director of the Center for Teaching & Learning, joined the meeting via videoconference. There is growing interest in e-portfolios and folio thinking at UBC-O,, so expect more UBC-O attendence at our CoP meetings.
Peter reported that UBC-O is in an exploratory phase and they are currently looking at giving their faculty the option of creating faculty e-portfolios. There is also interest within UBC-O’s Education faculty in having their students build reflective and presentation e-portfolios.

Next Meeting
Wednesday, November 30th (TAG Seminar Room)