Annotated Bibliography
Benander, Ruth, and Brenda Refaei. “Helping Faculty in Two-Year Colleges Use Eportfolios for Promoting
Student Writing.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 45, no. 1, National Council of Teachers of English, 2017, p. 89–106.
This article takes a practical approach to ePortfolios, providing a guide to utilizing the technology in the classroom for educators teaching composition in two-year colleges. It argues while articles in the journal published by the National Council of Teachers of English have done a great job promoting skills in educators that lead them to be highly competent educators, no conversation on pedagogy can be complete without highlighting the usage of digital technology, particularly ePortfolios, because of how effective they are for students. Benander and Refaei claim these tools shift the focus of the classroom from the educator to the student, allowing for diverse writing in which the teacher acts mostly as a coach to their writing process. This source is very useful to my research because it both provides research on the value of ePortfolios in the classroom, as well as how to implement them in a productive way, offering both theory and practice. Written by two educators who work with the National Council of Teachers of English, a professional organization dedicated to helping educators and researching writing pedagogy, this source is reliable and relevant.
Fullerton, Bridget Katherine Jean. Undergraduate Student Perspectives on Electronic Portfolio
Assessment in College Composition Courses. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2017.
In this dissertation, Fullerton argues that although many argue ethical assessment models should be designed with all who are involved considered, students don’t often get to participate in the conversation of their own education. So in her paper, she collects and examines the perspectives of various college students on the use of ePortfolios when it comes to assessment in composition courses. The qualitative research suggests a common trend in which students desire a better connection overall with the work they do on their ePortfolios and their academic and personal lives. They want both their peers and educators to be more involved in the production and examination of their portfolios, and they want to be able to better connect the artifacts and assignments various ePortfolio assessments might demand of them. In conclusion, students want their electronic portfolios to be more integrative with their overall education, academic communities, and how they identify themselves. This source is useful to my research because it demonstrates student opinion on ePortfolios as a learning tool is very similar to what studies have found to be the most successful in classrooms, implying student desires are consistent with what produces the best outcomes for them. I also agree with Fullerton that it’s important to consider student voices when establishing the implementation of a pedagogy or tool that is meant to meet the needs of students. This dissertation lays out its research method clearly and adheres well to it. Published in 2017 by the University of Rhode Island, it is sufficiently reliable as a source and relevant to my own work.
Gencel, Ilke Evin. “The Effect of Portfolio Assessments on Metacognitive Skills and on Attitudes Toward a
Course.” Educational Sciences : Theory & Practice, vol. 17, no. 1, Codon Publications, 2017, pp. 293–319, https://doi.org/10.12738/estp.2017.1.0378.
Unlike the article “Organizational Schema of ePortfolio for Fostering High-Order Thinking,” listed later, this article’s focus is on the value of both portfolios and ePortfolios as assessment tools. Gencel claims this method promotes metacognition, which is the ability of an individual to assess their own competence and skill, and then making adjustments and arrangements on the basis of this understanding. Students with the ability of metacognition are said to excel better in the classroom, and thus demonstrate the value of ePortfolios. For my research this article is helpful because it demonstrates the overlap between ePortfolios and portfolios, while leaving a gap on the unique nature of ePortfolios that further research can fill. Published in the Educational Sciences: Theory and Practice journal, this article is reliable and relevant to my own research on teaching pedagogy.
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Kehoe, Ashley, and Michael Goudzwaard. “ePortfolios, Badges, and the Whole Digital Self: How
Evidence-Based Learning Pedagogies and Technologies Can Support Integrative Learning and Identity Development.” Theory into Practice, vol. 54, no. 4, Routledge, 2015, pp. 343–51, https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2015.1077628.
This source is unique to some of the other scholarly work on ePortfolios because it establishes different ways to implement a single ePortfolio throughout a student’s entire college career, rather than focusing on implementation for one specific course. Kehoe and Goudzwaard draw an interesting connection between the use of ePortfolios school-wide and the improvement to the college experience for students, who are able to cement what they learn and how they feel about their learning process within the ePortfolio, using it as a way to exhibit their strengths, identities, and experiences in a personal and engaged way. They argue in this article that such an approach can lead to a more cross-discipline approach to learning, in which students can place their work in multiple subjects side by side and even identify and demonstrate the relationship between them. By offering multiple ways to accomplish this, since it is difficult to implement an education tool on such a wide scale on a campus, this article is helpful to my own research on ePortfolios and their potential effects for both writing composition and education at large. Both the authors of this article work at Dartmouth University and have experience with digital education tools, Goudzwaard in particular leading the university’s online learning program known as DartmouthX so their work on ePortfolios as an education tool is promising and reliably based on past experiences.
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Lea, Mary R., and Sylvia Jones. “Digital Literacies in Higher Education: Exploring Textual and
Technological Practice.” Studies in Higher Education (Dorchester-on-Thames), vol. 36, no. 4, Routledge, 2011, pp. 377–93, https://doi.org/10.1080/03075071003664021.
This source discusses how although many educators view student’s reliance and immersion in digital technologies to be counterproductive to their education, in reality these technologies can help promote literacy, drawing a connection between digital and textual literacy. Lea and Jones argue that students rely on their educators for how to utilize these technologies in their academic work, and since many bring with them a deep understanding of web-based technology, this knowledge should be encouraged and rewarded by implementing such technologies within the course. Focusing more broadly on web-based technologies overall, this article establishes foundational concepts for digital media pedagogy for my own research, providing good introductory knowledge on the overall benefits of engaging with the digital literacy students bring into the classroom rather than trying to stifle it. Both the fact that Mary R. Lea and Sylvia Jones have been published in multiple education-focused journals, and that the article is published in the journal Studies in Higher Education, published by Routledge lend credibility to their research on the topic.
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Reynolds, Candyce, et al. Leveraging the EPortfolio for Integrative Learning: A Faculty Guide to
Classroom Practices for Transforming Student Learning. Stylus Publishing, LLC, 2014.
This source is a book written by Candyce Reynolds that pairs her own experiences of using ePortfolios in the classroom with other studies to set out clear guidelines on how to implement ePortfolios within a course. She claims that electronic portfolios transform the way students are able to mentally organize and connect information, leading to a more integrative education experience. Reynolds and the other contributors of this book argue that the reason educators are often disappointed by the way their students use ePortfolios is because they are not approaching the tool correctly. As a solution, each chapter outlines helpful and easy to implement tips for successful engagement with an ePortfolio, focusing on how to make the experience integrative, create connections to student’s personal lives and interests, and help students see themselves as learners who are part of the education process. This source is helpful to my research because it provides both the shortcomings of ePortfolios when used incorrectly, and how to use them in such a way that it leads to the best outcomes. It also provides the basic fundamentals of integrative learning when it comes to digital media pedagogy. Written by multiple educators with years of experience teaching, with consistent reference to other studies, this work is sufficiently reliable and provides an insider-perspective on long-term ePortfolio usage.
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Roberts, Pauline, et al. “ePortfolio-Based Learning Environments: Recommendations for Effective
Scaffolding of Reflective Thinking in Higher Education.” Educational Technology & Society, vol. 19, no. 4, International Forum of Educational Technology & Society, 2016, pp. 22–33.
In this article, Pauline Roberts, Dorit Maor, and Jan Herrington argue that ePortfolios, while capable of developing advanced skills in students and leading to greater investment in courses, are often being misused in the classroom. This source offers an alternative to its typical usage, arguing for a scaffolding approach to implementing ePortfolios that promotes reflective thinking and writing. The article centers on a study of the ePortfolio platform PebblePad, arguing that its positive results demonstrate the true and often untapped potential of ePortfolios in the classroom for students. This paper provides helpful information on the history of the ePortfolio and how its newly added functionality in recent years can be utilized to transform it from simply a platform in which students transfer their work for assessment. It also offers evidence-backed models of ePortfolio implementation with a scaffolding approach, which is what my paper focuses on. Dr. Pauline Roberts, who teaches at Edith Cowan University and specializes particularly in ePortfolio implementation is an expert in the field of ePortfolios, along with her co-writers who also have experience with digital technologies, making their article reliable and backed by evidence.
Romero, Lucila, et al. “Supporting Self-Regulated Learning and Personalization Using ePortfolios: a
Semantic Approach Based on Learning Paths.” International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, vol. 16, no. 1, Springer International Publishing, 2019, pp. 1–16, https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-019-0146-1.
As the area of e-learning develops over time with new pedagogical approaches and available technology, Romero and her co-authors claim in this article that new challenges arise. Currently, the opportunity to promote self-regulation in learning by utilizing web-based digital tools is a new, but challenging, horizon. While electronic education allows for learning to happen outside of the physical confinements traditional classrooms have of space and time, educators are still a key part of a student’s education. Instead, the role of faculty can evolve with better guidelines of how to use e-tools, particularly ePortfolios, to aid students in greater engagement with their courses and develop the ability to self-regulate their own learning paths and assess their success. This is a helpful article for my research because unlike classroom implementation that focuses on more traditional classrooms, this source lays out learning models for online classrooms in which the educator's role will be defined somewhat differently, while maintaining the similarity of other models in which the focus is shifted onto the student. Published recently in 2019 in the journal International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, this work is relevant to our current time period in education and is reliable.
Tzeng, Jeng-Yi, and Ssu-Han Chen. “College Students’ Intentions to Use e-Portfolios: From the
Perspectives of Career-Commitment Status and Weblog-Publication Behaviours.” British Journal of Educational Technology, vol. 43, no. 1, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2012, pp. 163–76, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01165.x.
Jeng-Yi Tzeng and Ssu-Han Chen have a unique perspective on ePortfolios: that of the college student. This source assesses what are the attitudes of college students towards ePortfolios, how they intend to use them when they make the choice independently, and how their commitment to certain careers affect how likely they are to utilize the form. The study finds that students with former experiences don’t necessarily have a stronger desire to use the ePortfolio, which means promotion can be equally applied no matter the skill level of the student. But it also finds that students who have specific career goals are more likely to value the use of ePortfolios. While this isn’t central to utilizing ePortfolios in the classroom, knowing how different college students feel about the technology, and what are the barriers and encouraging factors to its usage, can be helpful when researching how to successfully implement it in the classroom in a way that will motivate students. Written by two educators and published by the British Journal of Educational Technology, this source is clearly reliable and has a clear methodology for its research.
Wang, Shouhong, and Hai Wang. “Organizational Schemata of e-Portfolios for Fostering Higher-Order
Thinking.” Information Systems Frontiers, vol. 14, no. 2, Springer US, 2010, pp. 395–407, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-010-9262-0.
In this article, Wang explores a function of the ePortfolio that he argues is underutilized in the classroom where it is mostly an assessment tool. He summarizes a study he did on how to use ePortfolios as a dynamic learning tool, in which ePortfolios are subject specific, have interactive elements with the educator of a course, and are organized to encourage building connections between topics. The goal is to design an ePortfolio-centered course that promotes high-level thinking in students. This article will serve as one possible schema for how to implement ePortfolios in the classroom, as it lays out an approach that is complementary to a scaffolding-styles course that values process as much as product when it comes to composition. Furthermore, it provides evidence through its study of the efficacy of the ePortfolio both overall, and as a tool utilized during the process of learning and composition. The writers of this article, Professors Shouhong Wang and Hai Wang, are both professors at acclaimed universities with focuses in information and data management, and the article itself is published by Springer’s Science and Business Media division, making it a reliable source.