I’m thinking about how the edublog genre might be like listening to a hatchling through the eggshell, if embryos could talk. It’s a public narration of the emergent self. The current Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy (March, 2007), a themed issue about e-portfolios, got me going on this.

Troy Hicks and a cadre of teachers wrote in Rethinking the Purposes and Processes for Designing Digital Portfolios that an online portfolio puts us in a rhetorical situation in which we “narrate our own learning” as well as create professional and personal identities.

I’ve not had much exposure to the literature on e-portfolios. I’ve done a little bit of online research, but this is the first time I’ve seen such an in-depth treatment of the subject in a peer-reviewed journal. There is a tension, I see from this reading, between portfolios as showcases for mastery, and as tools for inquiry.

One of the first things that hit me is that I’ve never thought of including my students’ site as part of my “digital portfolio.” It never crossed my mind that their work might be used to evaluate my effectiveness as a teacher. Not that I’d mind, but here I am just making it up as I go! There’s no standards for e-portfolios yet, are there? Maybe I haven’t given this much thought because I’m fully “mature” as a teacher, and not looking to use any of this material in a job search.

I’ve been treating my students’ blogs as largely informal writing spaces, giving students about 30 minutes a day to work in them. Practically speaking, though, they don’t have a lot of time to read each others’ writing on the website, which limits its impact for them.

Motivation is an issue I’ve been thinking about for the students’ writing. That is, what motivates them to make their work more interesting and readable? How do they see themselves getting better at it? Last year I tried to get them to choose some of what they considered their best work, but they really didn’t have a good set of criteria for deciding. This seems like an obvious shortcoming in my writing program, and gives me some ideas about how we should be talking about what we do as writers, “narrating our learning.”

It seems to me that if publishing to a community site is going to prompt students to be more engaged and engaging, then the impetus to grow should come from some intrinsic motivation, and not simply from the urging of the teacher. What I see is that some students are, indeed, making efforts to improve their work. With several others, though, the effort is not so obvious. I wonder if maybe these students are protecting their privacy by “playing it safe” and not contributing much.

Our normal process involves morning mini-lessons with the LCD projector. Occasionally I give them a topic, show them how to write a report, or how to cite their sources. When they do find information on a topic of interest to them, they tend to simply copy it without generalizing or contextualizing it for the audience. I explain that they need to make their thinking explicit; they don’t do it on their own, and they don’t seem to demand it of one another.

One thing for sure, maintaining a site for student work is a time consuming job. There’s a lot of fixing-up and conferencing that happens in the background. I have to read and proofread all the material that is published. I’ve taught them to type, and they can crank out a huge volume of material. I don’t require them to edit everything that needs changing. But I do frequently ask them to make revisions that I know they are capable of. Sometimes I literally can’t figure out what somebody was trying to say, and we need to chat.

Upholding community norms was addressed by Tara Autrey in her piece about transforming her practice:

…I have never been a fan of censorship. Yet, I make these tough choices because I want to represent my students and myself in a way that is in accordance with the curriculum mandated by my school district and the state of Michigan, as well as the moral and ethical norms of our community.

I think my biggest struggle, aside from the time spent, is deciding where to draw the line between my authority and the students’ autonomy. They all like having a space to write about whatever is on their minds - even when they don’t have anything to say.

Come to think of it, that isn’t much different than this blog. We all have our days, I suppose.

citation:
Hicks, T., Russo, A., Autrey, T., Gardner, R., Kabodian, A., & Edington, C. (2007, March). Rethinking the Purposes and Processes for Designing Digital Portfolios. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 50(6), 450–458.