building the eportfolio city in augusta, arkansas

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.

dcambrid@gmail.comncepr.org/darren (slides here) Available from Jossey-Bass

November 2010

augustaportfolio.com

dcambrid@gmail.comncepr.org/darren