Instructional Technology Conference 2009

Title: Open Source ePortfolios & Blogs: How they can benefit you and your students

Name: Dr. Steve Hyndman & Dr. June Hyndman

Audience Level: All educators and education administrators interested in learning about open source software as an effective means for implementing high quality technology solutions for a fraction of the cost of commercial software.

Length: Three Hours

Abstract: For the past three years the education department at Georgetown College has been using an ePortfolio system based on Moodle, a very popular Open Source LMS, with over 700 student ePortfolios online as of the fall 2008 term. The college has also provided hundreds of graduate education students with easy to use Parent Communication Portals based on the very popular WordPress blog software. The ePortfolio and Parent Communication Portal systems will be demonstrated using current student examples along with a brief demonstration of how each system was created and implemented. Participants will create their own ePortfolio and Blog during the session.

Description: Dr.'s Steve and June Hyndman have been developing and working with electronic portfolios for over eight years now. They have created two systems for teacher education student eportfolio development--the first being a template system based on Microsoft FrontPage and the newest being a "Web 2.0" system based on the open source Moodle learning management system. The initial MS FrontPage system was very popular and was being used by over 1,600 students at Eastern Kentucky University by 2005. It was the subject of several presentations and a few publications. The 2005 publication in Essays in Education provides very detailed information about this system...see link below.

http://www.usca.edu/essays/vol142005/hyndman.pdf

In 2005, they developed a new eportfolio system based on the Moodle LMS. Prior to leaving Eastern Kentucky University, Dr. Steve Hyndman, implemented this system in the graduate educational leadership department with over 1,300 educational technology students. He is currently managing this system for Georgetown College which can be viewed at the link below.

http://edu2.georgetowncollege.edu/gportfolio/

Both June and Steve use a customized version of the very popular WordPress Blog software in their educational technology classes as a way for school teachers to create Parent Communication Portals. Many of their graduate teacher education students use these portals to keep parents informed. These portals can be viewed at the link below:

http://kentuckyclassroom.org/

The ePortfolio and Parent Communication Portal will be discussed and demonstrated during their presentation and participants will be involved in using the software to get a sense of how easy it is to develop a very powerful ePortfolio and online communication portal (what we call a Parent Communication Portal) during the session.

Session Type: Hands-on Workshop or Pre-Conference Workshop (Willing to do either or both)

On-Site Equipment Requirements:
Presenter Equipment Needs: Computer projector, screen, and internet connection. Presenters will bring their own laptop computer.

Participant Equipment Needs: One computer per participant with an internet browser and an internet connection. No other software is required.

Contact Information/Affiliation:
Dr. Steve Hyndman
Assistant Professor of Educational Technology
Graduate Education Department
Georgetown College
400 East College Street
Georgetown, KY 40324-1696
(502) 863-7966
steve_hyndman@georgetowncollege.edu
http://www.georgetownprofessor.net

Co-Presenter:
Dr. June Hyndman
Assistant Professor of Education
Eastern Kentucky University
521 Lancaster Avenue
420 Combs Bldg
Richmond, KY 40475
(859)-338-0017
june.hyndman@eku.edu
http://ekuprofessor.net