The Portfolio

There are many well definitions about portfolio, we do not create a new but adopt an existing one to the proposed framework which is based on the e-portfolio expert Barrett’s definition. The reasons for choosing Barrett’s definition are: it clearly defines the process of a portfolio should be. It does not emphasize assess, as many portfolio definitions do, too much but on reflection and projecting. It fits the above mentioned advantages of a blog system. Barrett said:” ….electronic portfolio….is to

get students to collect (create their digital archive), select the key pieces, reflect on their growth over time, project their future goals, and respect their work through sharing with a wider audience” (Barrett, 2003). The proposed framework provides suitable functions to fulfill the collect, select, reflect, project, and respect task. The relationship between a portfolio and participants is shown at figure 2-2. No matter what technology is used, in order to align to traditional portfolio, an electronic portfolio system should at least have following functions:

z Provide suitable interfaces for different users, such as authors, teachers, and administrators to perform their task;

z Keep with the advance of technology;

z Provide integration capability with other educational systems, such as a campus wide administrative system, or a curriculum scheduling system

Figure 2-2: relationship of a portfolio with participants

To illustrate the usage of portfolio, a simple usage flow is shown in figure 2-3, and listed below:

1. First of all, Authors collect all material, files, articles, notes, or assignments into a portfolio, then

2. Authors select the collected material they are willing to showcase to peers or teachers and place them in categories,

Portfolio

3. Authors usually reflect on their learning situation by self assessment, teacher comments, and viewing content of their portfolios, then

4. Authors project and adjust their learning attitude and approach according to the results of the self reflection,

5. Authors present their portfolios to peers or teachers, and are willing to receive comments from peers and/or teachers.

Figure 2-3: usage flow of a portfolio 2.3 System Framework

The propsoed framework is shown at figure 6-4. It consists of four levels: course, module, system, and user level. Each level is decsribed as follows.

Course level:

As stating in previous chapter, learning activity is involved before, in and after class.

Learning activity has different task at each stage. Preparation is main task of before

Finishing In course Preparing

Author Peer Teacher Admin.

1. Create portfolio

RSS reader 3. Subscribe with RSS reader

class stage, while interactivity and engagement is important in class, and reviewing and getting mastery is task of after class stage. This framework provides modules for each of stage.

Module level:

Three modules, which are learning status report (LR), classroom response system (CRS), and mastery learning (ML) module, are at this level. These modules have their own functional unit and database. Each of them emphasizes on one stage, namely LR for before class, CRS for in class, and ML for after class. These units will be described in following chapters in detail.

System level:

System level serves as platform for users and modules. There are three units inside the system: learning management (LMS), portfolio, and database management unit. LMS provides functions for managing student and course related information such as syllabus, lecture notes, student marks, etc. The content of LMS comes from users such as student, teacher, and school administrator through user interface, as well as modules such as CRS, ML, and learning reflection through system interface. The portfolio focuses on collecting, selecting, reflecting, respecting, and presenting student’s learning. The detail description on the architecture and implementation of a portfolio has been discussed at previous section. Generally speaking, the web 2.0 focuses on good user experience and customization. The major web service providers such as Google and Yahoo gives customers free to customize their user interface and arrange the information presentation style. In this framework, such a user interface is proposed. Selecting and arranging the portfolio content to peer or teacher in a customized style is another way students show and share their learning outcome. The

database unit serves as central repository for LMS and portfolio.

User level:

User level takes care of user interface for participants of a portfolio. It is the main portal for all participants. As stated at previous paragraph, web 2.0 is the core technology of user interface, especially blog, tag, and syndication.

Figure 2-4: the system framework 2.4 Portfolio Implementation

With regarding to implementation of a portfolio, Lin, Kuo and Yuan (2007) proposed a kind of portfolio built on blog service called blogfolio. A blog basically does not fit exactly to a portfolio, some modifications which are stated at table 2-1, should be made. The blogfolio does not establish a new type of virtual community beyond Henri and Pudelko’s four types of virtual communities. It fits into the learners’ community because of the maintenance of a portfolio strongly depends on the tutor (Henri and

Before class In class After class

ML Remedial

Learning Management Portfolio DBMS System Interface

Module level

System level

User level

Student Peer Teacher Admin.

Collecting

Pudelko, 2003).

Table 2-1: functions added to create blogfolio

normal blog functions functions added collect A password protected interface lets

author adds/modifies/deletes posts, articles, links.

All the posts, articles, links issued by author are open to public.

A new function is added to let author decides if a post, article, link, etc., will be open to public or not. The default is yes.

select No such function A new function is added to let authors select items from blog they are willing to showcase in their showcase category.

reflect project

A password protected interface lets author adds/modifies/deletes posts which are for learning reflection and projection purposes

A default folder called reflection is added to the blog for collecting reflection/projection.

respect Visitors can view all content issued by author, and freely give comments to all posts.

Visitors can view contents in the showcase category. If the author uses default setting, the content is shown automatically.

A comparison between traditional portfolios, electronic portfolios and blogfolio was made. The items compared are collection, selection, reflection, projection, versatility, and ease of use. The result of the comparison is shown in table 2-2. Blogfolio is superior to other types of portfolios although the lack of authentication is an obvious shortage.

Table 2-2: a comparison among traditional, digital and blogfolio

item advantages disadvantages

traditional Easy to implement,

Basically without any extra

Many different type of medias such as paper, video/audio tapes, pictures, photos,…

electronic Easy to maintain, showcase, and long term storage,

All content are in digital format, Ease to transfer to other location, Has multimedia capability Good authentication

Need computer system,

Most of the systems are tailored made system with own data or database format

Difficult to upgrade to keep the advance of technology

blogfolio Based on web 2.0,

Ease to build with open source solution,

Easy to maintain and upgrade system functions,

Easy to maintain, showcase, and long term storage,

All content are in digital format, Ease to transfer to other location, Easy to interact with others, multimedia enriched content, Ease to interface with mobile or telecommunication devices

Lack of authentication

2.5 Summary

The portfolio centric framework was presented in this chapter. Four levels are classified at this framework with regarding to learning activity. The objective of this framework is to provide a comprehensive learning portal for student, so that student learning outcome is significantly increased. The detail about a portfolio was also presented. The framework adopts a definition of portfolio which includes activity of collecting, selecting, reflecting, respecting, and projecting. A blogfolio which consists of blog and portfolio was proposed and introduced in this chapter, and a comparison between different implementations was made. The blogfolio has many advantages over other implementation except lack of authentication. It is not a problem in this framework, because the authentication process goes through the learning management unit.

Chapter 3

Classroom Response System

The interactivity is one of key factors that affect learning effects in class. To promote interaction at learning, a classroom response system, which has been shown that is an effective way, was introduced around 1980s. Its nature of simple but effective makes it becomes popular nowadays. Although, simple is one of its advantages, it is inadequate to cover some kinds of activities which need functions such as bidirectional interaction and items other than yes/no or multiple choices. To address such problems, a hybrid way which combines SMS and web-based approaches to promote interactivity in classroom is presented in this chapter.

3.1 Background

Some research results showed that interactivity in classroom helps leveraging more active learning environment, constructing learning community, providing more detail feedback to teacher, and promoting student’s learning motivation (Markett, Sanchez, Weber, & Tangney, 2006; Muirhead & Juwah, 2003; Anderson, 2002). In addition, interactivity is one of the key factors that affect learning outcome in traditional classroom (Chou, 2003). There exists significant relationship between learning outcome and learning activity, a better activity in learning environment leads a better learning outcome. The best interactivity in teaching is that teacher knows student learning situation well instantly, students have deep participation in classroom, and a convenient communication channel exists between teacher and students. Learning can be more effective through promoting interactivity (Erickson & Siau, 2003). There are many definitions of interactivity. Bannan-Ritland (2002) classified interactivity into five categories: interactivity can be defined as 1) learner’s active participation, 2)

interactive template between learner and teacher, 3) the communication between learner and teacher, 4) the social, cooperative, or collaborative interchange, and 5) scope of teaching activity and technology. Sims (2003) claimed that communication and engagement are the most important characteristics of interactivity. From the viewpoint of learner’s relationship, Moore (1989) defined three major interactivities:

learner-content, content-instructor, and learner-learner. Moore adopted a more general and concentrated structure to define interactivity. Yacci (2000) defined interactivity with message loop which is initiated both at beginning and end by students. The content of message loop must keep consistency from beginning to the end. To reach the goal of interactivity, teacher usually keep watch student’s learning situation and engage student into learning situation with some adequate activities in classroom.

Traditionally, teacher may implement interactivity through observing student reaction, posting question and answer, or asking students whether they understand content or not. There are several problems in traditional approach:

z Students sometime are not very sure whether they comprehend learning material taught by teacher, therefore they can’t form a concrete question or express their comprehension confidently.

z Even students have questions about learning material, they may hesitate to rise due to they feel embracement or are afraid of laughing.

z Teacher may make sure student comprehension with in-class quiz, but it may delay the teaching schedule and needs to take time grading.

3.2 Classroom Response System

Figure 3-1: concept sketch of a classroom response system

To promote interaction at learning, a classroom response system was introduced around 1980s (figure 3-1). Traditionally, this system consists of a large displayer which is connected to a central controller located at teacher side, an answer box, which contains several buttons, allocated for each student, and wiring for connecting answer box with central controller. In such implementation, when a teacher wants to check whether students understood lecturing content, he or she may post multiple choices or yes/no question to all students, then students submit their answer with the answer box anonymously. The central controller automatically connects answer posted by each student, since every answer box is wired to it. The displayer shows that how many students answer for each choice in various forms. Teacher can understand student comprehension about the content just taught. On the basis of this result, teaching may proceed if the majority of students have understood, or launch another activity such as discussion or further explanation if the majority of students have poor comprehension. Because it does not show each student’s answer, no one feels embarrassment even though the answer is wrong.

Central controller

The emergence of classroom response system may track back to a study initiated by IBM in 1980s. To educate newly appointed managers have knowledge to take charge of new position, IBM arranged a serial courses which were an essential part of new jobs, for them at headquarters. In general, these newly appointed managers had strong motivation to learn. IBM performed a study to investigate the effectiveness of such trainings in 1984-85. In this study, there were five classes, each of having 20 students.

Because IBM considered having these managers study well is important, it carefully studied many aspects of the classes.

As a result, the observers found that most students exhibited attentive behavior at the beginning of each class, but that attention diminished rapidly within 20 minutes. In addition, to understand whether student was attentive, observers watched each student and marked, the result which is formed an index that was equal to 100 when every student was paying attention, 50 when half were, and so on. The observation result showed that average number of students paying attention during a standard lecture was 47. Alternatively, the attention average rose to 68, when the teaching was changed to a style in which the teacher actively engaged students with questions.

Besides, the observers also found that in a typical class, the discussion was dominated by 10–20% of the students, while the remaining 80–90% contributed only occasionally. Consequently, IBM decided to build a prototype interactive classroom in which a student response system allowed every student to respond to teachers’

questions to improve students’ participation. In such a classroom, student responses were immediately displayed on a computer system with graphical form. As a result, the attentiveness index was increased to be 83 when the same criteria used to measure students’ attentiveness were applied to the classroom with student response units. The statistics showed that the students in the class with the response system scored

significantly higher than the students in the traditional classroom. In addition, a user satisfaction survey was conducted, in which students were asked to rate how much they liked the response system, on a scale from 1 to 7, and the average was 6.6.

(Duncan, 2004)。

Besides, many universities in America adopt classroom response system into teaching;

the result showed that it has outstanding effect on teaching and contributes to the promotion of student learning outcome. Professor Mazur at Harvard University discovered that student’s perception on learning material is toward and converging to the right direction not the wrong side trough the discussion with classmates. Professor Duncan at University of Colorado introduced classroom response system into teaching activity on science and technology education; he found the significant effect.

Furthermore, when classroom response system cooperates with classroom discussion;

the teaching effect is increased significantly (Duncan, 2004). Professor Rogers at University of Massachusetts had the same conclusion after he introduced classroom response system into teaching. Professor Siau at Lincoln University found that classroom response system obviously promoted interaction within classroom through quantitative and qualitative analysis. He also pointed out that the teaching effect may decline if there is poor interaction in classroom (Siau, Sheng, & Nah, 2006).

3.3 The Implementation Issues

We know that classroom response system definitely provides help to teaching and does not occupy too much time on the basis of above description. At the beginning, there are few school adopted such systems due to cost and wiring problem. Gradually, the system with wireless connection capability came to its stage. The most common type of wireless classroom response system is infrared and RF (radio frequency) type.

These types of systems have following advantages: 1) since its remote unit (student

unit) contains only several push buttons which correspond to 1~4 or a~e on a multiple choices problem, students can master its usage instantly; 2) it provides flexibility on implementation due to the omitting of wiring. However, the obvious disadvantage is that its student device is too simple to provide more sophisticate functions such as fill in the blank problem or bi-direction communication. With regard to question type, such a system usually accommodates for yes/no or multiple choices problem because it provides nothing else but only few push buttons. For simplicity, the signal transmission between central controller and student unit is unidirectional. The basic idea of such arrangement is that students build up their comprehension on learning material through discussion with teacher or classmates, therefore it is not necessary to provide specific information for individual student. When portable smart device becomes popular, people begin to consider the possibility about constructing such a system with it. Recently, some schools adopted smart device based classroom response systems gradually. The common technologies used to construct communication are Infrared, RF, and WiFi (IEEE 802.11). The most advantages of infrared over others are easy to sue, inexpensive, and low technology level. The obvious disadvantages are short distance, orientation requirement, and unidirectional.

The implementation with RF is similar to infrared, but it does not have orientation requirement and a longer distance. Due to the functional limitations, people begin to adopt smart device, such as PDA, as a user device of a classroom response system (Roschelle, 2003). It is more suitable for higher education system which usually teaches advantage knowledge. However, its obvious disadvantage is much more expensive than infrared or RF counterparts. A brief comparison between different implementations is listed in table 2-1.

Short Message Services

Recently, the major content of a mobile phone, which is one of most popular personal digital belongings, is changing gradually from voice to data. The short message service on mobile phone provides a possibility to implement classroom response system. In such a way, students send message or answer with SMS to server located at teacher side through cell phone system provider, then server program processes and analyzes the coming SMS message accordingly. Researchers recommended the possible applications of SMS on education are: in-classroom discussion, language learning, and learning supporting. Markett, Sanchez, Weber, & Tangney (2006) adopted mobile phone with SMS to promote classroom interaction because the ubiquity and interaction potential of SMS.

Regarding to adopt mobile phone as a tool of information gathering, the easiest and most convenient one is SMS. Virtually, all mobile phones can send and receive SMS message, but not all of them can send and receive MMS by way of GPRS service.

Consequently, SMS is the most potential one to perform ubiquitous information gathering. Information gathering system based on SMS service lets users get instant information that they need. There are tremendous such applications. For example, Awwad et al. implemented a simple information gathering system based on SMS system in which visitors can get instant relative information on touring (Awwad, Lin, Lin, & Yuan, 2006). Nokia, a mobile phone maker, supplies a kind of wireless monitor that can receive SMS message, snap picture on monitor according to command in SMS message, and then send this snapshot to mobile phone with MMS handling capability or email through MMS service (Nokia, Taiwan，2006). Thornton and Houser taught English with SMS message, and found the effects on language teaching on the basis of result of experiment (Thornton, & Houser, 2004).

Consequently, SMS is the most potential one to perform ubiquitous information gathering. Information gathering system based on SMS service lets users get instant information that they need. There are tremendous such applications. For example, Awwad et al. implemented a simple information gathering system based on SMS system in which visitors can get instant relative information on touring (Awwad, Lin, Lin, & Yuan, 2006). Nokia, a mobile phone maker, supplies a kind of wireless monitor that can receive SMS message, snap picture on monitor according to command in SMS message, and then send this snapshot to mobile phone with MMS handling capability or email through MMS service (Nokia, Taiwan，2006). Thornton and Houser taught English with SMS message, and found the effects on language teaching on the basis of result of experiment (Thornton, & Houser, 2004).