OK. I think I’ve just about gotten things closer to “feeling” right for me here. I was just fiddling with the Image and img_assist , and the drupalimage TinyMCE plugin, and finally got them all behaving as expected. Now, I can post an image to the blog while writing an entry, and it goes one step further than what WordPress did.
Drupal will create a completely independent “Image” content node, with full title/description/tag “metadata” and add it to an Image Gallery for later browsing and reuse. It’s not just a file slapped in a folder on a server. It’s a file slapped in a folder, with a bunch of supporting content and metadata to help organize it. That is so much more powerful/flexible than the straight “upload image” used by other blog apps.
I’ve been using a cheap mini tripod for a couple of years now. It’s small enough that it can be attached to the carrying case for my little point-and-shoot, so I’ve always got it. I don’t use it very often (maybe once a month?) but when I need a more stable shot, it sure comes in handy. It’s always with me (well, with my camera) so I never have to say “Crap! I wish I had a little bendy tripod for this!”
One of the big reasons I had for making the switch to Drupal is the great “Book” content type. It allows structuring of individual pages into a navigation hierarchy, and generates the “table of contents” and inter/page navigation automatically. I wanted to use it for writing longer articles, and wish I’d had it in place to use for the Interface 2006 ePortfolio background information article .
Initially, I wrote up the background article in a wiki, thinking it might be handy if others were able to edit. But, nobody has, and I think the article is less useful/usable as One Long Page Of Stuff. It would make more sense in smaller, bite-sized pieces that could be individually linked. Smaller granularity, allowing for reuse or something equally wishful.
Drupal - the software that runs the online community of practice
Other ePortfolio Software
Apple iWeb (an extremely easy and powerful website authoring and publishing program which could be an effective part of an ePortfolio authoring system)
On Teaching Dossiers - a blog post describing “Teaching Dossiers” and how they are different from ePortfolios
Associations and Articles
Open Source Portfolio Initiative The Open Source Portfolio Initiative is a group of individuals and organizations collaborating on the development of open source e-portfolio software.
Educause e-Portfolio Library An extensive collection of papers, articles, PowerPoint presentations, resources, and examples of e-portfolios.
The Electronic Portfolio Consortium The Electronic Portfolio Consortium is interested in the development of academic e-portfolio software systems and establishing standards for them.
ePortfolios are both individual and community activities. As individuals document their practice, they perform several internal processes to make sense of what they’ve done. But, these processes can be amplified if a community of peers (and/or mentors or “experts”) is a key part of their ePortfolio process. By sharing reflection, and drawing on reflections and suggestions from a person’s community of practice, it would be possible to more effectively understand what is being documented, and to better adapt as a result.
Because ePortfolios are used to document and record an individual’s practice, they have an archival nature. They form a “permanent record” of a person’s activities and progress.
ePortfolios can also have a developmental nature, when the individual (and their peers) review an ePortfolio to create personal development plans, and to adapt future strategies as a result of the documented case studies presented within an ePortfolio.
ePortfolios have two primary components. The “presentational” component is the visible, shiny product of the ePortfolio process. It is a website, or a presentation, or a set of media produced to document and communicate a concept or event.
But, just as importantly, an ePortfolio has a cognitive component. The individual crafting their ePortfolio should be reflecting on their practice of teaching and learning, critiquing what they’ve done - what worked? what didn’t work? what would they do differently? This cognitive or reflective component is crucial, as it allows the individual (and their peers) to learn from both success and failure.
Some traditional ePortfolio projects approach the ePort as a solution to an HR problem - to document capabilities of employees and students in order to streamline institutional business processes. That may be an important and valid goal, but it is not the sole (or even the primary) purpose of an ePortfolio.
If viewed separately from any institutional context, an ePortfolio is a live document that represents an individual (or, perhaps a group of individuals). A successful ePortfolio project may enable these individuals to document their practice of teaching and learning, and to record snapshots of personal and professional development. It is not a fill-in-the-blanks templated document, as each ePortfolio must be as unique as the individual it represents.
The Teaching & Learning Centre has been involved with some ePortfolio-related projects, most notably a pilot project conducted by the Faculty of Education’s Master of Teaching Program. This pilot was designed to evaluate the technical and pedagogical implications of an online ePortfolio, as well as a community website, as part of the MT curriculum.
We have also been fortunate to play a lead role in the development of the Pachyderm interactive presentation authoring software, which was used to create the published ePortfolios in the MT pilot project.
I have been tweaking some of the Drupal -powered sites used at the Teaching & Learning Centre, and in the process have updated the copy of TinyMCE that provides the WYSIWYG editor. While downloading the fresh library, I noticed a spellchecker plugin , so I grabbed a copy of that while I was there.
It seems to work great! It provides a new button in the editor, and clicking that triggers a call to the Google spelling service . Any mistakes are highlighted automatically and alternate spellings for these are provided by clicking on the highlighted word(s).
The FlickrStickr module for Drupal adds the handy Flock-like Flickr Photo Browser, making it easy peasy to add photos from Flickr to content in Drupal. But, the module uses the PHP fopen() command, which is disabled on Dreamhost’s servers for security reasons.
So, with some really quick hackery (more like copy-and-pastery, following this example) I ported the module to use curl instead, and it works great. It doesn’t seem to be able to insert images into the TinyMCE editor, so you have to toggle back to text mode to insert an image (oh, the irony!)
Another quick test of drag and drop. This time, from a regular old page in Flickr , in a separate window, dragging an image directly into the TinyMCE editor in Drupal. It didn’t automatically add the hyperlink, but that’s still pretty easy…
Photograph by 
Photograph by 
Photograph by 
button in the editor, and clicking that triggers a call to the 