ERIC Number: EJ761613
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2005-Apr
Pages: 23
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0007-8204
EISSN: N/A
Beyond the "Bells and Whistles": Toward a Visual Rhetoric for Teachers' Digital Portfolios
Hicks, Troy
English Education, v37 n3 p200-222 Apr 2005
Analyzing the creation of a digital portfolio from a digital and visual rhetorical stance, rather than from a standards-based or technical competency position, affords a teacher many more opportunities to think critically about their work, understand the choices they are making in representing that work online to diverse audiences, and continually reflect upon and revise that work through a naturally malleable medium. In this article, the author focuses on what digital portfolios are, how they are being constructed now (both from programmatic and technical senses), and, most importantly, what they could be. With these questions in mind, he seeks to broaden the notion of what English educators consider digital portfolios to be and the rhetorical purposes they serve. He provides a brief background analysis of current trends characterizing digital portfolios and then offers a heuristic that broadens the ways in which teacher educators define digital portfolios for their preservice students and practicing teachers. The author offers questions about the ways in which these beginning and experienced teachers construct themselves as writers in the digital and visual world of hypertextual writing. (Contains 3 notes.)
Descriptors: Portfolios (Background Materials), Audiences, Teacher Educators, Teacher Education, Portfolio Assessment, Information Technology, Critical Thinking, Hypermedia, Reflective Teaching, Writing (Composition), Rhetoric
National Council of Teachers of English. 1111 West Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1096. Tel: 877-369-6283; Tel: 217-328-3870; Web site: http://www.ncte.org/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: Teachers
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A