Technology
Online Portfolios Push Music Education Majors to Technology Forefront
By Katherine Anne Hoffman
Norene Ferris recalls the first year the music
education program incorporated the e-Portfolio
into its student teacher practicum. “It was like
handing a French horn to students who had never seen
one before and saying, in a month, you’ll be able to
play a concerto.” Today, three years later, every level of
the music education curriculum includes a course where
students develop their e-Portfolio. By the time they
reach the conclusion of Music 495D, the student teaching
seminar, they have an online résumé they can use
to secure a job in the music education field. Next spring’s
student teachers will be the first group to have had at
least two years of portfolio preparation in their undergraduate
education courses.
Ferris, instructor in music education and coordinator of the Partnership for Music Teacher Excellence, contends that completed e-Portfolios result in student teachers creating an identity with a potential employer before they even walk in the door. “You are present somewhere before you actually meet. Since the ultimate goal is to get the student a job, the e-Portfolio allows these students to essentially meet an administrator and offer evidence of their teaching abilities before they step into the interview,” she says. By accessing the e-Portfolio, the potential employer has access to the student’s teaching philosophy, interests and evidence of teaching, including lesson plans, digital video of actual classroom work and even clips of the student performing a symphony or a sonata.
Susan Bilich, graduate student in music education, agrees an e-Portfolio plays an essential role in the job search. “The e-Portfolio is a great way to provide potential employers with your accomplishments and experiences in your profession in a visual, entertaining way, as opposed to sitting down and talking about everything at an interview.” Glenn Johnson, instructional designer and project manager for Penn State’s e-Portfolio Initiative, believes e-Portfolios allow students to share, reflect on and showcase what they know. “This is a powerful vision of student- centeredness, which builds upon a strong foundation of students’ self-reflective understanding of themselves.”
That self-reflection, Ferris says, is the most difficult aspect of the e-Portfolio. “We have to make sure students are reflecting on their teaching, and not just recollecting a timeline of events,” she notes. Recent graduate Brian Winnie (’04 B.S. Music Ed.) adds that another challenge was “making the e-Portfolio look professional, yet still implement some characteristics of myself and my personality so they knew what to expect.”
Music education is not the only department incorporating
the e-Portfolio into its curriculum, but the students
in this program enjoy an added benefit many
other majors do not have—they can utilize all of the
sensory details modern technology allows, from images
to graphics to audio and video recordings, in ways relevant
to their field.
Music education students are introduced to the concept
of the e-Portfolio in their first year, during Music
40, so they can become comfortable with the technology.
Then, each year, they add more documents and
more evidence to their portfolio. Ferris realized the very
first year they asked student teachers to create the online
portfolio that there was a need to incorporate this technology
into the lower-level classes, because there was a
high degree of frustration for students unfamiliar with
the technology required.
Although Macintosh computers were used that first year, Ferris and other faculty realized that students were more familiar with PC platforms, so they switched to using PC labs and FrontPage software. Ferris is convinced that the switch to the more commonly used PC has helped them implement the e-Portfolio into the curriculum with greater ease. “Most students do not have Macs in their dorm rooms, so we decided to use the more popular machines to teach [the e-Portfolio].” While students’ familiarity with the technology is important, Ferris notes that another aspect of this project is also beneficial. “Students tell us how they are less fearful of trying things—they are not afraid of [the technology]; they realize mistakes will be made but they won’t give up.”
For more information about the Penn State e-Portfolio
Initiative, visit
www.e-education.psu.edu/portfolios/e-portfolio.html.
