ePortfolio

From my comment on Gardner Campbell's blog:

Hello, Gardner,

As a few people have already pointed out, these are incremental moves -- Open Content has been around for a while, as have blog-based classes. I think most of us are in agreement that, in general terms, these are Good Things, and that these shifts are improvements over expensive textbooks and cumbersome, expensive, proprietary LMS's.

The incremental shifts, however, become more meaningful when considered together.

Pulling content from a closed repository isn't all that big a deal -- we've had rss for a while. But, putting high quality content into a container where it can be readily remixed and reused is an incremental step in the right direction.

This release features both security and maintenance upgrades.

For new users, this is the best version to download and install. The download tarball contains a directory named "Instructions" that contains some instructions on getting started. For additional help, and/or to get involved with the DrupalEd community, submit issues to the issue queue or join the DrupalEd group.

Download DrupalEd here

For existing users, you do not need to download and install this tarball. Rather, you should be managing your upgrades by using the update status module. This module will help you keep your DrupalEd install current and secure. If you have an existing DrupalEd site, you should upgrade immediately to keep your site secure.

In this session, participants will examine portfolios from several angles:

1. as a learner, using the portfolio to track/present their day to day work;
2. as a learner, using the portfolio as a tool to highlight individual artifacts in order to demonstrate learning over time;
3. as an instructor, examining the various situations where portfolio use may or may not be the best choice to support student learning;
4. as an instructor, using a portfolio as a professional development tool;
5. as an administrator/evaluator, using a portfolio as a means of presenting the different types of learning occurring within a school or an organization.

Over on the OpenAcademic blog, Sean Lancaster has asked the following question:

i appreciate the effort that is being undertaken to create a terrific online learning environment that brings various resources together seamlessly; however, i am curious to better understand how Drupal and Moodle are different in what they provide. i mean, why would a person use both tools at the same time?

The short answer to your is that the best option is a subjective determination -- kind of like Mac vs PC, etc, etc.

This has been in the works for a while, but now it's official: http://openacademic.org

This is an open source project designed to integrate Elgg, Drupal, Moodle, and Mediawiki. All code that fuels the integration will be released back to the community.

The project is a collaborative venture between the Elgg team and FunnyMonkey.

In the next few weeks, we'll be building out the infrastructure to support the project, including a development site to centralize the integration discussions and coding, as well as a svn repository for the codebase.