DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

  

 

 

Greetings and Welcome, 

 

You have reached the ePortolio home of Candace Walworth, Peace Studies Professor at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.

 

I began to incorporate the ePortfolio into the courses I teach at Naropa fall semester, 2012. Each week I found myself looking forward to reading and viewing students' emerging ePortfolios. At the time, I couldn't say exactly how they were different, but I experienced the ePortfolio as raising the stakes in the classroom, creating a platform for integration at a deep level.

 

About three weeks into the semester, I noticed a student had changed the banner on her ePortfolio and the new "look" of the banner clued me in to qualities of the student I hadn't previously seen or felt. I began to pay more attention to each student's artistic expression as well as his/her intellectual and psycho-spiritual expression and growth through the ePortfolio.

 

Occasionally, I viewed students' ePortfolios within minutes of the author pressing the "publish" button.

 

"So what?" you may ask.

 

Electricity. A felt sense of immediacy. Evocation of interbeing. In my former paper-dominated classrooms, the artifacts I read arrived (mostly) at the same time, in the same form.

 

Thanks to a sabbatical spring semester, 2013, I had the opportunity to explore the ePortfolio as a space for experimentation and documentation of new learning. 

 

Here you will find artifacts related to my teaching and learning at Naropa University as well as from my scholarly and creative work.

 

I'm beginning to sense how the sections of my ePortfolio converse with one another, communicating about what matters to me, drawing forth new connections and serving as a catalyst for collaboration.  

 

Drawing forth new connections: When I decided to include a section on poetry -- my own and others  -- it didn't take long for the section on "Dreams" to appear. 

 

Just this morning I added prayers read at my father's "Crossing Borders" ceremony. As soon as I added prayer and poetry to my ePortfolio, my level of attention to and caring for this site became fuller, more well-rounded, as Candace the daughter showed up.

 

My ePortfolio banner is from a photograph I took this summer at "House on Fire" in South Mule Canyon, Utah.  The place and photograph evoke my deep sense of belonging as a human on planet earth at a time of great crisis and opportunity.

 

Catalyzing collaboration: After classes ended last fall, I scheduled a meeting with Chuck Lief, Naropa University president, to share with him artifacts from students ePortfolios. I've been teaching at Naropa for more than two decades and I've never contacted the president of the university saying, "Hey, could we sit down and reflect together on the lives and work of Naropa undergraduates?"

 

"Yes," he said.

 

So we did.

 

It's not that my ethic of care shifted but that students' ePortfolios provided a medium through which I could invite Chuck to reflect with me--again, about what matters to me and to students in my fall '12 courses.

 

With a bow of gratitude to Naropa's pioneering ePortfolio students fall semester, 2012,

 

Candace

 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.
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DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.
User-uploaded Content
DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.