I have been researching occasionally on different platforms to create e-portfolios. I recently came across an open-source flash-based software called Pachyderm. The program was somewhat familiar to since it was listed in OLT's e-Learning Tools software. However, I was not aware of what it can do or what people can do with it.
Further research allowed me to discover D'arcy Norman's Pachyderm e-portfolio. A bit of background. I first of heard of D'arcy when he came to visit Brian Lamb and Novak Rogic here at OLT. After that I noticed his name everywhere here. According to his blog he is an educational technology developer from the University of Calgary. End of background.
Seeing what he's done, my mind just started jumping on even the most tangential possibilities of using Pachyderm as an e-portfolio platform. I started experimenting last week and I have already seen some limitations to it. Since the software was first developed between the New Media Consortium and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the presentation was focused on pictures, videos, and audios. Documents, I think, can be uploaded onto a server and then linked into a Pachyderm project.
I am starting to create a project in Pachyderm and see how everything goes.
Further research allowed me to discover D'arcy Norman's Pachyderm e-portfolio. A bit of background. I first of heard of D'arcy when he came to visit Brian Lamb and Novak Rogic here at OLT. After that I noticed his name everywhere here. According to his blog he is an educational technology developer from the University of Calgary. End of background.
Seeing what he's done, my mind just started jumping on even the most tangential possibilities of using Pachyderm as an e-portfolio platform. I started experimenting last week and I have already seen some limitations to it. Since the software was first developed between the New Media Consortium and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the presentation was focused on pictures, videos, and audios. Documents, I think, can be uploaded onto a server and then linked into a Pachyderm project.
I am starting to create a project in Pachyderm and see how everything goes.
3 comments:
Thanks for checking out the eportfolio stuff, Zack. I agree that Pachyderm is a little limiting for a generalized eport - can't attach a .pdf or .doc etc... file easily, for instance. And it's restricted to the screen size of the flash presentation. And you can't print it (surprisingly, a fair number of people want to print bits from eports).
Other very cool options for eport management include Apple iWeb (very slick interface, looks great, and is much more flexible than Pachyderm), and eXe (structured content ala Pachyderm, with some freeform authoring ala iWeb).
Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
Thanks for the tips D'arcy!
Pachyderm does have its own quirks and the things that you mentioned are very true. For my purposes, it would only be ideal for students who create lots of artwork, not for people such as writers.
I was looking up iWeb but I think OLT doesn't have iLife and I have an old iBook so no pre-installed iWeb. I will check out eXe soon!
Thanks again!
Zack, there are other options, too... Mozilla Composer / Nvu is a good and relatively html/website editor, and many of our students are using it effectively. Also, check out Sandvox.
I've put links to a few "eportfolio" authoring tools on our Faculty of Education ejournal/eportfolio site.
http://apollo.ucalgary.ca/education/eportfolio_authoring
Post a Comment