ABSTRACT
When Brigham Young University received a PT3 grant three years ago, the university, the Utah State Office of Education, and individual school districts throughout the state were just beginning to explore possible benefits and implementation strategies for electronic portfolios. With a few fortunate “breaks”—financial, administrative, and technological—all of these groups began to think about electronic portfolios more seriously. Although there were some breakdowns and near breakdowns, caused by initial isolation of efforts and suspicion among participants, these groups learned to trust and collaborate, resulting in breakthroughs, as models, expert guidance, and implementation opportunities were offered and progress was achieved. At present, statewide collaborative efforts are enabling BYU, the State Office of Education, and districts and teacher preparation institutions to pass “breaks” forward 96to pre-service and in-service teachers, including an instruction/support sequence, a layered model that includes both working and presentation portfolios, and free lifetime server space provided by the Utah Education Network. In this article the authors share the journey and map the current point of arrival. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1–800–HAWORTH. E-mail address: >docdelivery@haworthpress.com > Website:> © 2004 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
