The DH Meet-Up: First Meeting of the Spring Semester on 'ePortfolios' Held Feb. 29

On Thursday, Feb. 29, the Digital Humanities Meet-Up had its kickoff meeting for the spring semester at the World Languages and Digital Humanities Studio (JBHT 207) on "ePortfolios." 

This Meet-Up featured a hands-on workshop on creating student ePortfolios as well as presentations by Ryan Calabretta-Sajder (Italian) and Raquel Castro Salas (Spanish). Studio graduate researcher Larissa Rocha walked attendees through building a student ePortfolio. WLDH Studio Director Curtis Maughan opened the Meet-Up with an introduction to the studio, the presenters and the studio's calendar of Meet-Ups for the spring semester. 

Calabretta-Sajder, head of the Italian section and associate professor of Italian, shared how final exams have been replaced by ePortfolios throughout the Italian section at WLLC. In "No More Final Exams: ePortfolios as a Response to the Assessment 'Debate' in HigherEd," Calabretta-Sajder discussed the pedagogical advantages to using ePortfolios and shared ePortfolio examples from past Italian students, including multimodal projects that blended audio, video and professional presentation materials. Drawing from the work of the U of A ePortfolio committee, which Calabretta-Sajder and Maughan both collaborate on, the presentation also covered a review of various platforms for ePortfolios, and it discussed the advantages of WordPress.  

Raquel Castro Salas, teaching assistant professor of Spanish, presented "ePortfolios: A Tool to Articulate Student's Learning Process." Castro Salas highlighted the myriad of benefits of ePortfolios for students, such as how ePortfolios promote self-regulatory learning and scaffolded projects, career readiness, assist with setting goals and allow students to see their work and learning processes in a creative and tangible product to then connect to their respective career pathways. Castro Salas demonstrated how tracking progress with an ePortfolio provides a living document on using language studies as a boost for service professions like healthcare and business translation, citing the Latino Youth Biliteracy Project for service learning. Students can articulate their skills, work experience and community service while making language studies relevant in the real world.  

The next DH Meet-Up will be held from 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. on March 14 in the WLDH Studio (JBHT 207). This DH Meet-Up, titled "Podcasting and the VR Classroom," will feature Dr. Manuel Olmedo Gobante (professor of Spanish), Larissa Rocha (WLDH Studio) and Michael Hall (WLDH Studio). Lunch will be provided. 

To stay in the loop, be sure to follow the Department of World Languages, Literatures & Cultures' social media sites linked below and the WLLC website! 

WLLC Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/uarkwllc

WLLC Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/uark.wllc

WLLC Website: http://wllc.uark.edu