Working with ePortfolios

As there seem to be a lot of people out there in this community I have decided to start a blog on my experiences with EPortfolios. I have started to work on this topic when I was asked a year ago if I was interested to take part in a European Sokrates project on the implementation of ePortfolios in Baden-Württemberg.

Well, there weren't too many people with the necessary skills, experience and enthusiasm- so the job got stuck with me ;-)
There was a lot of preparation ( I set up a moodle course for the participants and created a network with the Austrian testers (Gerlinde first and then also all participants) and we had to tackle the difficult task of getting people test the modules of the Wiki as well as working with the EPortfolio platform MAHARA and create their own portfolios. Fortunately I had a great expert in the team, Heinz, who isTHE German expert for MAHARA and could take over all the technical parts of the course.
We ALL struggled hard to reach our goal - in just 2* 2,5 days with a very mixed group from unexperienced to digital native teachers..... But even though the immediate outcome was not bad at all, the problem is that there is no continuity in the work now which we had hoped for - with our support via the moodle courseroom.
This brings me back to my demand that we will need support from administration and school principals to get iinnovative projects on the way. As long as there is no real urgent need for teachers to change their way of teaching, 21st century educationwill never happen. The biggest reward for me so far has been the experience I could make with networking and meeting people who are trying to give education a push and all the valuable contributions.
I came across an excellent article on 21st Century Learning "9 Principles for Implementation: The Big Shift" by Sheryl Nussbaum... who writes about the problems of implementing change and has some great ideas on that.