The Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (www.aaeebl.org) is emerging from the world-wide ePortfolio community. Authentic, experiential and evidence-based learning are the kinds of learning ePortfolio advocates hope that ePortfolio tools will support.
The Assocation, AAEEBL, will hold annual conferences, the first in the fall of 2010. AAEEBL is collaborating with the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) to create this conference.
As the professional association for the ePortfolio community, it will serve the usual purposes of an association: research, community-building, regional meetings, collaborative projects, grant proposals, standards, promoting innovation and providing a home for the new community developing around ePortfolios made up of assessment specialists, faculty, learning researchers, and educational technologists.
AAEEBL has just created its first Board of Directors, 16 well-known ePortfolio leaders from the U. S., the U.K., and Australia. This Board was announced in late March, 2009.
Institutional members of AAEEBL must have a commitment to ePortfolios and must therefore bring some expertise to AAEEBL. We have 100 institutional members now and expect to have 200 institutional members by December.
In addition, ePortfolio vendors and corporations that have ePortfolio tools as one of their offerings are members. AAEEBL’s partnership between academic members and commercial members allows AAEEBL to influence the direction of the entire ePortfolio enterprise.
The executive team for AAEEBL are: Trent Batson, Director and acting chair of the Board, Gary Brown, Co-Director, Helen Barrett, leader for the Web2ePortfolio Initiative, Helen Chen, leader of AAEEBL research, and Steve Ehrmann, leader of AAEEBL surveys.
AAEEBL will conduct 4 surveys of its membership each year and produce 8 reports on the state-of-the-art in ePortfolios.
To join, contact Trent Batson, trentbatson@mac.com. Joining now is free. Membership dues will be determined later.
