Our collaborative, Canadian research project will increase our understanding of the impact of portfolios on student learning, through the design of a suite of tools that is based on sound theoretical principles and faithful to the Quebec educational context, and through the subsequent collection of data on portfolio use and student learning outcomes.

• The use of ePEARL will enhance both teaching processes (via targeted professional development) and learning processes.
• The use of ePEARL will have a positive impact on a learners' ability to self-regulate.
• The use of ePEARL will increase student scores on standardized tests (such as the written constructed response sub-tests of the Canadian Achievement Test), especially over time.

Our portfolio team has been researching the impact of using electronic portfolios on student achievement for over ten years. We are very pleased with the results of our studies as ePEARL is the first ePortfolio tool that has shown significant gains in literacy and self regulated learning skills in elementary students. Over the next couple of years, we will continue to:

• Identify the nature of electronic portfolio use (quality and quantity), and discover necessary improvements for the tool and additional ways to promote teacher professional development within the tool.
• Measure the impact of electronic portfolio use on key processes such as self-regulation for both male and female students.
• Measure the impact of electronic portfolio use on such important learning outcomes as literacy and self regulated learning skills.
• Learn about factors that inhibit or contribute to the use of electronic portfolios in Canadian classrooms.

The findings of a yearlong study conducted in three Canadian provinces during the 2007-2008 school year involving 14 teachers and 296 students found that grade 4-6 students who were in classrooms where the teacher provided regular and appropriate use of the electronic portfolio tool ePEARL (i.e., medium-high implementation condition), compared to control students, who did not use ePEARL, showed significant improvements in their writing skills on a standardized literacy measure (i.e., the constructed response subtest of the Canadian Achievement Test-4th ed.) and certain metacognitive skills measured via student self-report. The results of this study indicate that teaching with ePEARL has positive impacts on students' literacy and self-regulated learning skills when the tool is used regularly and integrated into classroom instruction. Teachers in these classrooms also reported that the use of ePEARL had a positive impact on their SRL teaching strategies.

Conducted in the same three Canadian provinces as the study mentioned above, Participants in this next study were 32 teachers and 388 of their students in grades 4-6 who participated during the 2007-2008 school year. The repeated measures analyses of the CAT-4 data also showed that students who used ePEARL made significantly greater gains compared to controls in writing skills as assessed on the constructed response subtest of the CAT-4. Students who were in medium-high implementation classrooms also showed significantly larger improvements compared to controls in content management, which refers to the word choice, sentence structure and conventions of print. However, students in both groups showed comparable gains in terms of the content of their writing and in reading comprehension responses (see Table 2).

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The student questionnaire (SLSQ) data showed that students who used ePEARL reported higher levels of specific SRL processes including: setting process goals, listing strategies and using comments from their teacher to improve on work (see Table 3). The findings from this study offer us valuable insight into how the consistent and appropriate use of digital portfolios in general, and ePEARL in particular, impacts student metacognitive abilities, literacy achievement, as well as approaches to teaching and integrating technologies in the classroom. Electronic portfolios are promoted as knowledge tools that are designed to facilitate the integration of technology in classrooms by being fully embedded into classroom life rather than merely added to it.

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Data were also collected to understand how teachers used electronic portfolios in their classrooms, to what extent they integrated electronic portfolios into their practice, and the factors influencing their use. Initial findings indicated that high implementers reported feeling supported by their administration as well as experiencing growth in their teaching practice as a result of the scaffolding and support provided by the software.

Here are some quotes from teachers, which describe how they used the electronic portfolio for creative, evaluative and informative purposes:

I've used it as a guiding tool for my teaching this year. I'm really-- I love the learning cycle and its helped me to become a better teacher because I've used the prompts to make sure I'm setting the criteria, making sure they know what makes a good job, and so we use it often, just out of context, not necessarily going online, but the language, and the whole process.

I found that the way the template was set up, as far as getting the students to share what the criteria was for their work and to get them to reflect on their work, that really channeled me in my teaching. I found you really had to force yourself in every lesson to think about "Okay, we really need to think about the end in mind."

That whole deliberate "here are the steps of learning"-- I was never that deliberate. I made way too many assumptions of what they understood in that process. So that has very much changed the way I approach all of our things now. Like setting the goals, strategies, and criteria-- Yeah, you talk maybe about it, but it was never that deliberate and that's where the changes are coming. So yes, very much it's changed my approach.

The CSLP is actively collaborating with administrators, consultants, teachers and students within five Quebec English school boards; specifically, English Montreal, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Central Quebec, Eastern Townships and Riverside. We welcome others to partner with us on this innovative research and development project.

The Royal Conservatory (RCM) and CSLP researchers from Queen's and Concordia universities have teamed up on a project designed to revolutionize the way that Canadian students learn to play musical instruments. ePEARL has been adapted for music teaching and renamed iScore. Eventually iScore will be available to 20,000 independent music teachers and their students across Canada as they prepare for RCM examinations. iScore will incorporate content features such as a music editor, a rehearsal scheduling function, video annotation, social networking and other interactive features developed in tandem with the music teachers and students who will ultimately become the end-users of the new tool.

Our longer term plans will involve several overlapping functions, namely: (a) providing ongoing professional development opportunities to a targeted group of independent music teachers across the country (2011-2013) (b) showcasing how students make use of iScore (2012-2014), (c) researching the effectiveness of iScore as a learning tool (2013-2015), (d) bringing the use of iScore to scale (2013-2015), and (e) continuing to refine the enhancements made to iScore to ensure its viability in the long term (2012-2015).