Faculty (n=12) supervising students completing the internship and all interns (n=79) for the school year 2007-08 used webfolios. One of the intern supervising faculties was also the coordinator of the webfolio implementation. The year-long internship was completed by students completing their final year in the Masters of School Administration 2007-2008.

Selection of webfolio tool. There are two venues to webfolio development: off-the-shelf tools such as Microsoft Office and Web-based systems such as TaskStream (Strudler & Wetzel, 2005). After researching available venues the faculty selected TaskStream as the webfolio application. One reason for the selection of TaskStream was the technical support offered by the Web-based system. The support was immediate and uninterrupted. Another reason for selecting this application was the cost factor. At the time the faculty decided to take initiative and use webfolios there was (and still is) no funding for the implementation of this innovation. TaskStream did not incur any additional costs to the department or the faculty. The cost associated to this Web-based system was to the students upon subscription. In order to not overburden students, the faculty decided not to require textbooks and in place of the textbook students subscribed to TaskStream. A final consideration that led to the selection of TaskStream was the fact the Web-based system provided storage and tools to manage and generate reports specifically aligned with accreditations standards. This also meant that there would not be a need for a technology commitment from the university to maintain files.

Implementation process. The faculty coordinating the implementation of TaskStream translated the existing internship portfolio outline into a Web-based format. Faculty and students received instructions on utilizing webfolios in many ways that included handouts, demonstration, overview sessions in computer lab, and individual appointments. During the year-long internship students met once a month for internship seminars and webfolio instruction. In addition, faculty would provide individual help during their school observation visits. Change is complex and takes time (Hall & Hord, 2001) and this case was no different. Faculties were willing to try the new Web-based application yet many times commented on the challenge to learn a new venue. Students also made similar comments along the way in addition to expressing difficulty in accessing the internet in many rural areas of the eastern part of the state. The key to the success of the implementation was appointing one faculty to facilitate the process. It was comfortable and important for all of those involved to turn to a person that would be available to help and in this case it was the university faculty. As the year progressed, the familiarity with the application helped with the process of uploading evidences and artifacts. By the end of the school year all students completed their webfolios and all faculty evaluated the webfolios via the Web-based system.

Students reported spending an average of 132 hours on the development and completion of their webfolios during the internship with a reported average of 4.4 hours per week. From a TaskStream report, students typically shared their work 24 times during a 9 month period with the faculty supervisors assigned to support and evaluate their internship experience.

Several different survey questions were incorporated in the evaluation process to gather feedback regarding students’ perceptions of the incorporation of the webfolios. Following a five point Likert scale with lower responses indicating less agreement, the interns’ responses indicated that the primary purpose of the webfolio was to serve as a formal summative assessment of their internship experiences, artifacts and process (Table 1).

Students were asked to provide feedback to the question “Now that you are finished, how do you feel about your webfolio?” These narrative responses were analyzed and placed into response categories as presented in Table 2. With the exception of 5 respondents, students’ narrative responses could be categorized as very positive toward the webfolio usage. The second largest category of student responses to this item also indicated a strong preference for this electronic method of reflection and demonstration of their work.

Regarding the application of the webfolio in actual practice, students were asked to respond to the item “In the future, how do you think you will use or adapt the webfolio?” Narrative responses were analyzed and placed into response categories as presented Table 3. The majority of the students’ responses were categorized as indicating that the webfolio would be used primarily as a reference/resource in seeking a leadership position in the schools.

With the transition to a webfolio, there was a need to identify areas of support for the application to support its implementation and success for the students. Table 4 provides the interns’ responses to a survey question that highlights the most frequently indicated response for each item. Interns indicated that the full time availability of laptop computers, handouts provided by the University Supervisor and one-one meetings with the university supervisor as the most useful resource in the creation of their portfolios. The usage of the online tutorials offered by TaskStream was the least useful.

Students were also asked to provide feedback concerning improvements for the webfolio development process for the next group of interns. While the majority of the students expressed positive or encouraging remarks (I feel that this tool has been excellent in being able to collect, organize, and present an accurate reflection of my internship experience.), the most frequent concerns focused on technology issues (e.g., Computers have different formats (home/school).Some items have to be scanned. What is posted on one computer may appear differently on another. Hard copy is always better.) and suggestions for an examination of ways to streamline the process (e.g., would have liked a strong rubric for journals and cover sheets and more technology support as I began setting up the webfolio.).

Students were asked to provide suggestions for improving the webfolio process. Their narrative responses were analyzed and placed into response categories as presented in Table 5. The majority of the students indicated an opinion that the process will improve with future implementations and the need for streamlining information and continued professional development on the application.

In addition, students were asked to provide information about specific problems that they encountered with the webfolio process. Their narrative responses were analyzed and placed into response categories as presented in Table 6. The overwhelming majority of students indicated that technology issues were the greatest source of problems.

Initially, the idea of implementing webfolios was widely accepted by the faculty. Once the idea became a reality, faculty hesitated. After discussions on postponing the implementation one additional year, faculty decided to continue as planned with the condition that one faculty among them coordinate implementation and instructions for use with students and faculty. Having one faculty coordinating the process was an effective tool for full implementation. One reason was that students and faculty felt they had a point person to contact with problems. Another reason was that one faculty could keep ongoing notes of implementation issues and incorporate needed changes for the second year of implementation. A lesson learned was that even though there was no monetary investment in implementing webfolio there was a large and unexpected time commitment from the faculty coordinator who also was also supervising interns. Therefore, having one point of contact for the application is helpful but release time might be needed.

All faculty need to be familiar with the application and its usage and support. In this pilot study, faculty was learning to use webfolios alongside students but the learning perspectives were different. Students learned to create webfolios while faculty learned to review and provide feedback. Therefore when students looked for their supervisors for technical support the standard approach was to connect students with the coordinator. A lesson learned from to allow time for practice and to provide very clear expectations and processes for the use of the online tool.

Many students completing the principal preparation program at this institution live in rural regions of North Carolina where access to the internet is difficult. Therefore, faculty and students addressed obstacles in order to access adequate levels of technology and support. One particular obstacle was encountered at the monthly seminars held at a local high school. Meetings were typically held in the media center where access to the internet was limited due to the small number of computers and in addition the need for a password to access the internet. Thanks to the collaboration with the school administrators the faculty was able to obtain a temporary password to log on to the internet however there were small numbers of terminals to access. A lesson learned from this is the need to meet in a location where Wi-Fi is accessible and where each student has access to a computer. At this point, the faculty is strongly recommending students to bring their laptops with them. In addition, the meeting locations must have computer labs with internet access.