ePortfolio Learning

What is a portfolio?

A student portfolio is when you compile work and other forms of educational evidence assembled for the purpose of:

(1) To evaluate coursework quality, learning progress, and academic achievement

(2) To determine whether students have met learning standards or other academic requirements for classes, promotion, and graduation

(3)To help students to reflect on their academic goals and progress as learners

(4) To create a lasting archive of academic work products, accomplishments, and other documentation

• Digital portfolios can provide access to student created idea, written work, scanned work, photos, videos and audio. Which can provide opportunities for feedback from teachers, other students, and parents.

• Digital portfolios can be used as a place to store, access and share student work. Building on this, teachers can use portfolios to assess student work and share work with parents. Portfolios can also help students create a cachet of their best work, credentials and and qualifications to use in High School and their future.

• There are many free web tools that can be used for portfolios. You may also be able to use a learning management system or other commercial tool that your school district provides. With online portfolios, parents can access student work easily and parent-teacher communication is enhanced.

• This approach to student learning assessment can be used for individual courses, single projects, senior portfolios focused on college and job applications and multiyear portfolios that follow students through all their years in a school district.

RESOURCES............

• Glossary of Education Reform: Portfolio – Great overview of what portfolios are, how they can be used and the pros/cons of using them.

• The power of digital student portfolios – Why bother with student portfolios??

• What is a Digital Portfolio? – Includes links to some examples of portfolios.

• Digital Portfolios – More Examples

• Digital Portfolios: The Art of Reflection

• My Digital Portfolio Project Planning

• Learning about Schoolwide WordPress Blogs with Andrea Hernandez – Learn about this impressive BlogFolios project for grades K-8.

• Using E-Portfolios in the Classroom – Things to consider when evaluation potential portfolio tools

• 5 Reasons To Use Digital Portfolios In Your Classroom

• e-Portfolio Basics: Types of e-portfolios – Briefly outlines 3 type of eportfolios: developmental, assessment and showcase:

• ePortfolios with GoogleApps – Huge site with lots of research, background and practical information.

• Create a Digital Portfolio – Student lesson on creating a portfolio.

• Northridge Academy High School Senior Portfolio – Great outline of content to be included in graduation student’s portfolio.

• ePortfolio/Digital Portfolio Resources Everything You NEED to Dive in to Digital Portfolios with Your Students – Great pinterest board with more material to explore.

TOOLS

• Blogs & Wikis: Fairly easy to create & maintain via free hosted web services like: Edublogs, Blogger, Kidblog, Wikispaces and PBwiki (Be aware of age restrictions) If you have willing tech support, a network of blogs could be set up school servers to support all students throughout all their school years.

• Google Sites: (NOTE: Google Sites has been totally overhauled – take a look!) With so many schools committing to Google Apps for Education, Google Sites seems like a logical place for students to build e-portfolios. Pages can be organized in many different ways. By individual classes, projects, or by type of material. The site can grow and change as the student progresses through grade levels. All sorts of writing, photos, links to other documents and other media can be included. Neatly integrates with other Google tools like YouTube, Blogger for reflective writing and Google Docs for storing reports, slide presentations and other documents.

• Notebook Tools: Evernote, Three Ring ($) (review), OneNote.

• How to Use Evernote to Build Student Digital Portfolios

• More Tools:

• Seesaw – Free app to manage student content for up to 10 classes and share content with parents. Easy to set-up, app available for most mobile devices. “Student work can be shared with classmates, parents, or published to a class blog. Seesaw gives students a real audience for their work and offers parents a personalized window into their child’s learning.”

• The POSSIBILITIES and POWER of USING DIGITAL PORTFOLIOS – Seesaw

• Mahara – Open-source eportfolio software to install on your own web server. Looks interesting for anyone looking for a school-wide solution. Try it out on their demo site.

• BulbApp – Simple to set up, free service. Use it for digital portfolios, for sharing lessons and more. This looks like a terrific tool! Ideas and tips: Bulb for Teachers

• Lists with more tools:

• 4 Free Web Tools for Student Portfolios – Briefly covers Kidblog, Evernote, Three Ring and Google Sites (note that Three Ring is not free)

• 6 of The Best Tools for Creating Digital Learning Portfolios – More highly recommended tools.

• 12 Educational Apps To Create Digital Portfolios – and if 4 or 6 tools aren’t enough, here’s 12.

• Portfolio Creators – List of tools on Edshelf.

• Student Portfolio Apps and Websites – This list is from Graphite.