My school ( independent preK-9) is looking at doing student portfolios. I know next to nothing about how to do these- other than a collection of materials based on standards/concepts to illustrate/showcase student learning. In the past we have done literary/art magazines which were used more as a marketing showpiece. When I taught K I collected student work and put it all together for the child and his/her parent. But that's really all that has ever been done at my school.

I would like to have a long discussion around this topic with the academic affairs committee at my school but am looking for advice. How does your school do portfolios? Do you use digital portfolios? Do you use a brand name software or open source or ?? Can students and parents access it from home? Who decides what goes into them? Who gets to edit them- student? teacher? How are they used- assessment of skills? culmination projects on concepts? grading? used for conferences? passed along to the next teacher and added to every year? Who owns the materials in the portfolio- the school? the student? Is it portable- can the student take this with him/her as a starting point for their digital footprint?

Lots and lots of questions... so if you are doing these at your school and can offer some answers or even better focused questions, it would be appreciated. If you use an online program or software, if you could drop a link...

Thanks

Tags: portfolios

Views: 326

Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

My students are required to create an e-portfolio. They create 6 or 7 separate projects. I use a rubric for assessment. They use MS office, iMovie, and Kompozer to create web pages. The must insert their projects into web pages (documents, excel, iMovie, images, auto-biographical maps, pod cast, etc.) and create a web quest. They post them to the web and burn them on CD/DVD when completed.
Do you have your own website for student posting? Is it part of the school web site? Our site is run by a company, formerly owned by a board member. We don't have a lot of control over content at the teacher level. It's a proprietary php type site, not html, authoring can be difficult. I used to have my own subsite within the domain, which I did as html and had my own ftp access- so that may be a possibility. I would like to have whatever we end up using be very teacher/student friendly- no coding needed... more like moodle or a wikispace than what I traditionally made with html.
Here are my links to ePortfolios (so far) - Check out Allison Millers resources (theres a link), Allison is the Australian 'guru' in this area right now. http://delicious.com/slammedpanel/eportfolios
Thanks so much for the links. I'd really like to get my ducks in a row before we embark on this one.
You might also want to look into hosting your own ePortfolios on your school's web server using something like DrupalEd ( a quick Google search will help you find that as I am unable to access their webpage atm).
I'm starting to look at foliotek. I think my first job is to really clarify what these are going to be used for and by whom- teacher/student, etc. Basically at our last faculty meeting our new head of school went over the NEASC interim report that we are filing and portfolios is on the to do list. Nothing about how, or why or any answer to the myriad of questions I have. Since I will probably end up being the one to figure out the tech end I am trying to find solutions that others have been successful with. Open source looks like it will probably be the answer, since I haven't any money to buy software. I was looking at google sites or one of the wiki type platforms as well. I'm a little worried about putting more student info into google as they are in the data mining business. A few of the web 2.0 apps may also be workable, but again I need a long term solution, and I cannot trust that a beta app will be around or free in the long run.
Hi Maureen, first of all my welcome from Germany!
By the way, I´m involved in Ministry of Education in Bavaria/GER and we are going to promote mobile teaching: notebook-classes. And we use Mahara for e-portfolio.
Greetings
Hans
Hi Hans
Thanks. Mahara is on my list to explore. I took a quick look and liked the organization. Are you happy with it? Do your teachers and students find it easy to work with? I have the usual broad range of tech expertise at my school and a less than healthy knee jerk reaction to change of any sort from most of my colleagues, so simple easy elegant solutions are a priority.

Do you work with students as well, or are you working solely with admin? What level? K-12, secondary? higher ed?
I was at a conference in Boston this summer. A company called Digication was there. Digication is an e-portfolio service. If your school manages its website with Whipple Hill, Digication will link with it (you don't have to have Wh Hill- I just noted that in case you do). Digication is a really easy interface to use. It is not a free service, but a rep will demo it for you, and there are lots of examples of how other schools are using it. You may find it interesting too. Here is some information that might help in your search, some links provided by the Digication rep (Dan) and Dan's contact information.
Brookfield Sample Directory and e-Portfolios (click on a directory
icon to see each e-Portfolio)
http://brookfield.digication.com/portfolio/directory.digi

Washington Elementary
http://washington.digication.com/KindergartenArt/About_the_Class/
http://washington.digication.com/SixthGradeArt/About_the_Class/

Woodberry Forest
http://woodberry.digication.com/Lonergan/Welcome/

Bell HS Film Class
http://campus.digication.com/bellhighfilm/About_the_Class/

Smithfield HS Art Department
http://campus.digication.com/artmonkey/Welcome/

9th Grade English Teacher e-Portfolio
http://campus.digication.com/English9/A._Welcome2/

College Application e-Portfolio
http://demo.digication.com/SAICDEMO1/Hello/
_____
Dan Bergeron
Digication
260 West Exchange Street
Suite 001
Providence, RI 02903
www.digication.com

Phone 401-274-1800 Ext. 310
Mobile 401-688-1591
Fax 401-633-6131
dbergeron@digication.com
Thanks Terri. I liked the look of some of these, but probably can't afford to buy the service.
Hi there, We have been looking around for eportfolio and hope to find a course management platform that will include portfolio. I haven't used it yet, but have been hearing really good things about sakai and OSP http://www.theospi.org/

best of luck and keep us updated on what you find.
I've seen sakai and although I liked parts of what I saw, the person presenting mentioned that they had spent 5-7000 on a consultant to help set it up. I don't have the $ to spend for that. I also don't have the time or expertise myself. I'll check out OSP

Thanks and I'll let you all know what we finally go with.

RSS

Report

Win at School

Commercial Policy

If you are representing a commercial entity, please see the specific guidelines on your participation.

Badge

Loading…

Follow

Awards:

© 2024   Created by Steve Hargadon.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service