E-Portfolios

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on March 31, 2009 at 4:59pm

I notices that rcampus.com (from another recent post) advertises e-portfolios(????)

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Permalink Reply by Donelle on April 1, 2009 at 12:56am

I'm currently looking into the same thing. I'm interested to see the ideas posted here.
Have you heard of Zinch?

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Permalink Reply by Shelley Krause on April 1, 2009 at 5:05am

Friends,

"Best portfolio tool" will probably change from student to student, depending on the type of work highlighted.

You might want to check out Carbonmade, which I just came across the other day.

See also this list of online image galleries.

More general tools like Weebly and PBWiki could work well, too, I think. Maybe even Tumblr? Pageflakes? Oooh, what about Mixbook and Voicethread?

Here's a student (at the University of Mary Washington) who effectively created a "blogfolio." No reason a student couldn't do that using Blogger.

Finally, Dr. Helen Barrett has been thinking, writing, and sharing about electronic portfolios for a LOT longer than I have. You can check out some of her work here.

Want more? If you're a social bookmarker (and even if you're not, actually), poking around in the sites tagged with "portfolio" in del.icio.us or diigo might turn up some good stuff.

As I sometimes say to my students, That ought to keep you busy! :-D

in peace,
Shelley

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Permalink Reply by Ray Tolley on April 1, 2009 at 10:52am

Hi, Chris,

Your question has several sub-sections:

1. When you say 'create' do you really mean 'create' as in writing XHTML or using a tool such as Mahara? I strongly advise against this unless you are seriously teaching an ICT course. Too many colleges that I have heard of use the construction of an e-Portfolio as just an ICT competency test and once made is then not really developed for proper lifetime use. It then becomes a time-wasting exercise (for the less ICT literate) that does not actually benefit the real purpose of having an e-Portfolio.

2. Yes, you are right in that some commercial e-Portfolio solutions are specifically designed for one purpose - which is not in the spirit of using the e-Portfolio as a learner-owned tool for every subject and however the learner wants to use it. I have identified some 25 different uses for which a learner can use their e-Portfolio.

3. For some years students have been creating a website or even a powerpoint as a means of showcasing one's work. However these 'pseudo-ePortfolios' do not have the requisite functionality of being IMS/SCORM compatible. - So what's the point of creating a 'pseudo-ePortfolio' which does not have the export/import functionality which institutions require to transfer standard data from one institution to another?

4. I strongly recommend that your students are allowed to create a system that allows them on the one hand to express their own personality or self-image through images, colours, templates etc and also allows for 'progression' as the student matures. However, at the same time there needs to be some sense of guidance or structure that teachers can follow otherwise the task of finding individual artefacts hidden in different places makes the task unacceptable for the poor old teacher!

5. Remember that the e-Portfolio that your students create will be of no use to them in later life if it is not completely portable. An e-Portfolio should be capable of going through many transitions - as I repeatedly refer to in my blog 'The Seven Ages of Man'.

Check out my website at www.maximise-ict.co.uk/eFolio-01.htm
or my demonstration e-Portfolio at: http://www.raytolley1.xfolioworld.com
or my blog at: http://www.efoliointheuk.blogspot.com/

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