Thing 16

Glossary of Education Reform: Portfolio

I love the idea of keeping e-portfolios.  As teachers we are required to keep portfolios of student work anyhow.  This allows to keep more work and is much easier to manage.  Instead of keeping folders, which is a waste of valuable space, everything can be kept in an e-file.  This allows for more articles to be retained and provides easier access.  Another pro for me is papers can be soiled, torn or worse lost.  In an e-file it is nice and safe and can be backed up so there can be no accidental deletions. 

The author makes a few other points that are very important.  One is that you shouldn’t be keeping the best work, but rather an array of student progress.  I would see this as keeping multiple drafts of the same project.  I like to this with my students now.  If they only remember the final product than they forget all the hard work it took them to get to it.  This causes a headache every time we start a new project.  We go through their drafts, remember how horrible it was when we started, then we edited, revised and look at the finished product.  This also gives the kids a sense of accomplishment and pride.  Having these things electronically at your fingertips would be great, especially for us teachers that travel and do not teach in the same room all day.  I could have all of my kid’s portfolios on my computer and access them at the push of a button.  If the file could be like a google file that would be even better.  That way it could be shared with the student and they could access it as well.  One more thing the author talks about is parent connection.  The files could be shared with parents, or if the parent happens to stop in or be in for a conference you could easily bring up work samples to share.

The power of digital student portfolios

I would never have thought to use photographs of students and student work to enhance their portfolio.  But as I reflect on this it makes sense.  I think the portfolio should be more than just a teaching tool, but maybe a story to bring back memories.  I remember having a file folder given to me when I graduated high school.  There were a few work samples from every grade, things that brought back memories that I hadn’t thought about in years if ever.  Photos would enhance that type of experience.

After reading this article I went and explored the evernote app.  It is an amazing tool.  I was thrown aback with how much stuff is available to the user.  Although it was a great tool the down side to me was the lack of teacher control of the record keeping.  As an educator I would not be willing to hand over complete control of decision making on what to archive to the kids.  I understand sharing the control, but not having physical control would drive me crazy.  What if they do not archive something that I need them to have.  I will continue to look through other options.

After looking at a couple other tools, I think I am going to try and set up a few portfolios for my resource room kids.  This will allow me to get my feet wet with the app, and allow the kids to archive their work.  I like the bulb app because it is teacher controlled, but the students still have some power over what goes into it and who can see it.  I like the security of the tool as well as the compatibility.  It seems to be able to work in any operating system that we have access to.  So the kids that want to use Microsoft products can and those that want to work in google can.  It also allows for audio, video, type, photo and many other files.  EXCITING