E-Folios

What are Portfolios?

Portfolios are an assessment tool that encompasses an individual’s learning, progression, expertise, and accomplishments by using an array collection of artifacts. These artifacts are carefully selected to represent the knowledge learned, yet the critical aspect is where individuals reflect on the learning of their artifact or make connections to their overall purpose. You can learn a lot from an individual through their portfolio.

Assessment Tool

Portfolios offer an affordance of in depth learning; whereas test or quizzes are more surface learning. As a former student, when I was pursuing my 2nd Bachelors in Communication Disorders, I remember I had to study different parts of the ears, nose, and throat, I studied, memorized it and was able to be successful on the test. However, how much of that learning transferred to my current knowledge? I believe, that this is the case with many students who take tests, especially multiple choice questions. Learning is not being done to the depth that it should be. Portfolios on the other hand require a student to select an artifact learned and reflect on the learning. This requires higher order thinking and developing evidence based learning.

Career Goals

Being able to showcase my learning on educational technology through the use of artifacts and reflections would be more meaningful for my career goals. However, I would prefer for the professors from ETEC to guide me through my learning and judge on how I’m acquiring knowledge at this time. I am currently an educator and have been teaching for 15 years, technology has evolved; however, we have very limited resources in my district. For instance, I have 2 desktops, 2 chromebooks, and 2 ipads for a class of 25 students, we use technology but not to the extent where it becomes student centered. I would love to acquire knowledge and become an expert in the different components in educational technology to be able to transfer this knowledge to my students and facilitate their learning when implementing it with them.

Portfolio vs E-Folio

Both portfolios and e-folios have the same end product; a product that will showcase a students learning, pitfalls, creativeness, philosophy, and reflections. However, e-folios are much more practical since you can continuously update them via web without having to carry anything around. Furthermore, you will be able to have an endless collection of artifacts in an e-folio while in a portfolio it will be difficult to continue embedding it in as the years go by. Finally, creativeness, with technological advances you can get so creative with an e-folio: video clips, photographs, animations, fonts just the overall appearance.

Where to host an E-folio?

As I played around with the different tools, I am leaning towards using the website, Weebly for my first ever e-folio. At first, I thought of using Google Sites, since I use many of the google applications like google docs, slides, sheets, play, and even the calendar. However, as I explored Google Sites, I noticed that it was very basic. It had only a few designs to choose from, there was only three font styles, you could add photos; however it was lacking the component of slideshows. So I turned to Weebly, and I immediately came across several affordances that Google Sites did not offer. First I was able to explore and play around with the website without have a monthly fee popup that other websites were doing. Another affordance I came across was the easiness of manipulating the different pages and adding content to it. For example, if I wanted to add a youtube video, I simply select the button youtube, drag to the part of the page where I want it and drop it. I loved that it was so easy to manipulate. The only disadvantage was, once I wanted to register the website domain, it would have a fee of $60 annually.

Creating Student E-Portfolios

As I reflect on my 5th graders, I think I would not want them to use Weebly as their portfolio primarily because when they register their domain, it will come with a fee. A fee that most of my students would not be able to afford, being that I teach at a low-income school and most of our students are economically disadvantaged. However, I think I would be able to use the tool Google Sites. Some affordances that Google Sites offer is that it is free and web based, so it could be opened on any computer or device that has wifi connectivity. They will still be able to select artifacts, upload pics, videos, or add text to make connections and reflect on their learning. As they grow older and become more technological advanced, and might have a means to pay, I am certain they will be able to upload these components to a website that will be best suited for them.

E-Portfolios Supporting Learning

In 5th grade my students are responsible for differentiating between inherited and learned traits for our Science TEK 5.10B. I believe this could be a unit study that would be a valuable artifact to collect and to create their first entry in an e-portfolio. Students would collect data on what traits he/she inherited from their mom’s genes or father’s genes. Students could include evidence through the use of photographs on resemblance to one another. The students would also identify and analyze its learned traits and be able to differentiate both traits. By allowing the students to investigate inherited and learned traits with themselves, I believe this unit of study could lend itself to the pedagogical approach of student centered. As students learn about their hereditary roots they will be constructing new knowledge through their own experience.

Check Out my E-Portfolio

I have played around and decided on using Weebly to incorporate my E-Portfolio. I have started to make it a bit personal to me, check it out at: http://www.myefoliorg.com.