Before we begin...
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what does the research say?
According to the Office of Research Education Consumer Guide (93), online portfolios carry many benefits for students.
- all portfolios--across these diverse curricular settings, student populations, and administrative contexts--involve students in their own education so that they take charge of their personal collection of work, reflect on what makes some work better, and use this information to make improvements in future work.
- students at all levels see assessment as something that is done to them on their classwork by someone else. Beyond "percent correct," assigned letter grades, and grammatical or arithmetic errors, many students have little knowledge of what is involved in evaluating their classwork. Portfolios can provide structure for involving students in developing and understanding criteria for good efforts, in coming to see the criteria as their own, and in applying the criteria to their own and other students' work.
- students benefit from an awareness of the processes and strategies involved in writing, solving a problem, researching a topic, analyzing information, or describing their own observations.
- portfolios can serve as a vehicle for enhancing student awareness of these strategies for thinking about and producing work--both inside and beyond the classroom.
classroom observations
In my own work with students creating online portfolios, I have seen students:
- become better writers
- collaborate with other students with whom they do not normally associate
- assist each other in development efforts long before asking for teacher help
- become more critical about their own work and what they choose to display
- have an online voice where they may not have had one inside the classroom
student examples
Currently my 6th grade students are creating their own online portfolios to illustrate who they are as individuals and to showcase their school work. They are doing this through student accounts attached to my own, but because our students have Google Accounts through the school, they are able to create their own accounts after this class assignment.
which way do we go?
Depending on the needs of the participants of the session, we will either focus on the creation of a classroom website and/or setting up student accounts.
Additional resources
Weebly is, of course, not the only online creator for e-folios. There are many other sites that you can use. Below I have listed links to four others that you may be interested in taking a look at for your students. What is wonderful about Weebly is how easy it is to use. I have seen students as young as 2nd grade be able to create their sites!