INTRODUCTION TO THEIR USE, PURPOSE, AND CCPS GRANT E-portfolios

What is an e-portfolio? Essentially it is a collection of student’s evidence of learning, which is stored on the internet. E-portfolios allow students to demonstrate their achievements, to reflect upon their learning, and to plan future learning goals.

US Department of Education’s 2010 National Educational Technology Plan “Technology also gives students opportunities for taking ownership of their learning. Student- managed electronic learning portfolios can be part of a persistent learning record and help students develop the self-awareness required to set their own learning goals, express their own views of their strengths, weaknesses, and achievements, and take responsibility for them. Educators can use them to gauge students’ development, and they can also be shared with peers, parents, and others who are part of the students’ extended network.”

How are e-portfolios used? A Variety of ways - To measure student progress and performance Student ownership and accountability – learner centered Long term growth Communication – blogs, wall comments, inbox Safe Social/Academic Networking – digital citizenship Tool to meaningfully engage technology skills Creative Outlet – fun to create! Storage for student artifacts Family engagement – early childhood learning, too

Why do your students need an e-Portfolio? E-portfolios provide actual evidence of achievement This collection of evidence acts as a platform of self-expression E-portfolios provide meaningful ways for parents to engage in their child’s education E-portfolios help improve organizational and presentation skills Pupils with E-portfolios have: Higher levels of satisfaction & motivation Improved retention rates The ability to complete tasks at a faster rate

How do E-portfolios Impact Learning? It has been found that with an e-portfolio students have higher levels of satisfaction, increased motivation, improved retention rates, and due to this and the accessibility of their e-portfolio, they complete their work faster. E-portfolios provide actual evidence of achievements, which can be accessed by the student and added to as they move through the education system. This collection of evidence demonstrates the student’s abilities and provides a platform for self-expression. E-portfolios not only support personal learning and reflection but also help to improve organizational and presentation skills. Engages them in technology in a meaningful, purposeful manner to help build strong technology skills for communication, utilization of internet resources, creativity, and collaboration. Allow teachers to review the work and achievements of students, whether in the classroom or from home, and provide them the ability to communicate advice or encouragement instantly. E-portfolios provide a meaningful way for parents to engage in their child’s education. This sort of parental involvement has been shown to increase a child’s performance. Also, this transparency of expectations helps to increase accountability of students and parents.

In the Classroom Planning Collection Reflection Connection Final Reflection Presentation

CCPS – E-portfolio Pilot Through an State-wide ED Tech grant CCPS will pilot an E-portfolio developed with Mahara, an open source tool. The pilot will last for three school years and can expand each year if the county deems appropriate Teachers involved in this training and in the MSPP grant training are eligible to pilot in a small capacity this year, the product with students as well as with their own professional growth

Pilot for carolineportfolio.org Teachers may develop their own professional portfolio this school year and expand their use to include students next year Teachers may select a class of students to pilot the portfolio with this school year.  The goal is to have students use the portfolio to demonstrate their achievement in 3 – 4 performance based, possibly trans-disciplinary, projects per year (or semester if credit is awarded per semester)

Step 1 - Planning Purpose: Decide on the purpose for the portfolio. What are you trying to show with this portfolio? Are there outcomes, goals, or standards that are being demonstrated with this portfolio?  Teachers and Students: Identify how you are going to organize the portfolio. Will it be around the outcomes, goals or standards that you identified in this first step?  Students: Once these categories/themes are identified, set up a portfolio page for each major outcome/goal/standard that is required as part of the portfolio’s purpose.  Students: Set up a base portfolio page that will serve as the opening page/introduction to the portfolio.  Teachers: Set up a template for students, if appropriate.

STEP 2 Collection of work What artifacts will you include in your portfolio? How will you classify these entries? – Students: Create a digital archive of work. Offline, this archive would be on a hard drive, flash drive, iPod or local area network server; Online, these files can be stored right to your portfolio. – Students: convert all attached artifacts into web-compatible formats (JPEG or PDF) so that the potential reader will not need to own the original software in order to read it (i.e., Microsoft Office, Publisher, Inspiration documents could easily be converted into PDF).

Step 3 - Reflection Reflection Reflection is the heart and soul of a portfolio. “Reflection provides the rationale for why these artifacts represent achievement of a particular outcome, goal or standard. Blog entries provide an opportunity for reflection “in the present tense” or “reflection in action.” “ – Teachers: Provide students with resources to support their reflection activities. For each learning activity or artifact, what should be the focus of the students’ reflections? – Teachers: Adopt a system for privacy if your students are providing personal statements and/or if you are providing feedback. – Students: Write a blog entry with a reflection on each learning activity or artifact (what is the context in which this artifact was developed? What did you learn?). – Students: Classify each entry with one or more categories (major standard/goal/outcome)

Step 4 - Connection Connection/Interaction/Dialogue/Feedback. This stage provides an opportunity for interaction and feedback on the work posted in the portfolio. This is where the power of Web 2.0 interactive tools becomes apparent.  Teachers and Students: Use “feedback” features to provide comments on the work posted in the e- Portfolio. Guidelines should be provided to support more effective feedback.  Teachers often provide exemplars for different levels of achievement, and provide a rubric for evaluation.  Students should be given the option of updating the work, based on the feedback and the rubric.

Step 5 – Summative Reflection Summative Reflection/Selection/Evaluation. At the end of a course, project, grade, students write a reflection and provide a meta-analysis of the learning experience as represented in the statements stored in steps 3 and 4.  Students: Review blog entries for each category, and write a last “retrospective reflection” about the learning represented in the artifacts, selecting one or two examples that best represent achievement. This self-assessment is assigned the appropriate category, and will show first when the category is viewed (because blogs are organized in reverse chronological order).  Teacher: Provide feedback and/or evaluation of the selection of work and rationale, using a rubric.

E-Portfolio Over time, this electronic portfolio becomes a collection of a student’s evidence of learning, and is stored on the internet. This electronic portfolio is now portable, and sharable anywhere with internet access!

SOFTWARE ENGINEER – PHIL WOJCIK Details of Mahara e-Portfolios