Electronic or digital portfolios can facilitate very authentic assessments of student achievement and growth through structured multimedia collections of their work. They can provide richer and more dynamic views of student performance than test scores alone can. The big value added bonus to using electronic portfolios is that students are much more amenable to using this medium and are typically highly motivated to work on them. The increased levels of personal interest and involvement in their own learning leads to better educational achievement.

With a developmental electronic portfolio, parents can see first hand exactly what types of skills are being developed, better understand areas that may require extra work, and even increase their interest and involvement in activities contributing to the education of their children. With this tangible tool, teachers, students and parents can more easily reflect on and discuss the student’s performance, as the portfolio may contain teacher assessments as well as reflective self evaluations by the student.

The electronic portfolio may also be used to demonstrate proficiency in certain areas, or used to showcase a student’s very best work. This can lead to better career development as well, as the portfolio can actually become a tool for managing personal vocational goals.

More than just a digital collection of artifacts, the electronic portfolio should ensure that curriculum standards are being addressed by demonstrating that the student has worked towards and achieved specific educational goals. My advice would be to to use the electronic portfolio as an adjunct to other assessment tools, rather than attempting to replace them altogether.

A popular tool that can help with the creation and management of the electronic portfolio is Hyperstudio, which is licensed for use in our schools through the OESS. With Hyperstudio, teachers can easily create their own templates for the students to use. Portfolios can be stored on a server, CDROM or even streamed or downloaded over the Internet. For students that do not have access to a computer at home, their portfolio can be transferred to video tape for distribution. Electronic portfolios can also be created for the Internet with popular programs such as Netscape Composer. 

An electronic portfolio can contain many types of multimedia artifacts, which can be any combination of text, graphic art, sound, animation or video. For example, this could include paintings, drawings, maps, charts, photographs, presentations, speech and examples of reading, compositions, drama, songs or other musical examples, debates, interviews, essays, experiments, simulations, animations, projects, certificates, poems, short stories, handwriting, research, journals, self-reflections, teacher and peer assessments and more.

To learn more about electronic portfolios or Hyperstudio, please contact the CITI. We can help you develop templates for your students to use that are specific to your courses.