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Concurrent Summary
Overview & Objectives
Participants will review examples of student portfolios from elementary, secondary, and college settings, and learn how student work can be linked to standards from any content area (including NETS).
Participants will learn how digital portfolios can be used to demonstrate student progress toward standards and a school's odyssey towards its own goals.
From the research, participants will learn about techniques for using portfolios to examine student work, and to create communication strategies with parents, teachers, and administrators.
Outline
Our research on digital portfolios began in the early 1990’s. In the dozen years since then, technology has changed significantly – but the factors that make portfolios useful are still the same.
To ensure that the portfolios are useful, schools need to address a set of essential questions, including:
What is the purpose for our portfolio?
What does the work in the portfolio represent?
Who is the primary audience?
How will students get feedback on their work?
How can technology staff support the portfolios work within the constraints of time and budget?
How can we build a culture that ensures that the portfolios are both valued and valuable?
In this session, we will show samples from elementary, secondary, and college level portfolio projects. While the tools are different, the schools in these projects each had to address these questions.
Our dozen lessons will be the framework for our discussion with the group. We will describe an essential question, show two of the relevant lessons from our work, and a sample portfolio that illustrates those lessons.
Participants will have a handout that outlines the dozen lessons learned. Participants will be asked to discuss (in small groups) how they think the schools in the samples addressed the questions. Participants will then go back to the outline, and discuss how they think their school can address the same issues. Using our outlines, each participant will generate strategies to address the essential questions, and determine how to begin the conversations when they return home.
Supporting Research
Digital portfolios have been the focus of research papers dating back to David Niguidula’s original research for the Coalition of Essential Schools (1993-1997). All three presenters have written extensively on the topic. Most recently, the three presenters submitted their findings to the international ePortfolio conference held in La Rochelle, France, in October 2004 (“Side Effects and Benefits of Digital Portfolios: The Culture Factor”).
Portfolios are also becoming important as a significant alternative to high-stakes assessment. States from Rhode Island (http://www.alliance.brown.edu/states/ri_projs.shtml#RIitem49115a) to Nebraska (http://www.nde.state.ne.us/stars/index.html) have policies encouraging schools to show that students demonstrate proficiency in ways that standardized tests cannot measure.
Presenter Background & Qualifications
David Niguidula, Hilarie Davis and Gail Ring have worked on digital portfolios for students, teachers, and schools since the early 1990's. For the past three years, all three presenters served on the organizing committee for the ISTE Technology and Assessment Forum (a NECC pre-conference). Previously, David led the initial research on digital portfolios for the Coalition of Essential Schools at Brown University. Hilarie has consulted with schools and districts throughout the country in the design and implementation of digital portfolios. Gail created the electronic portfolio system for the College of Education at the University of Florida, and now directs the Center for Technology in Education at Ball State University.
Prerequisites
None
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