Digital+Portfolios

We all would agree that Digital Portfolios are a powerful tool to help students share their learning and develop personal growth. What we have difficulty agreeing upon however, is what tool is best for the job!
 * Digital Portfolios **

What tool is best for sharing and publishing online? Does it keep 'hard' copies on a local machine or does it live only in the 'cloud'? Is it a paid site or free? Are there safety concerns or issues with the different age groups?

Tyler Sherwood and this group will look at the issues and discuss what teachers are already using in their schools. What works? What doesn't? What would be the ideal Digital Portfolio and does it exist yet?

__The Unconference__

It was an interesting discussion regarding Digital Portfolios. I had ignorantly assumed that someone at the table would be using them, and using them effectively, but I was very much mistaken. What we did manage to begin however, was a conversation of what would be ideal and what the major issues were with Digital Portfolios at present (at least our perception of what digital portfolios should be).

__Issues__:


 * The time it takes to upload information, scanning documents, etc. Paper copies are much easier to keep - you just put the work into the portfolio.
 * Digitally you have to take photos of everything, or scan everything.
 * With so much video it is difficult to upload to the "cloud". Sites have space limits, the time it takes to upload, etc.
 * Security is an issue as well for videos and photos of children for most schools
 * Paper-based portfolio more hands-on? It is difficult to get away from what we know and how we interact with a 'traditional' portfolio
 * More difficult to make teacher comments
 * Time, time, time! It seems to take longer to put these things together than with the more traditional method of placing work into a folder.
 * What happens when a free site stops existing? All of your student work on Ning? Now what?

__What Works__ (could work):


 * Time set aside each week to work with student pieces, similar to what we might be doing now.
 * Saved as a PDF and emailed home each week; so a weekly portfolio (would not be able to include video or other media types perhaps)
 * Saved online to the schools's system which is accessible by the parents - though no one in our group was currently doing this

This led us to what we should have originally discussed, What and Who are they for?


 * Always available in class for reflection; teacher conferences; for Students, for Parents, for Teachers
 * To show growth

A combination of the two would work best perhaps? Digital as a companion to the paper Portfolio?

Digital - media: photo slideshows, video projects, video reflections, podcasting, photos of large Art work,

Print - paper-based tests, worksheets (we still use these?), artwork

Image Credit
Typing - amanky