I began my exploration of ePortfolios with Google Sites, Pathbrite, and SeeSaw. Google Sites became the platform I chose to begin creating my ePortfolio. The first two platforms are for utilization by students with a complete foundational understanding of computer applications and online navigation (secondary students). They each provided similar experiences from the user standpoint, so I simply chose the first one I explored. The last one, SeeSaw, has been designed specifically for the primary student. It is very intuitive for a young learner and can be explained with few steps and utilizes pictures for navigation allowing young children to learn quickly and use independently.
This idea of using an ePortfolio as a tool for documenting my learning and professional experiences is a brand-new platform for me. While I now understand more about what it is and its purpose, I’ve come to realize we are using social platforms like; Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter as forms of electronic portfolios. These sites create ongoing documentation of our thoughts, ideas, experiences, and personal creations, just as ePortfolios can do. While these social media platforms are used in many different ways, some use them to share current happenings, or for reflections about current social conditions, news highlights, or shared experiences. The purposeful difference between the two are distinct that social media is a platform to share not only our own experiences or thoughts, but to also share those of others we may or may not agree with, and these sites have no singular focus. EPortfolios are bound by our thoughts, ideas, and/or creations and not those shared from others. I believe ePortfolio’s purpose to be more focused on providing insight about specific ideas or experiences and are not a compilation of various thoughts or ideas regarding anything or everything. Interestingly, though, both of these platforms can and will be viewed by potential employers to provide insight and information into knowing or learning more about individuals.
As a graduate student seeking librarianship, I feel ePortfolios can provide windows into my learning process as I embark on this journey. As new things are learned and created, there will be a digital collection of my thoughts and ideas. As I continue through my coursework, my ePortfolio will be easily and readily accessible, not only for me to look back on, but as a resource for professors, employers, and colleagues as a documentation of my learning experiences.
Educational technology will be a large portion of my responsibilities as a school librarian. Having a record of my learning experiences will provide a focal resource to continually expand on my thoughts as technology evolves. While paper portfolios are certainly options, and one that I’ve utilized for myself and my kindergarteners through the years; digitizing essays, research papers, presentations, etc. will give permanence to completed projects and activities accomplished through my graduate program. As my career as a librarian begins, progresses, and matures, the ePortfolio will provide me with the ability to continually add artifacts, philosophies, as well as, personal thoughts regarding newly learned information. While the relevancy of a paper folio or an ePortfolio is proportionally equal, I prefer the electronic version simply for the sake of accessibility and permanence. Also, the ePortfolio does afford a more congruent pathway to add, change, and/or edit artifacts collected along the way.
The beauty in having students provide their learning experiences electronically is the simplicity in which students can edit, add, and/or change things along the way. When asking students to create something physical (poster presentation, book review, paper assessment) the expression of their learning ends once the project is completed. By allowing students to use an ePortfolio to share their experiences and knowledge, students can add/change/edit as they continue through their coursework. Also, this approach provides two-way communication between learner and teacher for meaningful feedback.
I am choosing to use Google Sites as the platform for my ePortfolio, but my primary students will require a platform that is much more intuitive for young children. I have had the opportunity to work with the SeeSaw program and for most of my students, they were able to navigate and use the features of this program with minimal guidance and instruction. I do believe that the type of learner must be considered before choosing a platform to create portfolios of any type. Much of what primary learners need to express their learned skills calls for a hands-on approach. This would require more of a hybrid approach where students might create a piece of work – writing, drawing, manipulatives – and then photographs would be uploaded into a digital form. Students could augment their ePortfolio by adding recordings of themselves, re-reading their work, or explaining their project or creation. But to have only an electronic version of their learning experiences would provide a limited view of their understanding. Two examples of documentation would be:
1. Have students write about what they want for Christmas, take a photograph and upload it to their ePortfolio – this would simply be in the Substitution level of use.
a. (C) – writing sentences, (P) modeled instruction, (T) digital documentation of work
(TEKS: LA K10B, K10E – TECH: K2D)
2. Instruct students on writing an email to parents about something they want – typing their words, searching for a picture of what they want and attaching it to the email, providing a location where it can be purchased and the cost of the item – now they are utilizing the technology to a Modification level.
a. (C) – persuasive writing, electronic communication and value/purpose of money (P) modeled instruction for typing, modeled instruction for searching images, modeled instruction for attaching images, (T) digital documentation of work, use of technology for research, exposure to electronic communication
(TEKS: LA: K10B, K10E, K12C, K12E – MATH: K9D – TECH K3A, K3B, K6B, K6F)