Building Digital Portfolios

shutterstock_170012141For the past several years I have been having conversations with different people in my district about having our students create digital portfolios. This effort is finally gaining some ground, though the way has been painfully slow from my perspective.

As a classroom teacher, I have been talking with my students about this, and having them create pieces of digital writing in different formats that they can retrieve in future years.

Why Digital Portfolios?

Ever since earning my Master’s in Educational Technology, in 2009, I have had a passion for the power of technology and its ability to transform teaching and learning. I have also recognized the untapped potential for our students in having digital archives of their learning journey. My vision is that our graduating seniors would have a website that they could use for job and college applications, one that would contain documents, videos, recordings, and other artifacts from their K-12 years.

While this vision is far from being realized, we are making some gains. The Media Specialist in my building has been working with our Music teacher to store voice recordings of our students from each year in elementary. She has also begun to have students store Google Docs in a folder that could someday be tapped for a full portfolio.

What Can I Do Today?

Here in my world of 5th grade, it might seem frivolous to have students thinking about digital portfolios. Not so, I say. There is such power in students’ revisiting their work from the beginning of the year and seeing growth, or revising a favorite piece to make it even better.

Every year I tell my students that when they go to middle school, they can show their teachers their websites that they created for informational writing. (I’ve had teachers e-mail me, so I know they do this.) Often, these students will be a bit embarrassed by the lack of content or the mistakes they’ve made, but this is evidence of growth!

shutterstock_118599142This project has also inspired students to create other sites about personal interests. Seeing the application of this skill in their personal life is exactly the kind of transfer we hope for, and the kind of artifact that students can highlight down the road.

Because I have my students blog on a platform that I provide, I have to archive the class blog each year. Before I do, I tell them to copy and paste their favorite pieces into Google Docs, so they can access them later. This causes them to really evaluate what writing is their best and what is worth saving.

An Eye to the Future

These are small steps toward a full portfolio—a vision I’m not sure will ever be realized. However, I can plant the seed of the idea and have my students begin collecting and archiving their best work. The more that technology integrates into our students’ lives, the more inclined I think they will be to continue creating their portfolios. At least I hope so.

beth croppedBeth Rogers is a fifth grade teacher for Clarkston Community Schools, where she has been teaching full time since 2006.  She is  blessed to teach Language Arts and Social Studies for her class and her teaching partner’s class, while her partner  teaches all of their math and science. This enables them  to focus on their passions and do the best they can for kids. Beth was chosen as Teacher of the Year for 2013-2014 in her district. She earned a B.S. in Education at Kent State University and a Master’s in Educational Technology at Michigan State University. 

Literacy & Technology Notes from the Classroom

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