Help Your Students Create Electronic Portfolios
Aportfolio system is an au- thentic method for evaluat- ing K– 12 student outcomes.
Many teachers have their students
develop hard-copy portfolios. These
may include projects, exams, and
other artifacts from the units or
lessons they are learning about.
But this system is becoming
obsolete because of an increase
in paperless documentation and
reporting. More and more schools
are moving from paper portfolios
to electronic equivalents. Not only
does this help the environment,
but it also provides K– 12 students
with knowledge of digital docu-mentation/organizational tools and
systems as they get ready to enter
college or their careers.
School administrators and teachers cite many benefits to using an
electronic portfolio, such as access
and organization of student work,
using and understanding learning
standards, and reflection of learning. Portfolios can organize assignments by learning standard, lesson
focus, or lesson outcomes.
Requiring students to reflect on
the artifacts they include in the
portfolio allows them to show what
they learned and build deeper understanding related to the learning
outcomes. This reflective component works well as a culminating
activity for unit assignments.
The following five systems are
free, web-based e-portfolios suitable for K– 12 use. Students can set
all of the tools for public or private
viewing and can easily share their
portfolios with web links.
Digication is free with a subscription through Google Apps for Education. It is easy to
use, has customizable templates, and supports the creative display of artifacts, such as
presentations, photo galleries, and reports, with color options, fonts and formats, videos
or pictures, and linked documents. Digication offers 200 MB of storage.
Epsilen offers a standard e-portfolio template for life at no cost. With storage up to 72 MB,
students can incorporate calendars, wikis, blogs, notes, drop boxes, and other interactive tools.
A tech-savvy student can finish training and start using Epsilen’s e-portfolio in as little as
20 minutes, but this may take longer for those who are less technologically advanced. The
company offers face-to-face training, self-paced tutorials, and follow-up training for a fee.
Googlio is a good option for students who already have Google and gmail accounts. Google
provides step-by-step instructions and offers ready-made templates. This tool is easy to use
and supports creative presentation of artifacts, so students can easily share their e-portfolios.
Prezi is similar to an interactive whiteboard that allows students to zoom in and out of the
projects they work on. This allows viewers to see how an e-portfolio’s content connects.
Similar to PowerPoint presentations, Prezi allows students to create a path that the document follows in a pattern when viewed. The tool may take a less tech-savvy student a bit
longer to master, but it offers an impressive 500 MB of storage.
WordPress uses a blog format that includes a commenting feature. While creating an
e-portfolio, students could also learn how to use a blog with this tool. WordPress offers
a 10-step tutorial, examples, templates, and 200 MB of storage.
