HighTech Homeschool:The ePortfolio
Electronic Portfolios Showcase Work,Give Students Control
Electronic portfolios reduce filing and paper storage needs and create enduring keepsakes for both academic and personal use.
Portfolios are selective collections of school materials, art, writing or specific work intended to be showcased for academic or business purposes. For students, they can demonstrate learning, growth and improvement over time, and provide positive and interesting documentation of abilities. For others, they can offer a more three dimensional resume of experience and talent.
The Traditional Portfolio
Portfolios have long been a common record keeping option for homeschoolers. Traditionally, portfolios consist of artwork, worksheets, writings and photographs archived and presented for review by evaluators or others. The materials can be kept in leather or vinyl binders or folders, accordion folders, photo albums and even in boxes.
In states like Florida, the portfolio is an integral part of the homeschool program, employed for annual evaluations and required to be kept on file for at least two years. For families with several children, though, paper-based portfolios can quickly become voluminous and bulky. And collections are necessarily limited.
The Benefits of an Electronic Portfolio
Children who may not write much or well, who aren’t artistic or whose work or abilities might be more esoteric in nature may not present well in a traditional paper-based portfolio. Electronic, or “e-portfolios”, however, are an increasingly attractive option for homeschoolers or anyone interested in archiving or presenting a variety of materials, and provide a broader arena for showcasing student work and interests.
The benefits of electronic multimedia storage include:
- Reduced paper storage needs, and commensurately small ecological footprint
- Portability
- Easy editing and expandability
- Attractive and creative presentation options
- Broader archiving abilities encompassing music, photography, fine art, film, and audio
Student Control over Content
An additional benefit of e-portfolios is greater student control over content. Being able to easily access and update their own portfolios via a media with which most students are quite comfortable provides a greater sense of ownership and responsibility for their work.
Students can even create Power Point presentations of their portfolios, showcasing, with descriptive text or music, the aspects of their work they feel is most relevant or impressive.
The e-Portfolio as Storytelling
There are several good resources for creating e-portfolios, and you can be as flashy or as minimalist as your needs dictate. The first step is to decide the goal or intent of your portfolio. Then decide what you want to use to create your portfolio.
Dr. Helen Barrett, a retired University of Alaska professor, has created one of the most comprehensive resources around for learning about and creating electronic portfolios, which she combines with an interest in digital storytelling.
“Your portfolio is meant to be your story of your life over the last four years,” she advises high school students ("A High School Inquiry,” Helen Barrett's Blog Entry, February 11, 2005 ) "as well as the story of where your life might be going during the next four years: tell it with pride!”
ePortfolio Resources
There are many ways to create your e-portfolio, from Microsoft Word and Excel to web content editors like Front Page or Dream Weaver .
Barrett even shows you how to create an “interactive” electronic portfolio using the blog site, WordPress.
Whatever your preferences, electronic portfolios are flexible and adaptable and provide an engaging, artistic and enduring way to showcase your own or your children’s work.
