Using Online Portfolios to Publish Student Work

Today I looked in the book about teaching with Wikis, Blogs, Podcasts, and More.  It is about how these online features can help extend student learning.  In chapter 8 this author talks specifically about the use of E-portfolios.  This is similar to when we created our portfolios for our Senior year of undergraduate work that encompassed all of our work we had completed on the program in the 4 previous years.  It was our way of showing that we had completed the necessary requirements to graduate and that we had a firm grip on the skills we had been taught over the past four years.  It was a summative assessment and a collection of all the work that we thought was our best quality and everything that we could collect to show mastery.  There are two types of online portfolios that you can use in your classroom.  The first of which is called a working portfolio this type of portfolio is used for the student to add work as it is completed and also reflect back on work that they have completed.  They can also use a presentation portfolio which is used to show an audience and showcase ones work, it has less of a reflective element and more of a showcasing component.  This chapter just made me think about how you can use portfolios for more than just art class, it will allow you to stretch your children and push them.  Online portfolios are good because they make sure that you have integrated technology at earlier times in your classroom so that you have the appropriate material necessary to add into your portfolios.  These allow your students to have a structured creativity that will let them showcase portions of their best work and allow them to feel pride in what they have done.