Suggestions for Teachers (on assigning e-portfolios)
**Note: These suggestions assume that you do not already have a program in place at your school for developing e-portfolios, and you are searching for viable solutions on your own. They will not speak to proprietary e-portfolio platforms.
General Tips
Keep in mind that you are helping students create something that will reach beyond your class. Help them see it as something that will evolve over time.
Go for the simple solutions. Students will not keep coming back to technologies that are difficult to maneuver or remember. Pick something for the basic structure of the portfolio that is user-friendly. If you want to challenge the student, do that with the add-ons or artifacts of the portfolio.
Model what you want your students to do. Creating your own portfolio along with them helps you to see the task from their perspective, and it helps them to more clearly understand what you expect and what you consider acceptable.
Assignment Ideas
**Note: Some of these suggestions may work better for class portfolios (compilations of work produced for a particular class and put into a portfolio for the purposes of showing progress and achievement in that class), and some may work better for professional portfolios (compilations of work produced over time and put into a portfolio for the purposes of marketing a person professionally).
E-Portfolio using a combination of Blogger (or other blog programs) and Google Docs (for a professional portfolio)
This is one of the simplest ways to make an e-portfolio. Set up a blog, and make only one post that serves as the portfolio introduction. From there, use the sidebar to link to other portfolio elements.
E-Portfolio using only Blogger or primarily Blogger (for a class portfolio)
Keep a blog throughout the semester with rough drafts and revisions. Use the comments feature on the blog for peer and instructor reviews. Make the very last blog post the portfolio introduction. Use the sidebar to link to “the best of the blog” or the best revisions done during the semester. Also use the sidebar to link to other artifacts created outside the blog.
E-Portfolio using Freewebs.com or other free web hosting site (for a professional portfolio)
Create a static web page with links to portfolio elements.
E-Portfolio using Wiki software (for a class portfolio or a professional portfolio)
Wikis are meant to be multi-authored, but they don’t have to be. A student could use wiki software to set up an e-portfolio, and the advantage would be in the ease of adding new pages and editing the site. However, do to the collaborative nature of wikis, it might be best to consider them for class portfolios in which students are involved in group projects. Students could have individual pages and group pages on the same site in this format.
E-Portfolio using PowerPoint or Google Presentations (for a class portfolio)
Have students make slide presentations about their semester’s work. Use the slides as introductions to the artifacts. Upload files of papers or projects to Box.net, Google Docs, or some other online file hosting service. Link to the files from the slides. Remember that PowerPoint will allow students to embed sound and video. Go multimedia!
E-Portfolio using Microsoft Publisher (for a class portfolio)
Have students make a newspaper, magazine, or news letter out of their semester’s writing. This will allow for the incorporation of photographs and other visual elements into the writing, and it will leave the student with an end product worth showing off.
Incorporating artifacts from Box.net, Seesmic, Gcast, Flickr, or other web tool sites.
Remember that whatever you choose as the format of the portfolio, that format is just the base. Artifacts can be pulled in from a multitude of locations. Explore sites for audio, video, and other file hosting services.