Digital Portfolios

Now this was an interesting read today from the Journal Technology, Pedagogy and Education where the use of digital portfolios to develop thinking skills was researched.

Over the past few years digital portfolios have crept into the classroom for various purposes: record of child's attainment of a place to store their work electronically. This is how I have developed my school's pupil portfolio at present. Has there been any educational benefit to the child for these portfolios? In the state they are above I would say no as they are only serving as a reminder of a grade or a picture of a piece of work created. The children really don't access them in my school as it hold too many results that are for teachers eyes only.

I have been developing, ever the past months, the possibility of using blogs and wikis as a means of recording pupil work so that they have an electronic portfolio from primary 1 - 7 which has work form each year, comments from teachers, parents and self with the possibility of peer assessment where applicable. This thinking is reflected in this research paper where digital portfolios can provide opportunities to develop thinking and learning through metacognition. By providing children with the correct tools and allowing them to be part of the digital portfolio they will be able to look back at strategies to success. This is what makes the portfolio different from a record/work keeping document which is really for the teachers use. The portfolio allows the child to be part and have a voice in the matter which is their entitlement. Remember the united Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 12 (1989) where it states that:

'children and young people have a right to be involved in the decisions that afffect them'

What differs with the research paper and my thinking is the method the researchers use to record the children's thinking skills. The idea of speech and thought bubbles was super way to record the child's thinking on top of a picture of what they are learning. This would certainly appeal to children rather than placing a comment in a blog about their work.

How easy would this be to manage in a blog area? Children can create speech bubbles in flickr or word but which one is the best? Time to go and test them out.