Digital Portfolios-A New Type of Assessment

     An electronic portfolio is an alternate to standardized testing.  Teachers sometimes turn away from the standardized testing because it does not reflect actual teaching practices in their classroom or some other abilities students may possess.   Standardized testing never provides students with feedback on their work.  They never have a chance to reflect on their completed assignments.  E-portfolios give students a place to store work and teachers a place to check it.  Students are not required to "turn in" papers and teachers are not required to "collect" them and take home the major piles of completed work.  Students store completed work in a electronic portfolio and teachers can check the work from anywhere, comment on it, and return it to the student, without never handling a piece of paper.  One advantage to e-portfolios is teachers can provide detailed feedback to the students.  The North Carolina End-of-Grade tests do not provide this immediate instructional feedback to students.  Students get raw scores but never get the opportunity to actually see the questions/objectives missed.  The students miss out on the important step of learning---reflection.  This technology allows students to learn from the feedback of the teachers and promotes reflection and resubmission.  Some teachers are not comfortable with this approach because they feel it is a bit more time-consuming than sending bubble sheets through a scanning device.  Also, the only requirement is a computer with internet access, not a red pen and a massive stack of papers or a stack of bubble sheets and a scanning device.  

     E-portfolios could be utilized in almost any class.  English teachers could have students submit book reports or a persuasive commercial using certain types of advertising propaganda.  Social studies teachers could have students submit travel brochures for places they have studied.  Science teachers could have students to submit lab reports or podcasts of findings of a lab experiment.  The possibilities are endless with this type of technology.  The major issue with e-portfolios in our district would be getting teachers to get on board with this new type of technology.  

Ahr states that a digital portfolio system "utilizes the strength of an entire learning community , connecting its understanding, creating dialogue and reflection; thus building a rigorous understanding of specific learning standards."  This statement sums it up for me.  This approach provides aspects that the standardized testing does not.  Throughout the planning and creation of the actual electronic portfolio system, the Rhode Island public school, WACTC, and eduPorfolio.org realized that the process is a "continual reflecting process" and must be part of the "school culture".  Successful digital portfolio systems require the continual cycle of planning, implementing, giving feedback, reflecting, and improving.