E-portfolios: Beginning of a student's Academic Journey

November has been incredibly busy with report cards and student led conferences. I have done portfolios with my students in the past so that they could showcase their growth as learners. Because of the students' access to netbooks, I thought it would be worthwhile to create an e-portfolio that the students could add to as they progress through the grades. We decided to use Google docs to create the e-portfolios and I was amazed at how fast the students caught onto creating an organized online portfolio. Students were able to write about each piece of work that they selected and upload to the e-portfolio for viewing. They could also scan pieces of written work and then upload it. We didn't begin creating the e-portfolios until the third week in October which made it difficult for the students to be creative since the e-portfolios had to be completed by the beginning of November; in time for student led conferences. Although, I was apprehensive at first; not really knowing how student led conferences using e-portfolios would work, I was very pleased with the outcome. The classroom was set up into four stations. The students and parents started at a station with me where we could talk about how the year was going and any concerns the parents and students were having. After the brief discussion, the students invited their parent(s) to one of the stations that had a netbook. The students logged onto their e-portfolios and were able to present what they were doing. I was very impressed with the level of dialogue that was created between the parent and the child. The parents had a lot of questions and the students were able to answer the questions well. I was also impressed how the interviews flowed. Because of the stations and the students being in charge of the presentation, three groups could be presenting at one time. I became the facilitator who answered questions but remained on the sidelines, allowing the students to shine. At the end of the conference we gave the parents the opportunity to provide us with written feedback about their experience and thoughts about e-portfolios. From the comments, the parents were very pleased with the process and how excited the students were about their work. It was also interesting that parents were pleased to see that the students scanned some of their handwritten projects. It was apparent that some parents had difficulty letting go of the idea that learning can only take place using textbooks and looseleaf.