preview

The History Of Electronic Portfolios

Decent Essays

Within the last five years, student portfolios have begun to go electronic. To talk about this shift in portfolios, we need to consider many questions. What do we mean by the expression electronic portfolio? Is it simply a digitized version of the more familiar print portfolio? Or is it something completely different? Why are students, school, and institutions interested in electronic portfolios? To answer these questions, a quick explanation of print portfolios - their contents, processes, and types - provides a useful context for understanding how print and electronic portfolios compare and what electronic portfolios offer. After a review of six critical problems surrounding electronic portfolios, the researcher investigated foreign …show more content…

In yet another class, an undergraduate class on research methods in psychology, students open their portfolio with a reflective synthesis of enclosed materials as well as a statement of the materials' relevance to their development of an independent research project. Other exhibits contain a statement of progress on the independent project, a write-up of one experiment, a peer review of that write-up, and other materials (homework assignments and summaries of class readings, for example) chosen by the student. As these examples suggest, classroom portfolios can vary considerably, especially when we think about them along four parameters or dimensions: (1) Type and level of class (in general education or in the major, for example). (2) Purpose of the portfolio. (3) Audience for the portfolio. (4) Criteria for assessment. Regardless of the diversity of portfolio models, however, they all make the same request that students assume responsibility for documenting and interpreting their own learning. This responsibility extends through col-lection, selection, and reflection. Students archive all their work - homework, class projects, journals, lab reports, spreadsheets, notes for presentations, drafts of assignments, peer review notes, and so on. At a designated time - sometimes at midterm, often at the end of a term - students select from this

Get Access