April 2004 — Features
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Electronic Portfolios: Blending Technology, Accountability & Assessment
Many educators struggle to discover the proper assessment strategies for students. Systemic reform and the standards movement introduce clarity and accountability in assessing our students. Though proven to be efficient, standardized assessment such as multiple-choice tests often turn teachers away as they may not align with their classroom practices or accurately measure students' abilities.
Portfolio-based assessment and, more recently, the electronic portfolio have been seen as an alternative to standardized tests. An e-portfolio collects student work for individual teachers to grade and critique. At first glance, standardized and individual assessment strategies create a natural conflict: The former is an efficient and powerful tool for indexing student data, while the latter validates the professional work of the teacher and displays the actual effort of the student. However, e-portfolios possess the potential to bridge these conflicting goals as they combine individual student work with standards-based assessment, while also organizing and indexing student data. This article highlights the collaboration between a public school and an educational software firm to create an e-portfolio project that would achieve these goals.
Creating E-Portfolios
Educators have long used portfolios to collect and assess student work because they demonstrate that a student has met certain learning goals or expectations. Throughout the process of creating portfolios, students are often encouraged to reflect upon and organize their learning achievements. Teachers can then offer feedback on the work, providing them with further opportunities to reflect on their learning. The benefits of e-portfolios are numerous:
- The process of creating portfolios encourages the entire school community to clearly establish its learning goals and expectations.
- Students are encouraged to reflect upon their learning throughout the whole portfolio-creation process.
- Teachers have the opportunity to encourage their students and provide detailed feedback on their work.
With the development of the Internet, educators began to note the benefits of digitizing student portfolios as computing, networks and multimedia became intimately connected with communications, commerce and learning. A larger audience could now access Web-based portfolios anytime and anywhere an Internet connection existed. Digital versions of student work could be stored efficiently, providing increased access to student artifacts. Finally, converting student work into digital formats provided new and innovative ways to organize, search through and transport e-portfolios.
E-portfolios, with an increasing use in education, are still in the nascent stages of development. According to a white paper from the Electronic Portfolio Consortium: "There is not yet a coherent understanding of functional requirements, design specifications, or how and to what extent an electronic portfolio might benefit teaching and learning." However, numerous K-12 educators have piloted e-portfolio projects, and have gleaned many lessons for school and classroom use. The key for K-12 educators and e-portfolio developers is to critically examine how e-portfolios will be used in a school, and then design software that addresses those needs.
