Anthony Gabriele is the Supervisor for Curriculum & Instruction for the Garnet Valley School District. He has been an English Teacher, Instructional Literacy and Technology Coach, and is Senior Adjunct Faculty for the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Literacy Network. He is in constant pursuit of ways to engage learners through purposeful design of curriculum and instruction. Read more at http://anthonyjgabriele.com/

The concept of Digital Portfolios has resurfaced as a hot topic recently…both in our district and, I feel, across different districts and states that I have recently visited and/or connected with via Twitter and Google Hangout.  The ‘why are portfolios coming back’ conversation has fluctuated from being an outcome of the new changes in laws that are scaling back standardized testing as sole measure of students growth and achievement, to the more holistic and comprehensive measures we are starting to discuss related to what it means to be College & Career Ready, to portfolios as a unique and personal view of students and their ability to demonstrate transfer of content and skill through creation, too, well, maybe it is just a really great practice to implement.

The WHY

In an article for Edutopia from a few years back titled Digital Portfolios: The Art of Reflection, Beth Holland hits at, what I have come to learn and believe, is the right to the heart of what makes student portfolios powerful.  She writes,

Too often, conversations about digital portfolios center on the tools: how to save, share, and publish student work. Mastering the technical component of digital portfolios is critical, and students do need an opportunity to showcase their work to a broader audience. However, when we let the process of curate > reflect > publish serve as the sole focal point, digital portfolios become summative in nature and are viewed as an add-on at the end of a unit, project, or activity.

For digital portfolios to be truly valuable to both teachers and students, they need to provide insight into not only what students created, but also how and why. If the ultimate goal is to develop students as learners, then they need an opportunity for making connections to content as well as the overarching learning objectives.

It is this last piece that she hits on, helping students reflect on and articulate the how and the why of their learning, thinking, and creating, that will ultimately lead to understanding, transfer, and independence for them.  

Kind of sounds like the Understanding by Design 2.0 Framework doesn’t it? What is Understanding by Design? Ask the expert:

<EMBED VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8F1SnWaIfE >

Purposefully connecting the role of the portfolio to the larger, transferable skills, content, and lessons that will stay with students beyond ‘school’ will only increase its relevance and power as a concept, strategy, or framework for students.

For a piece on using UbD for purposeful design of learning, as well as some of my past successes and failures with Digital Porfolios (and in some cases Notebooks) please check out http://anthonyjgabriele.com/put-simply-its-about-purpose/.

The HOW

There are a ton of platforms for our students to begin to shift to digital creation and curation of work. More important than the platform is the design of the learning around the use of Digital Portfolios.

The essential step to remember around this conversation is to pick the reason or purpose for the work you are going to have them do FIRST.  What is it you want them to know, do, create, etc…? How will they be transacting with the ‘text’ you are having them work with….note-making, composing, etc.? What type of text is it (Written? Visual? Auditory? Physical?)? Are you looking for them to keep a digital record of all of this for themselves privately or for a larger audience publicly? How much reflection is going to be built in? Are they keeping a notebook-Readers? Writers? Literacy? Scientists? Historians? Or is this a combination of everything listed above?  

These are questions that are no different w/o technology right?  It’s about your goals, objectives, and ultimately ‘TRANSFER’ for the students to be doing what they are doing.

 

The SECOND step then is to ask what tool or tools am I going to use to support and amplify this learning.  While, without technology as a platform for a portfolio, the goals for learning and transfer at their core don’t really change. We still want students to create, curate, analyze, reflect, and publish to learn and grow…

 

HOWEVER with technology in the mix how the students achieve these goals gets amplified.  The creation and curations become more efficient, dynamic, and real time (ie- students can use their phones to take a photo of an image or scene that moves them or that can serves as a jumping off point for writing or art, or they can record and upload a voice memo for notes, reflections, etc… in the moment that it hits).

 

Again, going back to Holland’s point about the power in portfolios is not just having students curate, reflect and publish, but purposefully connecting the learning to their lives by building in deliberate and meaningful reflection on the HOW and WHY of their work, their process, their thinking, their creation, etc…

 

The WHAT

Now let’s talk tools. Some tools to consider, based on your goals and your purpose, could be:

 

• Google Drive
• DropBox
• Evernote
• OneNote
• Adobe Spark
• Weebly
• Wix
• Blogger
• WordPress
• Google Sites
• Seesaw.me
• Fresh Grade
• Explain Everything

 

And that list doesn’t even really include video platforms for a digital portfolio!

 

I’m not big on advocating one of the other to ‘force’ on students or teachers. So much goes into a tool…level, purpose, comfort, school culture, access, etc. In the end, options and choice are, in my mind, the best way to go.

 

Here are a few samples from Art teachers who have their kids build their Art Portfolios on WordPress Samples, Pintrest Samples, and Instagram Samples (this last one has led to real artists connection with local HS students and providing feedback on their work)!

 

Again, the important piece in all of this is thinking critically about the goals, objectives, TRANSFER, that you want from your students, then focusing on the instructional design component so that we can purposefully incorporate and use technology to amplify the different parts of the learning process.  

 

As always, thanks for reading!