Shining the Light Bulb on Digital Portfolios

Digital Portfolios

This week’s blog is all about teacher portfolios.  We read about online portfolios in class a few weeks ago, and the idea stuck with me, so I did some digging into just how helpful digital portfolios for teachers can actually be.

Kilbane and Milman’s article, “Examining the Impact of the Creation of Digital Portfolios by High School Teachers and Their Students on Teaching and Learning,” explains how creating digital portfolios allowed teachers to examine their pedagogy, learn more about technology, and better understand their student’s learning.  The authors conducted a research study examining the aforementioned benefits of online portfolios for teachers.

First, Kilbane and Milman (2017) explain that because creating portfolios takes time, teachers can evaluate their current teaching methods.  For participants, making a portfolio meant that their resources were more engaging and involved more 21^st century skills.  Many participants found their lessons incorporated significantly more technology after they had been reflected on and modified.  And for participants who had been teaching for a long time, these portfolios reminded them to get back to the basics that they had forgotten or neglected.  Additionally, portfolio creation required teachers to consider which content standards they had met in a lesson, and this reflection allowed them to better meet those standards for their students.

Interestingly, this study also involved having students create their own digital portfolios to encourage similar reflection on their work.  When both teachers and students had portfolios, there was a better reciprocal learning process.  This was also a way to assess students without the usual test and examine their development over the course of a class.

The authors do acknowledge some limitations and stress the need for further study; however, this gives me a lot of great ideas.

I really like the idea of having students create digital portfolios, especially in an English class.  Portfolios could include just the essays they wrote, and if an entire department got on board, they could span all four years of high school.  Previous essays are a great resource to draw on in future essays, and they would show students how much their writing developed from freshman to senior year.

As a teacher, I see myself having a professional portfolio that is not available to students and perhaps an abbreviated version of it that is available.  Undoubtedly, I will create resources that I use once or never use at all but might still be valuable for a student who wants to learn more.  I’d like my students to have access to those resources if they need or want them.  I will talk about this more in my ed tech of the week, but creating my own portfolio with just one WebQuest in it allowed me to reflect on that resource a lot just like the authors discuss.  Ultimately, I definitely want to keep up with my portfolio if for no other reason than to keep my teaching resources organized and promote reflection and growth during my career.

Source: Kilbane, C.R., & Milman, N.B. (2017). Examining the Impact of the Creation of Digital Portfolios by High School Teachers and Their Students on Teaching and Learning. International Journal of ePortfolio. 7(1). 101-109

Ed Tech of the Week

After all of this reading, I knew I wanted to make my own portfolio, and I knew I wanted to start now (or I’d end up ten years into teaching with resources scattered over a dozen computers and not the least bit organized).  So, I investigated a few different portfolio sites and ended up on Bulb.

Bulb offers a free version that limits uploads and a paid version with unlimited storage and uploads.  Luckily, the paid version is free for teachers!  Once you make an account, you can upload a photo of yourself, add your education and work experience, and connect your other social profiles.  The portfolio part has collections and pages.  Collections are like folders that contain pages.  Each page is sort of like a blog post.  You can upload pictures, PDFs, Word Documents, etc. then type whatever information you want to add to the page.  I went ahead and uploaded my WebQuest that we were assigned and added some notes about when I made it, what I see it being used for, and what learning objectives it meets.

There are also a variety of privacy options.  Your account as a whole, collections, and pages can be made completely public or entirely private.  You can also choose an option where only people with a specific link can see your pages.  People can also like and comment on your pages.  I really like that this tool can be as private or public as I want and allows for collaboration.  I found Bulb really easy to learn, and I’m planning to continue using this tool, especially when I can get the free premium account.