From Worn-out to Web-Based: Better Student Portfolios

Abstract

If too many of your students' dog-eared writing portfolios are ending up in the recycle bin, consider Ms. Diehm's solution to unleash student creativity and maybe even save a few trees. IT WAS June 8, and the last exam on the last day of the school year was almost over. Sweat beads dotted each brow, and even though a few students hadn't quite finished the exam's essay question, the fidgeting could no longer be suppressed. I called for pencils to be put down and began passing out the students' folders, officially called writing portfolios, for the school year. Some students, anxious to begin vacation, stuffed their portfolios into their backpacks, rezipped, and headed for the door. A few others, not quite so impatient, paged through the overstuffed folders, musing over writings from earlier in the year. In an effort to appease me, a couple of students offered up a modest plea: Do we HAVE to keep these? In response I launched into my unpublished treatise on The Importance of High School Writings to College Freshmen -- it was mostly ignored. A half dozen or so others pitched the folders aggressively into the wastebasket as they crossed the threshold out of my room. (Now, I suppose you could argue that the students would have kept their portfolios if I had moved the trash can away from the door. However, I'm convinced from the determination in their eyes that they would have held on to those folders only as far as the nearest place of disposal, possibly the hallway.) During the 1990s, writing portfolios were all the rage. English teachers liked them because students could edit, revise, and refer to earlier work and could actually see the improvement in their writing over time. Parents liked them because they could view their children's work at parent/teacher conferences. Administrators liked them because they could serve as a depository for the writing samples required for state-mandated tests. Even some colleges and universities sanctified them for a while, requiring students to submit writings as part of the admissions process (this was ultimately dropped by most schools -- too many applicants and too much to review). To tell the truth, portfolios were a pretty good idea, but ironically, the more effectively they were used, the more cumbersome and unusable they became. Just think about a school with 800 students. While 200 students take their portfolios with them at graduation, the other 600 folders must be sorted and given to the teachers who will have the returning students in their classes the next school year. The folders bulge, wear out, and fall apart, and many end up in the recycle bin as students prepare to walk out of school for the last time. I began the 2001-02 school year with paper portfolios as usual, but I dreaded the prospect of another year of piling and pitching. I can't say for sure how I came to my new idea. I do know it was partly because of my bubbling agitation over the old way, along with information and encouragement from our school's technology department. My idea was a unique, efficient, and creative method for students to archive their work: electronic portfolios -- Web-based collections of a student's work. To put my idea into practice, I created an electronic portfolio project that spanned five 90-minute class sessions (about one session every week or two). The first step was for students to create an opening page for their portfolios using the software of their choice. One of the advantages of electronic portfolios is that students can create them using any software program with which they are comfortable, whether that be MS Publisher, MS PowerPoint, MS Word, or any other program. I provided the students with specific requirements for the opening pages so that grading would be effective and meaningful and emphasized that their audience could include anyone from a parent to an employer to a college admissions counselor. I also reminded the students that their opening page makes an initial impression, much like meeting someone face-to-face for the first time. …