Digital portfolios, e-portfolios or web folios are same as traditional portfolios only its presentation format differs. The content of digital portfolio is presented in a digital format. Digital portfolio is the best way of displaying student’s achievements.
It means students can save their work in the form of web page, CD or disk. Kids respond better when they’re able to share their work because they have valid audience and it does not go onto the pile on teachers’ desk. Kids today can create and share their work with the world through digital portfolios, they have the authentic audience who will not only read it but also care about it.
Why Digital Portfolios are Important for Students?
In this era, where the use of mobile and computers is extensive in schools and colleges, having digital portfolio is important for students. E-portfolios allow students to collect their work for future use. Students can easily curate, archive and analyse and keep their sample work for past as well as future learning on their figure tip.
How Do Digital Portfolios Help Students?
Digital portfolios have the great capacity to impact student’s learning. Now the question is how do digital portfolios help students. We took this question to LinkedIn and asked a number of educators.
“I would then add that keeping a portfolio also helps you reflect about that ‘professional brand’ … in other words it can be a tool for self-reflection. In that sense it is not used to simply ‘show off’. Thinking about and looking back at what you have done and are doing helps define your interests and come up with new goals that are aligned with your learning path/life.
If the portfolio exposes all of this (in the sense of ‘professional branding’) to an audience (a mentor, teacher, peer, possible future employee, …) that would then interact with you as a student on this, the self-reflective process would become more interesting as your identity, seen from sociological point of view, is ‘constructed’ through social interaction”, says Learning Experience Director at The LearnScape, Filip Daniel.
Here are some of the other best replies:
- Having a digital portfolio helps students to brand themselves based on the skills that they want to showcase to potential employers or school administrators. At the very least, having a digital portfolio is a starting point for a dialogue with people that are interested in the same field/industry or can contribute to knowledge sharing.
- Digital portfolios allow for practicing digital citizenship, get Googled, share quality projects for college entrance, provide authentic connections outside the classroom, show understanding etc.
- Portfolios help students develop a sense of belonging and to own their learning. I think their power goes beyond helping students document their work and learning experience. Their historical value has an immense impact on curriculum design and evaluation, as well as in the documentation of Approaches to Teaching and Learning. We are living in times where the sense of authorship is a must, when the information ‘that needs to go in books’ will be outdated by the time it is published, so portfolios give us an edge on that.
- The most important value of a digital portfolio is the intrinsic boost to a student’s self-confidence. They can clearly see their own accomplishments. That self-confidence is a key to the student’s future success.
- To focus the question a bit, in the higher education context keeping a collection of written work and associated research via blog or portfolio can be an excellent way to introduce technical skills that may not be addressed in other courses, e.g. basic coding by introduction to markdown, etc.
List of Educational Apps to Create Digital Portfolios
Evernote can be used in on android and iOS platform and absolutely free of cost. Using this app student can take note, capture photos, record audio, as well as make entries searchable.
VoiceThread is yet another wonderful app to create digital portfolios. This app can be used on iOS and it absolutely free. Using this app, students can flip their work and explain it. This app can be used by both teachers and students.
The eduClipper portfolio tool allows students to create portfolios of things they have clipped (aka bookmarked) online. Watch the eduClipper portfolio tools in action.
Getting Started with eduClipper Presentation Portfolios from AdamBellow on Vimeo.
Easy Portfolios can be used on iOS and cost $1.99. Using this app, students can record audio, write text, capture picture and record video directly into portfolio. They can also import it on Dropbox.
Foliobook is a wonderful app for designers, architects, photographers, agents and those who wants to present visual and photo artwork.
Google Drive helps to create, share as well as keep their stuff in one place. Upload the file and you can gave access of it to anyone else and anywhere. 5 GB space is free in the Google Drive.
With this iPad app you and your students can create digital portfolios that contain files from Google Drive, Dropbox, links from the web, images and videos captured with your iPad, and whiteboard videos created within the WeLearnedIt app.
