Some of the questions that you may want to discuss include:

• What do we want to achieve by assessing our students?
• How can we empower and encourage students to focus on their progress?
• How can we better involve parents/whānau in the assessment process?
• How do we frame this within the The New Zealand Curriculum?

Some of the questions that you may want to discuss include:

• What do we want to achieve by assessing our students?
• How can we empower and encourage students to focus on their progress?
• How can we better involve parents/whānau in the assessment process?
• How do we frame this within the The New Zealand Curriculum?

The resources below have been designed to be a bit of a catalyst for thinking about assessments embedded in ePortfolios.

• Where the focus is on process; for example, using ePortfolios (collect, select, reflect) in a way that is culturally responsive, inclusive, and timely
• Where the focus is on attributes students have; for example, using multimedia in a way that enables students to express themselves in their preferred way
• Where the focus is on the students ‘owning the learning’; for example through peer assessment, feedforward and feedback, knowledge-building, and self-assessment

Please feel free to leave comments, and jump into the conversation in this forum.

Some of the questions that you may want to consider are: What do we want to achieve by assessing our students? How can we empower and encourage students to focus on their progress? How can we better involve parents/whānau in the assessment process? How do we frame this within the The New Zealand Curriculum?

Resources

Twitter hashtag for session: #eportfoliosnz

Presentation & conversation

• Presentation used during this session: view online; link to downloadable version
• Forum for conversation, questions, suggestions, resources you'd like to share.

Videos and audio

• Podcast from Radio New Zealand (May 2nd 2013), that summarises the key discussions we are having here in NZ around online assessments - the first interviewee is the head of the NZQA and the second a university professor. Is there a danger of simply planting old assessment methods in online environments? How will online assessment impact on teaching and learning and vice versa? Changes to the way students  are assessed  (20′07″) (Download: Ogg Vorbis  MP3)
• Albany Senior High School video (Auckland, secondary) - Miranda Makin explains the benefits of using ePortfolios for students, including sharing the work they choose to showcase with parents
• Ilam School video (Christchurch, primary) - example of students and teachers using ePortfolios
• Point England School video (Auckland, primary) - a Learn, Create, Share approach to supporting literacy development
• Assessment for learning and ePortfolios video (Russell Street School, Palmerston North) - Nick Rate speaks about ePortfolios and assessment for learning
• Mt Roskill Grammar school video (Mt Roskill Grammar School, Auckland) - students talking about their experiences of using ePortfolios in general, and MyPortfolio in particular

Mindmap

• Mindmap - session 1 - keywords around assessment

Assessment / ePortfolio related resources

• Assessment Online - resources about what assessment is, assessment tools, and how to use assessment
• Stage metaphor diagram - an alternative way of re-conceptualising ePortfolios
• ePortfolio scenario from the breakfast session illustrating what an ePortfolio might 'look and feel' like for a student.
• Thinking about ePortfolios for your school? Questions - these questions are designed to get the ball rolling for thinking about ePortfolios - or to develop a school's thinking if the students are already using them
• SOLO example - some nice examples of the the SOLO taxonomy in action; this resource includes two examples of students talking about how SOLO helped them learn, and how it helped re-frame their thinking about NCEA assessments

Examples of ePortfolios

For a general collection of resources and examples you can access this space. If you are looking for more targetted examples, please feel free to start with the list below.

• This resource, by Helen Barrett, has a super selection of examples of student ePortfolios (mainly NZ examples) - Primary, Intermediate and High School
• Student examples in MyPortfolio (Year 7 / 8). You'll need a Flash enabled machine to access these examples. You can download the .swf file here. You can also view a sample digital photography ePortfolio (in MyPortfolio) here.
• For some examples of student, teacher and lifelong learner ePortfolios, you can also access this resource.
• Three examples of students creating and learning with ePortfolios at Early Childhood Centres in NZ; and, while not specifically ePortfolio development, this example might provide a useful way to support students into creating their own ePortfolios in ECEs.
• TKI has 10 examples of schools (Primary, Intermediate, and Secondary) working with students to develop their own ePortfolios (a couple of which were featured during the breakfast session: Stories from schools
• These TKI snapshots take a slightly different approach. Various software is listed, and when you click on the software that looks like something your students might enjoy using, an example of it in use in a school is provided.
• Examples of students providing peer feedback.

Image: Cup Cake cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo by Doha Sam

i am trying to organise using the e-portfolio idea with senior high school music classes.

at the moment I am thinking of using Evernote and Dropbox. Use Evernote notebooks as the primary location for work and feedback, and use Dropbox as a location for larger files, such as videos of performances etc.

has anyone tried this or something similar? What have you used?how successful has it been?

cheers

Daniel

Blogs are a wonderful e-portfolio platform if:

* tagging is done well so you can search and filter content

* students can customise the look and feel to reflect themselves

* templates are used that allow wiki-esque functionality as well on static pages for the kinds of content more suited to that format.

There are good authoring apps for iDevices too for Wordpress and Blogger.

The question about why would you pay for a tool you can get essentailly the same functionality for free is a good one.  Edmodo is the biggest LMS internationally behind Moodle and all the points covered here apply to the LMS debate too.

Key thing is why do you want the tool at all .... if the answer is to provide an open, easy to use,  readily transportable, tablet/smartphone compatible,  and manageable platform to showcase and share learning then use these criterial to filter the options

Slightly off-topic point too ...

Schools are building their websites using blogs too - Rusell St in Palmerston North, Outram School in Dunedin and Taieri Beach in Dunedin are examples that spring to mind.

cheers, Greg

When choosing an eportfolio tool for you and your students you may wish to consider:
that the eportfolio stays with the learner outside of a school/institution, that they can take it with them and build on it (lifelong learner)
that it is portable to another school if needed
that it aggregates productions made with a range of tools
that the learner fully controls who has access to what and for how long (eg: one person only, for a set period of time, public etc)
that the tool allows for communication, reflection and making connections as well as providing a showcase of achievements
that students' portfolios are easily accessed for feedback by teacher in the first place
that there is an active community of users of the same tool, in a similar context and environment with whom to exchange