[ARCHIVED] What use do you give to e-portfolios?

[jmunoz1]

Hello Canvas Community! :smileylaugh:

I will be giving a training session to some co-workers in the Curriculum Department of my Institution about how the e-portfolios tool in Canvas works, from a technical point of view.

I would also like to mention them some academic strategies and uses they can give to e-portfolios in our courses. Our programs are in the Administration, Nursing, Criminal Justice and Education fields. So if anyone has any ideas and suggestions, please comment!

Thank you!

 @xcotto ​

[pamela_charney]

Hi,

We prefer that students and faculty use Wordpress for their portfolios.

Pam Charney, PhD, RD

Bellevue College

[jmunoz1]

Thanks Pamela! Do you use it for assignments as well? How do you track them?

[bgibson]

--- From a Sys Admin's perspective, and in a small IT department, of a small university, I like the idea of using a Wordpress.com site for student eportfolios.  When a student leaves the institution, they can choose to maintain their WP site, or delete it.  The IT department/institution does not have to maintain the service.

--- Many WP themes make a professional looking site.

--- A WP eportfolio site template could be created and given to each student.

--- WP automatically creates an RSS feed for each posting "category" that is created.  Students could create a posting for each "proof of development/growth" they submit and attach a file (PDF, DOCX), or embed an audio/video and then assign the proper category or categories to each proof post.  They could give this RSS feed URL to their instructor, who could aggregate all students' feeds to easily review student eportfolio progress.

--- I place eportfolios in the same category as QR codes and MOOCs.  I define that category as "things that sound like good ideas but have yet to reach the 'tipping point' for being widely used." 

[carrie]

Hello!

I think the important thing is to make sure the eportfolio work is well blended into the curriculum. The writing assignments and assessments and projects students do in class are all connected to course learning objectives and outcomes. The eportfolio work should be inclusive of those goals and reflect the progress students make throughout the program.

• In the best case, students are thinking about adding an assignment or project to their eportfolio as they are working on it - this requires students to understand and believe in the value of an eportfolio.
• In the worst case, students scramble to upload artifacts of their work to their eportfolio because its one last thing they need to do before the end of the semester. This behavior indicates that the eportfolio purpose was not clear and that its use was not deeply connected to course work.

From a technical perspective, any content authoring tool can be used to generate and gather artifacts to display and share as an eportfolio. Canvas has a free eportfolio tool, but blogs, such as Wordpress mentioned by Pam, and wikis, like Google Sites, can be used as well.

Assignments in Canvas is one way to have students submit work for the eportfolio. Include in the Assignment Rubric criteria relating to the eportfolio and in your feedback to the student, encourage them to share the artifact in their eportfolio. This may be helpful for pre-college and undergraduate students.

Creating eportfolio checkpoints in a course might be useful, too, especially in graduate level programs. Create Canvas Assignments with URL submissions and request that when students update their eportfolio they submit a link to it for review. An associated Rubric could include criteria relating to the purpose of the eportfolio as well as checkpoints for making a quality eportfolio. For example, instead of just saying "OK, they uploaded the assignment to the eportfolio" add criteria such as, "Student wrote a reflection on learning to accompany the artifact" or "Student included peer feedback along with the work submitted". This helps students see and understand an eportfolio is not just a collection of artifacts but a history of their work as a student.

Hope this helps! Best wishes for a successful eportfolio program!

Carrie

[jmunoz1]

This is awesome Carrie! Thanks! Especially for bring up the rubrics, that helps a lot. :smileylaugh:

[eblethen]

I use the ePortfolio tool in a capstone class for a MBA in Healthcare Administration program. I looked into using wordpress but felt it was not secure enough for confidentiality purposes. Some of our students do practicum projects with confidential information that should not be publicized on the internet so I appreciate that Canvas' portfolio is hidden unless someone makes it public.

I suggest that students prepare the portfolio in such a way to do two things 1) capture a sense of their major projects and assignments throughout the program and 2) demonstrate to a potential employer their talents and capabilities. They can easily save it as a .zip file and take the entire thing with them or transfer to their own blog if needed. As we move more into the assessment world this will be tied more closely to competencies and how they have met each competency within the program.

I have not heard if or how students use it after the program is over but for the academic purposes it is a useful tool and much better than the big binders we used to make everyone purchase and submit in hard copy. I do hope that Canvas continues to improve this tool so that we could eventually link with external assessment tools like LiveText.

[jmunoz1]

Thank you Elisa!