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
This discussion post is outdated and has been archived. Please use the Community question forums and official documentation for the most current and accurate information.