e-Portfolios: Collecting, Sharing, and Organizing Student Work

With the start of a new school year, how to collect, share and organize student work for collaboration and assessment is on the minds of many teachers. The days of countless folders filled with piles of papers is slowly being replaced with digital e-Portfolios in the classroom. Now a teacher can keep online records of a student's progress throughout the year and share those documents with parents as well. (Yes, parents can still create a hardcopy to hang on their refrigerators!) Digital copies contained in a folder/notebook (e-Portfolios) are a perfect way to track a student's success as well as keep an eye on areas where student's may need some extra help.

The May, 2013 issue of Edutopia listed some ideal ways in which a teacher can collect, store and share student information using some of the current apps on the market today. Some are free and those with an asterisk have a fee. Depending upon the grade level that you teach, check them out to see which one works best for you.  All of them are great ways to begin capturing student work:

ProjectFoundry

Organizes, tracks and shares learning in a project-based learning classroom. Includes standards-based grading tools and feedback tools. Teachers have the option to include a digital portfolio website for students.

Google Sites*

Create a website to share classwork and projects. Potential users must be at least 13 to sign up. Students can use the "file locker" option to upload files.

Wikispaces and PBwiki*

These two wiki-creation tools allow students to create a website of their work. Due to the collaborative nature of the tools, student teams can build a workspace to showcase their work. The teacher can create student accounts without an email address. (Note: PBwiki is also known as PBworks.)

Dropbox*

Students can create a public folder in Dropbox to share their work. This platform supports multiple file types and can be used collaboratively by sharing folders.

Evernote*

Students can create "notebook" within their Evernote account for each class, and that notebook can be shared publicly. Students can upload files to their notebooks, including documents, photos and audio files.

eBackpack

Teachers can assign, collect, grade and return assignments to students through eBackpack. Students can upload files to their digital locker to create an online portfolio for their course. Work uploaded cannot be seen outside of the closed system.

Edutopia: (http://www.edutopia.org/blog/e-portfolios-in-the-classroom-mary-beth-hertz)