Blogging
“Mrs. Cassidy, I showed my blog to my parents last night. I showed them everything on my blog. I showed them all the things on the computer!”
That was my morning greeting from one of my six-year-old students not long ago. He had received a surplus computer1 from my school division the day before, and had suddenly been able to show his parents all of the learning artifacts he’d been adding to his digital portfolio through the course of the school year.
My students all love to put their learning online. They love that they have an audience and even more, they love to get comments about their work.
What Do the Portfolios Look Like?
A Student's Post
I have been using my students’ blogs as digital portfolios for several years. By the end of the school year, they reflect each child’s learning in many subject areas from the first weeks of school until the last. In addition to showing the development of our writing skills, we make podcasts of our reading fluency at different points in the school year, and show our learning in language arts, mathematics, science, social studies and health.
The content of these portfolios changes from year to year, and varies somewhat from student to student. At the beginning of the school year, most of our blogging is only text, as the students become accustomed to their new tool.
Gradually, we begin to add drawings and use other media to show our learning, such as video, Audioboo (for voice recordings or podcasts) and Storybird (to make embeddable storybooks). We have also used tools such as Animationish and the ScreenChomp app for the iPad. We have taken pictures of posters or other things they have made, or posted combinations of these if we feel that using only one tool is not adequate to show what we can do.
How to Choose What Goes In
Do You Get This Excited About Writing?
Choice is an important component of any portfolio. I think my students should have input into choosing what they have done well and should appear in their portfolio. I also want to ensure that the students discover how to show their learning in a variety of ways and that they show their learning in many subject areas. In practicality, the portfolios of my students are a combination of two things—student choices and teacher suggestions.
Sometimes, especially if a tool is new, we will all show our learning in the same way or at least using the same tool. Other times, such as at the end of each unit of inquiry, I let the students choose their own tool to show their learning. Even if we are using the same tool, I try to ensure that there is some element of choice for the students, such as the topics they write about, or what drawing tool they use. Seldom is it entirely prescribed. I have never had my students NOT want to post something on their blog.
Some Portfolio Examples
Another student's post
Ember was a student in my classroom last year. If you scroll down to the bottom of her blog you can see the improvement in her writing from the beginning of the year until the end of the year, as well as her growth and learning in other subject areas as well. Gus, who is a student this year, has a totally different “feel” to his blog, reflecting his interests and strengths.
Since the parents are all able to access the content of the portfolios from home, there are no big surprises at our student led-conferences. Just kids showing their learning and talking about their new goals. Their journey to meet those new goals will also be documented step by step on their digital portfolio.
- I know some of you will wonder about the “surplus computers” reference. My school division has a set life span for its computers. After that, they take too much tech support to keep running. If the computers are still working at the end of that time, they are made available free of charge to students who would not otherwise have access to technology at home. [↩]
Kathy Cassidy
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Cathy, this is great! It’s exactly what I was looking for! I am looking to transition away from traditional paper in binder portfolios with my students to e-portfolios. This gives me a place to start with my students when I’m back from leave next year. I have long used blogs as a place to write, but I love the idea of using them to showcase lots of different evidence of learning!
I am planning to implement ePortfolios next year. In our conversations about what makes an ePortfolio successful, I have recommended these essential conditions. They come from Helen Barrett’s work on portfolios.
Essential Conditions for Successful ePortfolios
Capture passions and pursuits.
Cultivate reflections and relationships.
Give students autonomy.
Keep the ePortfolios as open as possible.
Make students and teachers feel good about the ePortfolios.
What do you think about them? As I read about your ePortfolios, it seems you have all of these essential conditions in place. Would you agree?
Helen Barrett really is the expert on this.
My goals with our portfolios are certainly in line with the conditions you have listed. The autonomy condition is a bit more difficult with six year olds. What tends to happen in my classroom is that the students gain that autonomy as the year progresses and they become familiar with the idea of portfolios and comfortable with the tool we use.
Good luck with your eportfolio implementation!
The six year olds get a solid start to autonomy when you allow them to choose what to include in their portfolios. It must be a pleasure to watch that grow as the year progresses. Thanks for sharing this.
oh defo agree mylove. it is ectremely important for students education with opposties,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,……….,m
I have been exploring using blogs for digit portfolios. Thank you for sharing your ideas. It was beneficial to look at actual student’s portfolios. Love them. I am curious though, do you collect all the artifacts(i.e, video, recordings, photos) personally or do you have aides or parents that help you? Is any of this work facilitated with the support of a computer teacher/specialist during a computer time? I am now thinking through the management of the portfolios.
No, I am the person who uploads the artifacts. I tried last year to have the students do it themselves, and they could do it but it took quite a bit of support. I also tried having “experts”, but when there was a difficulty, it seemed more work to fix things than it would have been to do it myself in the first place. If you have aides or parental help you can use, by all means do so. I’d love to have that support.
Hi Cathy! I am glad that I came across your article. I am planning to introduce my teachers to the use of e-portfolio in their grade school classrooms and this, I am sure, will be of great help! Thanks for sharing this!
My pleasure! Let me know if I can be of any help to you.
Hi Kathy I’m really interested in setting up blogs for my class but I really don’t know where to start please help because looking at your’s look fab!
Please help!
Hi Vicky,
I think a good place for you to start might be this document https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VMTswZqDkOYA95Fjw5x_vVJUOocsYPduigdhLOBy8JU/edit which has lots of examples of primary blogs sorted by blogging tool. Look at which kinds of blogs most appeal to you, what things you might like to include, etc. Once you have a better idea in mind of what you want your blog to be, check out the blogging host (listed at the top of each list).
Good luck with your blogging journey. You are going to love it!
What did you use for the student blogs?
We use Edublogs to host our blogs. You can see this year’s students’ blogs here: http://mscassidysclass.edublogs.org/
Im a school teacher, teaching in a Private school here in the Fiji Islands.
I’ve been planning to do my portfolios- Im teaching Grade 3.
Thank you for setting us a guide of what portfolio is all about.
Vinaka
My pleasure, Viliame. Good luck with your portfolios.