E-portfolios for community building, technological literacy

How can teachers and students use e-Portfolios to share work, ideas and goals in the composition classroom?

e-Portfolios in the Classroom:

Individual Portfolios

Class connections

Peer Reviews

Instructor Critique

24-hour access

Learning Objectives

o Writing as Process

o Writing as Collaboration

o Writing as Conversation

From invention to peer review to revision and “publishing,” students are able to visualize the writing process and actively become a part of it.

“I love that it allowed us to

keep everything in one place. I can’t imagine peer review

without us all having our

essays online. It just wouldn’t

have worked out as well.”

--Fall 2008 Student

“I like that it was easy to use and that I could build a portfolio. As a Writing, Literature and Publishing major, I think it could be extremely useful.”

--Fall 2008 Student

“It is nice that there are a lot of options

for design and formatting for the

actual portfolio and the postings.”

--Fall 2008 Student

Students look to peer assignments for varied approaches to writing

Online access promotes continued peer support system outside of the classroom

Online communication encourages an authentic tone and on-going conversation.

Students gain ownership of the e-Portfolio’s content, use and design

Students learn and communicate in an online forum that is familiar to them

Multimodal assignments encourage creativity and technological experimentation.

“I really like the collaborative nature ofDigication. It’s great seeingan archive of our work as well as everyone else’s.”

“I loved how if you were ever stuck on writing

something you could use Digication to see how

others approach the topic.”

“In this course, I use Digication to publish, share, and critique written work.”

“I write my working drafts and final essays on here so that everyone can use and view my work a lot easier. I also post reflection to this site in order to give insight on my essay for my teacher to see.”

“I liked the ease with which you can post the

work and discuss it even outside of the

classroom.”

“I prefer doing peer review face-to-face and being able to write comments on papers.”

“I dislike how everyone can see it, my writing isn’t strong and posting it for everyone on the network to see is a little embarrassing.”

“The only problem really was that when we peer reviewed we were not able to mark up the essays like we could on hardcopy.”

“I think this has the potential to be a great avenue for sharing work and

getting feedback. Classes can use it for peer review, professors can use it to

give feedback, and students can use it for personal publication.”

--Anonymous Student, Fall 2008 Intro to College Writing

• Emerson College’s Instructional Technology Grouphttp://www.emerson.edu/itg/

• Digicationhttp://www.digication.com/