ePortfolios

=ePortfolios=

ePortfolios are a great assessment tool for students and teaches. Creating an ePortfolio of student projects, assignments and learnings is a great way for students to reflect on their learning and to demonstrate how they learn and what they have learned. For teachers it is a great tool to gather data on what students are learning in your classes and helps to monitor and adjust how you deliver content and skills in your classroom. ePortfolios are replacing final exams and final projects in many classrooms all over the world. Many schools are using ePortfolios as a graduation requirement to demonstrate student learning over the course of a year or even a career. There are many tools that you can use to create student portfolios. Powerpoints, blogs, wikis, websites, and pdfs are a few of the most commonly used tools for student portfolios. The most important thing is ease of use for student and teacher and using tools that students will be using in their futures. [|Wrapping My Mind Around Digital Portfolios] nice blog post about developing eportfolios in your classes.

PowerPoint
Powerpoint is a tool that everyone is familiar with. This tool is simple to use and students can post text, images, links, audio and videos of their work. __How to tutorials__ [] [|http://] [|www.clarion.edu/41907.pdf]

Blogs
Blogging is not only a quality ePortfolio tool it is a tool that professionals and businesses are using daily to deliver information, share resources, and collaborate globally. Some of the top blogging tools in use today are [|Blogger], [|Wordpress], [|Edmodo], and [|Edublogs]. These tools work similarly but Edmodo and Edublogs allow teachers to setup a classroom and manage student blogging through the teacher interface. Blogs allow students to post text, images, links and videos of their work. They also allow for easy sharing and collaboration with teachers and other students because blogs allow people to post comments on a blog. They are also much easier to add content such as videos and other online resources because they work like a website. These things aren't as simple to do when using a PowerPoint.

__Blog examples__ [] []

Wikis
Wikis are a great collaborative tool for use in the classroom and can be a great way for students to create ePortfolios. Wikis have the ability to upload text, images, video, any type of file that can be saved on a computer can be uploaded to a wiki. Students can also participate in discussion on their wiki if you wanted to have other students comment on work or if you would like to comment on work. [|Wikispaces]is a great wiki creation tool to get you started.

__Student wiki examples__ http://frethics.wikispaces.com/ []

__Wiki Tutorials__ [|Wikispaces Tutorial]

Websites
Creating a website used to be a huge task. The webmaster had to have a full working knowledge of HTML in order to create a website. Now it is extremely easy to create websites with numerous tools available today. __[|Google Sites],[| Wix], [|Webs]__ are a few of the simple website creator tools available for free to teachers and students.

__Google Sites Tutorials__ []

__Student website examples__ [] [] []

Using Google Tools to ePortfolios
This resource shows how to use all that Google has to offer to develop an ePortfolio. [] They mention Google Apps which we don't have available currently, hopefully we will soon, but you could still use all of the Google Tools to help students aggregate their work. This link also supplies some how to guides to make this process easier.

Adobe Acrobat Professional
This tool allows students to upload any type of file that they would like to add to their portfolio. Students can upload documents, spreadsheets, presentations, videos, audio files etc. The tool then puts the files in a nice visual display to allow you to view all the files in a easy to navigate package.

__Portfolio examples__ [] []

__Portfolio building tutorials__ []

Mahara
[|Mahara] is an open source eportfolio tool. Open source means that it is free and is possible to edit the code of the software to make adjustments to fit your needs. More than likely you will not be interested in changing the code yourself and you really don't need to. This tool requires you do download the software in order to be able to use it. Hopefully in the near future this will be a tool that we will add to the FR Moodle site so that it is easier for you to use in your classroom with your students. If you want to give it a try check it out at [|www.mahara.org].

[|Foliospaces]
Just found this one, never used it. This is a free online eportfolio tool. You can set up an account and add your resume and work for your portfolio. It has a built in blog feature and appears to allow you to set up your own community using their social networking tools. As will any online service make sure you check out what comes for free and what features you get if you pay for premium services.

[|eBackpack] Save time by making changes once and eliminate duplicated efforts! eBackpack provides secure homework drop boxes and allows you to distribute handouts and assess student work easily. Take control over your classroom. It has never been easier to interact with students, parents, and colleagues. Re-purposing and re-using materials is a snap. eBackpack lets you take back your time and focus on teaching, not paperwork!