Using e-portfolios to record the learning process

I’ve found planning explicitly for what I want students to share on their e-portfolio has really helped. So that it’s clear for me what evidence of learning we are sharing and not just being always a final product but also the process. So, it might be examples of draft writing, then examples of it re-crafted, then examples of it published.

Using Google reader has been a really good visual way of students seeing a bit more accountability; I guess that, we are checking that these things are going on. Like I said before, the learning intention and success criteria, so that that is known right through from the outset, it is then communicated with the post. And, when they make their blog post that is all part of it so then the self assessment and peer assessment can come through.

We have specific learning posts that will be over the course of a term sort of eight to ten [weeks] is quite manageable. In addition to that, they set weekly goals. And, those goals describe what it is they’re trying to get better at, why they’ve chosen to focus on that, and that generally comes from feedback from myself, from each other, or just through reflection. And, they also do regular weekly reflections, which are tied into that goal.

We have ‘what’ and that’s what we’ve learnt, what we’ve done this week, and then ‘so what’ is what we’ve learnt this week, and ‘now what’ is what we want to focus on next week.

We’ve set aside fifteen minutes every day, which is just blog time. It can be to update any posts that might be in draft but also trying to encourage a bit of networking between students. And, our little buddy class is Year One and Two and so going on to their class blog and leaving comments to them about their learning, and I’m really encouraging them to use the learning intention or to try and seek what they think might be the purpose, and then trying to give feedback.

When people leave comments on our blog they usually say what we could improve on so we can go back and edit things, and what we’ve done well - because we usually have the WALT (what we are learning to), and they comment on that, and the criteria, and if we’ve achieved it they say that we have, [and] what we could improve on with what we’ve written.

We’ve got criteria for writing an effective blog post and that’s up on our wall. We co-constructed that together. We decided there were certain criteria we thought that an effective e-portfolio or blog post should have.