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The difference between ePortfolios and other similar digital systems is that they are more than a record of one’s own history, specially designed to highlight skills, represent work and organize information. They are utilized by students and teachers to collect audio, video, graphics, and textual “artifacts,” like work samples, assessments, resumes, lesson plans, and personal reflections. EPortfolios are common among students and job seekers and they have three main classifications: (1) A developmental student eportfolio, which provide an account of an individual’s accomplishments over a time period, and can be directly linked to student outcomes; (2) A reflective student eportfolio, which incorporate a student’s personal reflections on the content and how it helps the student to develop; and (3) Representational, which demonstrates an individual’s achievements as they relate to specific work or developmental goals. Unique learning, personal, or work-related results can be create by combining the three types.

There are three different kinds of student ePortfolios: 1) development student eportfolio, 2) assessment student eportfolio, and 3) showcase student eporfolio.

Development Student ePortfolio

These describe the preferment and development of the student’s skills over a long period of time. Developmental portfolios include both self-assessment and reflection/feedback elements and are considered works-in-progress. The main purpose is the fostering of communications linking students and faculty.

Assessment Student ePortfolios

These show student’s abilities and skills for specific areas. To grade pupil performance, there may be end-of-class tests. The principal purpose is to appraise a student’s competency as explained by program standards and their outcomes.

Showcase Student ePortfolios.

Provide top quality work and people skills. At the end of a program this type of student ePortfoli is created to highlight the quality of student work. At the end of a degree program this portfolio would typically be shown to potential employers to gain employment.

Hybrid Student Eportfolios

The majority of student ePortfolios are some mixture of the three types of ePortfolios enumerated above. Seldom will you find an ePortfolio that is only used for assessment, development, or showcasing of purposes.

Developmental student portfolios are work-in-progress portfolios, which support the growth of knowledge and competencies over a period of time that could/should be as long as a lifetime. The audience is the author, as well as peers, colleagues or educational staff that support the developmental process. Learning, personal development, and continuing professional development portfolios are in this category.

Assessment student Portfolios can be of extremely different nature, depending on the vision of the assessment; assessment of learning, for learning, or as learning. Assessment of learning, for example, might simply be a collection of items briefly illustrating competencies earned at a certain point in one’s career or education. Organizations that encourage learning through values assessment, this can be seen as continual work progress.

A showcase student Portfolio is a snap-shot portfolio. It demonstrates exceptional work to receive recognition by peers and/or employers. A possible front page of a showcase portfolio could be a resume.

One should note that paper-based portfolios as well as electronic portfolios are what these definitions apply to. Improvement, evaluation and showcase ePortfolios could easily be done with paperless portfolios. The next logical question one should ask, then, is how can this use of new technology lead to something more complex than a digital recreation of previous portfolios?

A response to this question may be digital identity. The usage of different technology is used to sustain the construction and expression of a person’s identity. Education, or learning, is all about the construction of a person’s identity, and this construction is just another social process – hence the role of a social network in modern student ePortfolios and employee ePortfolios.

Even thought the past definitions focus on individual learning, everyone should explore different types of student ePortfolios for a wide variety of learning groups, such as learning communities, learning organizations, and/or even learning regions and cities.

Learning Student ePortfolios

Although showcase ePortfolios organize and showcase achievements, and structured ePortfolios serve to reflect specific work that will be done, the focus of the arrangement of the learning ePortfolio is evolutionary. In response to the author’s changing interests, requirements, and understanding, the organization of work evolves over time as tasks are identified, worked on, and completed. New relationships can be made by connecting past and present projects by the author of the ePortfolio. This continuing reorganization of work can be spontaneous and messy, or well thought out and clear.

Learning ePortfolios are most-likely the most challenging resource to make and maintain because of three reasons: 1) they are ongoing, 2) they extend far beyond the set time frame of specific courses, and 3) they involve reorganizing work and dynamic interactions between changing communities of people.

Probably the biggest challenge in the support of learning ePortfolios is the enabling of the necessary communication services. The history of discussions and interactions is as critical to the learning process as is the evolution of the work itself, because ePortfolio thinking is document/work-centric. The modes many people use currently to communicate, including e-mail, discussion forums, and chat sessions, are not conducive to developing ideas as part of a collaboration. The result of this is that making connections is really difficult and it’s almost impossible to step back to see histories of interactions. The greatest promise for advancing student learning and achievement and supporting new models for learning is, perhaps, held by using ePortfolios to expose the learning process through comments, discussions, feedback, and reflection.

Lifelong Student ePortfolios

Maintaining an ePortfolio beyond a person’s college and/or university years can have some long-term personal and professional advantages, which support both formal and informal lifelong education. Seeing as the job market and economy are ever-evolving, an ePortfolio can be critical in bringing about new employment chances through explaining who you are. When certification and a display of needed skills are required for career advancement and ePortfolio can be a good way to show and maintain information about achievements for professional accreditation.

Personal and professional development can be promoted with ePortfolios, by providing the incentive for continual learning. A major benefit of ongoing ePortfolio participation is the opportunity of maintaining connections with one’s peers and mentors throughout their professional career.

John Halasz taught writing and is currently a professional writer and internet marketer.

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