After reviewing all of the posts and research, I believe that the advantages of an ePortfolio out weigh the drawbacks of its use. The list of 41 Benefits of an ePortfolio on Karen Barnstable's website won me over, although I was already on this side of the fence. I really like how she laid out the benefits of both the process and the product for students, educators and employers. The most significant benefit of the creating a portfolio is that the process is owned by the student. Thy have control over what evidence is used to illustrate their learning and achievements. "They will have an extremely portable tool to use no matter where they are in the world (Barnstable, 2010)." Whether the student continues to add to or interact with this portfolio over time, they have a record of their past to build upon in the future. My school district is actually moving in this direction for all high school students starting in the 2019-2020 school year. Starting in 9th grade students will begin tracking their journey through academics, extra-curriculars and community service, to name a few, through their senior year. This portfolio will be accessible for students to share with universities and future employers as they move into their young adult journey.
In college, we had to create a portfolio of artifacts that we wrote and designed in the college of education. I would love to still have access to that portfolio to see where I started and how I've grown now that I'm in the field. Unfortunately, that portfolio only served as a storage place to be assessed by professors. It was under the university's domain and I lost access to the collection of files after graduation. We weren't encouraged to continue adding to or interacting with it beyond the program. Because of that, I felt very little connection to it.
“We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.” - John Dewey
One of the significant pieces of en eportfolio is the aspect of reflection. Reflection can be done through commentary engagement with artifacts on the site or an active blog. Blogging? I'm not really one to write out my ideas. This is the piece that will be the most difficult for me. I always thought of blogs as an outlet for out spoken, opinionated people, which is NOT me. I'll instead have to think of my blog as a place to reflect on my personal experiences and not as a place for others who want to know what I have to say. I'll consider it an academic diary for what we call in my classroom a "brain dump". The highlight of a blog is that "it will force me to be apart of the conversation", like Seth Godwin said in the video Blogging Changes Your Life! Unless I'm with close friends, I don't usually immerse myself into conversations because of a lack of confidence in what I have to say. In my blog, I have all the answers and an abundance of expertise because it's all about me. That should be enough of a confidence boost that I shouldn't fear writing in my own blog. So now that I've completed Carol Dweck's first 3 steps, I need to take the growth mindset action and just blog on confidently and fail forward!
References
Barnstable, K. (2010). 41 Benefits of an ePortfolio. Retrieved from https://kbarnstable.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/41-benefits-of-an-eportfolio/
innerpreneur (2009). Seth Godin & Tom Peters on blogging. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/livzJTIWlmY
Barrett, H, and Richter, Johnathon, (n.d.). Why Reflect? Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/reflection4learning/why-reflect
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