Definition:

The Digital Portfolio is a collection of all a student's best work that has been saved to computer files. Links to these files are organized into a navibable format such as a PowerPoint presentation or a Web page, making it easy for other people to explore and assess the work.

Background and Context

The traditional paper portfolio has been around for centuries and is still a viable format for collecting students' work. The Digital Portfolio is the technological next step. It offers an incorporation of all the visual elements of the paper portfolio, plus the use of multimedia and hypermedia features such as video, audio, and hyperlinking. The Digital Portfolio allows people to collect a broader range of expressions into a more versitle format. Text, color, graphics, animation, and interconnectivity can be synthesized into a product that has both an enhanced presentation appeal and a broader audience across the Internet.

The Digital Portfolio is a fun way to capture student work and incorporate the use of computers, scanners, cameras, sound recorders, and a great variety of software in ways that meet all the standards for technology infusion. Digital Portfolios are completely scalable in size and scope, from collecting the elements of a single unit over a few days, to compiling an entire semester, school year, or school career into one presentation. It can be made with a bare minimum of equipment on a shoestring budget, or it can include all the bells and whistles of state-of-the-art technology. Students with limited technical skills and advanced students can all find challenge and success creating their personal portfolios. And because every class and teacher at every grade level does learning activities that are worth remembering, the Digital Portfolio is an project that can be used by anyone.

Up to now it has been easy to incorporate computers into certain studies such as language arts, math, science, and social science. It has been more of a challenge to bring technology into classes like physical education, music, drama, art, auto and wood shop where students need to spend most of their time away from computer labs engaged in non-technical activities. Digital Portfolios work well in this envrionment because teachers and students can spend their year simply gathering the raw materials. As they go on about their non-technical business, teachers and students can take photographs of their sculptings and art work. They can audiotape their musical performances. They can videotape their drama performances, their track meets, and their basketball games. They can scan drawings, awards, and newspaper clippings. They can even capture club and extracurricular activites. When the coursework is finished at the end of the unit, or end of the year, the class can schedule whatever time it takes in the computer lab to bring all the raw materials together into final products. A culminating activity can be to share what they have created with their classmates. When it's all over, the student has a permenent memory of accomplishments, and the teacher and school have a new and improved project-based method of assessment.

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