ISTE Article 8

Strategic Questions: What to Consider When Planning for Electronic Portfolios
Helen C. Barrett.

This article explores the benefits of electronic portfolios. A benefit of electronic portfolios is that it makes tracking a student's progress a lot easier. For example, if a student moves often or changes districts a lot, students will be easily placed into the correct classes because their new principals and counselors can easily access previous student assessments. Without computers, student files are kept in sotrage boxes and paper documents. This gets difficult because you only have so much room to store so much paper. It is impossible for a teacher to remember where she put Billy's essay from five years ago. Keeping the files on an electronic record makie it easier to retrieve, it is more portable and be a lot more easily distributed. I can personally relate to this because I transferred high schools in my junior year of high school when I moved from San Diego to Murrieta. I went back to my old high school in San Diego only within 3 months of transferring in order to retrieve my writing portfolio. My english teacher couldn't find it and so I had no samples of my writing before my junior year. My current english teacher couldn't tell if I was improving or backsliding.

Q1) What would I use to assess my students' improvement?
Math is a pretty simple subject to track a child's improvements. I would be able to keep record of their test and quiz scores, while at the same time noting the overall completeness and correctness of their homework assignments.
Q2) Do I think electronical filing systems would benefit math students?
Yes I do. It is terrible for a student to be placed in a class in which he or she is either underqualified or overqualified for. Keeping record of all yoru students is part of making the necessary steps in order to ensure their success.

Barrett, H. (1998). Strategic Questions: What to consider when planning for electronic portfolios. Learning and Leading with Technology Journal 26 (2), 6-13.