Home PublicationsL&LIssuesVolume 27 (1999-2000) April (No. 7)

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An electronic portfolio is not a haphazard collection of artifacts but rather a reflective tool that demonstrates growth over time.

In the October 1998 issue of L&L, I outlined the strategic questions to ask when developing electronic portfolios. This article describes the electronic portfolio development process further and covers seven different software and hardware tools for creating portfolios.

Some very good commercial electronic portfolio programs are on the market, although they often reflect the developer’s style or are constrained by the limits of the software structure. Many educators who want to develop electronic portfolios tend to design their own, using off-the-shelf software or generic strategies. Here, I discuss the structure of each type of program, the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy, the relative ease of learning the software, the level of technology required, and related issues. The seven generic types of software are:

1. relational databases,
2. hypermedia “card” software,
3. multimedia authoring software,
4. World Wide Web (HTML) pages,
5. Adobe Acrobat (PDF files),
6. multimedia slideshows, and
7. video (digital and analog).

Why Portfolios?

Portfolio assessment has become more commonplace in schools because it allows teachers to assess student development over periods of time, sometimes across several years.

People develop portfolios across their lifespans. Educators in the Pacific Northwest (Northwest Evaluation Association, as cited in Paulson, Paulson, & Meyer, 1991), developed the following definition of portfolio.

A portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the student’s efforts, progress, and achievements in one or more areas. The collection must include student participation in selecting contents, the criteria for selection; the criteria for judging merit, and evidence of student self-reflection. (p. 60)

Electronic Portfolios
My definition of electronic portfolio includes the use of electronic technologies that allow the portfolio developer to collect and organize artifacts in many formats (audio, video, graphics, and text). A standards-based electronic portfolio uses hypertext links to organize the material to connect artifacts to appropriate goals or standards. Often, the terms electronic portfolio and digital portfolio are used interchangeably. However, I make a distinction: an electronic portfolio contains artifacts that may be in analog (e.g., videotape) or computer-readable form. In a digital portfolio, all artifacts have been transformed into computer-readable form. An electronic portfolio is not a haphazard collection of artifacts (i.e., a digital scrapbook or multimedia presentation) but rather a reflective tool that demonstrates growth over time.

Electronic Portfolio Development

Electronic portfolio development brings together two different processes: multimedia project development and portfolio development. When developing an electronic portfolio, equal attention should be paid to these complementary processes, as both are essential for effective electronic portfolio development. (See the online supplement for more complete discussions of these processes.)

Danielson and Abrutyn (1997) lay out a process for developing a portfolio.

1. Collection: The portfolio’s purpose, audience, and future use of the artifacts will determine what artifacts to collect.
2. Selection: Selection criteria for materials to include should reflect the learning objectives established for the portfolio. These should follow from national, state, or local standards and their associated evaluation rubrics or performance indicators.
3. Reflection: Include reflections on every piece in your portfolio and an overall reflection.
4. Projection (or I prefer, Direction): Review your reflections on learning, look ahead, and set goals for the future.

I add a Connection stage, in which you create hypertext links and publish your portfolio to enable feedback from others, which can occur before or after the projection/direction stage.

Multimedia project development usually includes the following steps (Ivers & Barron, 1998):

1. Assess/Decide
2. Plan/Design
3. Develop
4. Implement
5. Evaluate

Assess/Decide
The focus is on needs assessment of the audience, the presentation goals, and the appropriate tools for the final portfolio presentation.

Design/Plan
In the second step, focus on organizing or designing the presentation. Determine audience-appropriate content, software, storage medium, and presentation sequence. Construct flow charts and write storyboards.

Develop
Gather materials to include in the presentation and organize them into a sequence (or use hyperlinks) for the best presentation of the material, using an appropriate multimedia authoring program.

Implement
The developer presents the portfolio to the intended audience.

Evaluate
In this final stage of multi-media development, the focus is on evaluating the presentation’s effectiveness in light of its purpose and the assessment context.

Five Stages

I have created a process for developing an electronic portfolio based on the general portfolio and multimedia development processes (Table 1).

Differentiating the Levels of Electronic Portfolio Implementation. In addition to the stages of portfolio development, there appear to be at least five levels of electronic portfolio development. Just as there are developmental levels in student learning, there are levels to digital portfolio development. Table 2 presents different levels for electronic portfolio development, which are closely aligned with the technology skills of the portfolio developer.

Based on these levels and stages, I offer a few items to consider as you make this software selection.

Stage 1: Defining the Portfolio Context and Goals (Keywords: Purpose, Audience, Decide, Assess)
What is the assessment context, including the purpose of the portfolio? Is it based on learner outcome goals (which should follow from national, state, or local standards and their associated evaluation rubrics or observable behaviors)? Setting the assessment context frames the rest of the portfolio development process.

What resources are available for electronic portfolio development? What hardware and software do you have and how often do students have access to it? What are the technology skills of the students and teachers? Some possible options are outlined in Table 3 and Table 4.

Who is the audience for the portfolio—student, parent, professor, or employer? The primary audience for the portfolio affects the decisions made about the format and storage of the presentation portfolio. Choose a format the audience will most likely have access to (e.g., a home computer, VCR, or the Web).

You will know you are ready for the next stage when you have:

1. identified the purpose and primary audience for your portfolio,
2. identified the standards or goals you will use to organize your portfolio, and
3. selected your development software and completed the first stage using that software.

Stage 2: The Working Portfolio (Keywords: Collect, Interject, Design, Plan)
What is the content of portfolio items (determined by the assessment context) and the type of evidence to be collected? This is where the standards become a very important part of the planning process. Knowing which standards or goals you are trying to demonstrate should help determine the types of portfolio artifacts to collect. For example, if the portfolio goal is to demonstrate the standard of clear communication, then examples should reflect student’s writing (scanned or imported from a word processing document) and speaking abilities (sound or video clips).

Which software tools are most appropriate for the portfolio context and the resources available? This question is the theme of the rest of this article. The software used to create the electronic portfolio will control, restrict, or enhance the portfolio development process. The electronic portfolio software should match the vision and style of the portfolio developer.

Which storage and presentation medium is most appropriate for the situation (computer hard disk, videotape, LAN, the Web, CD-ROM)? The type of audience for the portfolio will determine this answer. There are also multiple options, depending on the software chosen.

What multimedia materials will you gather to represent a learner’s achievement? Once you have answered the questions about portfolio context and content and addressed the limitations on the available equipment and users’ skills (both teachers’ and students’), you will be able to determine the type of materials you will digitize. This can include written work, images of 3-D projects, speech recordings, and video clips of performances. You will want to collect artifacts from different time periods to demonstrate growth and learning achieved over time.

You will know you are ready for the next stage when you have:

1. collected digital portfolio artifacts that represent your efforts and achievement throughout the course of your learning experiences, and
2. used the graphics and layout capabilities of your chosen software to interject your vision and style into the portfolio artifacts.

Stage 3: The Reflective Portfolio (Keywords: Select, Reflect, Direct, Develop)

How will you select the specific artifacts from the abundance of the working portfolio to demonstrate achieving the portfolio’s goals? What are your criteria for selecting artifacts and for judging merit? Having a clear set of rubrics at this stage will help guide portfolio development and evaluation.

How will you record self-reflection on work and achievement of goals? The quality of the learning that results from the portfolio development process may be in direct proportion to the quality of the students’ self-reflection on their work. One challenge in this process is to keep these reflections confidential. The personal, private reflections of the learner need to be guarded and not published in a public medium.

How will you record teacher feedback on student work and achievement of goals, when appropriate? Even more critical is the confidential nature of the assessment process. Teachers’ feedback should also be kept confidential so that only the student, parents, and other appropriate audiences have access.

Security, in the form of password protection to control access, is an important factor when choosing electronic portfolio development software.

How will you record goals for future learning based on the personal reflections and feedback? The primary benefit of a portfolio is to see growth over time, which should inspire goal setting for future learning. It is this process of setting learning goals that turns the portfolio into a powerful tool for long-term growth and development.

You will know you are ready for the next stage when you have:

1. selected the artifacts for your formal or presentation portfolio, and
2. written reflective statements and identified learning goals.

Stage 4: The Connected Portfolio (Keywords: Inspect, Perfect, Connect, Implement, Evaluate)

How will you organize the digital artifacts? Have you selected software that allows you to create hyperlinks between goals, student work samples, rubrics, and assessment? The choice of software can either restrict or enhance the development process and the quality of the final product. Different software packages each have unique characteristics that can limit or expand the electronic portfolio options.

How will you evaluate the portfolio’s effectiveness in light of its purpose and the assessment context? In an environment of continuous improvement, a portfolio should be viewed as an ongoing learning tool, and its effectiveness should be reviewed on a regular basis to be sure it is meeting the goals set.

Depending on portfolio context, how will you use portfolio evidence to make instruction/learning decisions? Whether the portfolio is developed with a young child or a practicing professional, the artifacts collected along with the self-reflection should help guide learning decisions. This process brings together instruction and assessment in the most effective way.

Will you develop a collection of exemplary portfolio artifacts for comparison purposes? Many portfolio development guidebooks recommend collecting model portfolio artifacts that demonstrate achievement of specific standards. This provides the audience with a frame of reference to judge a specific student’s work. It also provides concrete examples of good work for students to emulate.

You will know you are ready for the next stage when:

1. your documents are converted into a format that allows hyperlinks and you can navigate using them,
2. you have inserted the appropriate multimedia artifacts into the document, and
3. you are ready to share your portfolio with others.

Stage 5: The Presentation Portfolio

How will you record the portfolio to an appropriate presentation and storage medium? These will be different for a working portfolio and a presentation portfolio. I find that the best medium for a working portfolio is videotape, computer hard disk, Zip disk, or network server. The best medium for a formal portfolio is CD-Recordable disc, Web server, or videotape.

How will you or your students present the finished portfolio to an appropriate audience? This will be a very individual strategy, depending on the context. An emerging strategy is student-led conferences, which enable learners to share their portfolios with a targeted audience, whether parents, peers, or potential employers. This is also an opportunity for professionals to share their teaching portfolios with colleagues for meaningful feedback and collaboration in self-assessment.

Software Selection

One of the key criteria for software selection should be its capacity to allow teachers and students to create hypertext links between goals, outcomes, and various student artifacts (products and projects) displayed in multimedia format. Another is Web accessibility. With seven options to choose from, you should be able to find software to fit your audience, goals, technology skills, and available equipment. (See Table 5 for a comparison of software. Find detailed descriptions, software resources, comparison information, and guidelines throughout the process in the online supplement.)

Relational Databases (e.g., FileMaker Pro, Microsoft Access)
In recent years, new database management tools have become available that allow teachers to easily create whole-class records of student achievement. A relational database is actually a series of structured data files linked together by common fields. One data file could include the students’ names, addresses, and various individual elements; another could include a list of the standards that each student should be achieving; still another could include portfolio artifacts that demonstrate each student’s achievement of those standards. The purpose of using a relational database is to link the students with their individual portfolio artifacts and the standards these artifacts should clearly demonstrate.

Advantages include flexibility, network and Web capabilities, cross-platform capabilities, tracking and reporting, multimedia, and security. Disadvantages include the size of relational database files (they can become very large and unwieldy); they may not be accessible to users who do have the software; and they require a high level of skill to use effectively.

Databases are really teacher-centered portfolio tools. They allow teachers to keep track of student achievement at every level. They are less appropriate for students to use to maintain their own portfolios. You may convert appropriate pages from the database to PDF files for students to include in their own portfolios.

Hypermedia “Card” Programs (e.g., HyperStudio, Digital Chisel, Toolbook, and SuperLink)
A hypermedia program allows the integration of various media types in a single file, with construction tools for graphics, sound, and movies. The basic structure of a hypermedia file is described as electronic cards that are really individual screens linked together by buttons the user creates.

Hypermedia programs are widely available in classrooms, usually all-inclusive, cross-platform, multimedia capable, and secure. Disadvantages include the lack of integrated Web accessibility, size and resolution constraints, and increased effort linking artifacts to standards.

Hypermedia programs are most appropriate for elementary or middle school portfolios. Templates and strategies are widely available to help you begin using your chosen hypermedia tool as a portfolio development and assessment tool.

Multimedia Authoring Software (e.g., Macromedia Director or Authorware)
In recent years, multimedia authoring software has emerged from such companies as Macromedia. Authorware is an icon-based authoring environment, in which a user builds a flow chart to create a presentation. Director is a time-based authoring environment, in which the user creates an interactive presentation with a cast and various multimedia elements. Both programs allow the user to create stand-alone applications that can run on Windows and Macintosh platforms.

These programs are self-running, without separate player software. They were designed to incorporate multimedia elements. They are ideal for CD-ROM publishing, but they have a steep learning curve, require extra effort to link artifacts to standards, and may not offer the necessary security.

Multimedia authoring programs would be most appropriate for high school, college, or professional portfolio creation.

Web Pages (e.g., Adobe PageMill, Claris Home Page, Microsoft FrontPage, Netscape Composer)
An emerging trend in the development of electronic portfolios is to publish them in HTML format. With wide accessibility to the Web, many schools are encouraging students to publish their portfolios this way. Students convert word processing documents into Web pages with tools built into those programs and create hyperlinks between goals and the artifacts that demonstrate achievement.

The advantages of creating Web-based portfolios center on its multimedia, cross-platform, and Web capabilities. Any potential viewer simply needs Internet access and a Web browser. However, the learning curve is steep. Web pages require much more file-management skill than other types of portfolio development tools, and the security can be a problem.

Students in upper-elementary grades and beyond can create Web pages, but this type of portfolio is especially appropriate for those who wish to showcase their portfolio for a potential employer.

PDF Documents (Adobe Acrobat)
One of the more interesting development environments for electronic portfolios is Adobe Acrobat’s Portable Document Format (PDF). PDF files are based on the Postscript page layout language originally developed for printing to a laser printer. PDF files are created using the tools provided by Adobe, either the PDF Writer or Distiller program. Adobe Acrobat files are called Portable Document Format because the same file can be read by a variety of computer platforms and require only the free Acrobat Reader software. The process of creating an Acrobat file can be as easy as printing to a printer; in fact, the PDF Writer is a printer driver that is selected when the user wants to convert a document from any application into a PDF file. Another software package, PrintToPDF, is a less powerful shareware Macintosh printer driver that creates simple PDFs for a much lower price ($20).

Once a PDF file is created, the user can navigate page by page, by using bookmarks they create, or with hypertext links or buttons they can create with the Acrobat Exchange program.

PDF files are easy to access and read, can be created from multiple applications, include multimedia elements, are easily published to CD-ROM, have few size and resolution constraints, and are secure. Disadvantages include the large file size, the need for separate creation software, and the effort required to link artifacts to standards.

Students at all levels can create PDF files, but it is a more appropriate tool for high school and older students.

Multimedia Slideshows (e.g., AppleWorks and PowerPoint)
These programs allow the user to create electronic slideshows most often shown in a linear sequence. Most of these tools allow the integration of sound and video, and Microsoft PowerPoint allows some buttons and links. Other software can also be used to create electronic portfolio documents, such as a word processor or spreadsheet.

Advantages of multimedia slide-shows include the easy access to the software and its multimedia capabilities. But, it is challenging to link artifacts to standards, files can be very large, Web publishing requires conversion to HTML, and password protection may not be available.

Multimedia slideshows are most appropriate for middle school and older students.

Video (digital and analog)
Digital video can be a powerful addition to many of the other portfolio development tools outlined here. Nonlinear digital video editing could be used to organize videotaped portfolio artifacts.

Analog video can be used to gather evidence of student learning in a low-cost storage medium, and videotape is a popular final publishing medium for sharing student presentation portfolios with family and friends.

Advantages of analog video include its widespread use, cheap storage medium, acceptable quality, and relatively low-cost hardware. Analog video, however, allows only linear access, has low interactivity, offers no Web accessibility, takes a lot of storage space, and is hard to edit. Digital video adds Web accessibility, high interactivity, random access, and easy editing, but also can be low quality, have huge file size and bandwidth requirements, and require expensive equipment to digitize and edit.

Video is appropriate for a wide range of students and audiences. It is the best way to capture classroom interaction, including nonverbal cues, and it is often the method by which final portfolios are shared.

Conclusion

With all of these choices, which strategy should you choose? Are different tools more appropriate at different stages of the electronic portfolio development process? These questions can be answered only after addressing some of the questions posed at the beginning of the article, especially the purpose and audience for the portfolio, the resources available (equipment and technology skills required), and where the advantages of the strategy outweigh the disadvantages for your situation.

I would be interested in hearing from educators who have used any of these (or other) tools and who would be willing to share their successes or frustrations in a case study. (See the online supplement for more on how to participate.)

References

Barrett, H. (1998). Strategic questions: What to consider when planning for electronic portfolios. Learning & Leading with Technology 26(2), 6–13.

Barrett, H. (1999). Using technology to support alternative assessment and electronic portfolios [Online document]. Anchorage: University of Alaska Anchorage.

Danielson, C., & Abrutyn, L. (1997) An introduction to using portfolios in the classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Ivers, K., & Barron, A. E. (1998) Multimedia projects in education. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, Inc.

Paulson, F. L., Paulson, P. R., & Meyer, C. A. (1991). What makes a portfolio a portfolio? Educational Leadership, 58(5), 60–63.

Copyright © 2000, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). All rights reserved.