Last semester I took a class on eportfolios. I was asked to survey my students and find out how they saved their finest work and if they had ever had something published. To my surprise most of my 3rd grade class could not describe anything they had produced worth saving, and only a couple had things published. I am the parent of two children and have saved big boxes of their academic accomplishments. Surely my students had similar collections. Most of them informed me that they didn’t have a collection, don’t save anything, and couldn’t even describe something they had produced in the past beyond the current school year. Their memories were so short and it made me sad that they didn’t see any value in the projects they were producing.
I began to focus in on how I could help my students see the value in their work. The class on eportfolios taught me how to showcase student work on my website. I began to explore ways to publish their work on the internet so that they would take pride in their accomplishments. I took lots of pictures and made slideshows of activities, science posters, and video tapped presentations. Students made power point presentations and some included a recording of their narration. They were very excited to have their work published on my webpage. I also made a cd for each student.
I think we as teachers must help our students recognize their finest work so they will value their accomplishments and most importantly repeat the process in the future. This is an example of how technology can be used as a tool to improve how we teach and student achievement.
