ePortfolios are a simple, yet, effective method for students to showcase their work throughout the course of an educational term.  Ranging from short-term to long-term project use, ePortfolios offer a spectrum of options for educator use in adapting assignments.  ePortfolios provide template-based online displays for student work, incorporating a variety of media and a “circulation of texts” (Yancey 1).  These digital portfolios create a “channel of communication” between the student and a variety of audiences: namely, the teacher, other students, and even audiences outside school, such as potential employers and universities (Yancey 1).  Furthermore, they allow for students to engage in a much more process-focused approach to learning and reflection.

By blending personal and education-based projects through an ePortfolio, students are able to make connections across the curriculum and beyond it.  ePortfolios are mainly dynamic in nature, drawing upon a process-based mentality that exercises a more flexible and engaging “explore and outpour” mentality” (Yancey 9).  Students are more willing and motivated to explore the medium in its social and personal contexts.  There is more freedom for them to discover and connect their learning to their personal experiences and goals.  “When teachers frame assignments in this new social context, students become more inclined to express themselves in their own voices rather than in the register of ‘clarity’ they believe is required of them in the academy” (Klein 60).  Students are able to then blend their school and learning goals with their personal goals when they are encouraged to keep an ePortfolio for the duration of their course.  For secondary education classrooms, ePortfolios allow students to reflect on a year-long summation of work, offering connections to their learning both inside and outside of school.  They work toward goals while being given a self-reflective tool to draw upon throughout the year and in further discourses.  The best part about ePortfolios is their ability to be “reiterative” and “life-wide,” thus aiding students in recognizing development as an ongoing process relevant to their present and future (Yancey 10).

For more reading on ePortfolios, check out:

Klein, Lauren F. “The Social ePortfolio: Integrating Social Media and Models of Learning in Academic ePortfolios.” (2013). ePortfolio Performance Support Systems: Constructing, Presenting, and Assessing Portfolios. Katherine V. Wills & Rice, Rich, Eds. Perspectives on Writing. Fort Collins, Colorado: The WAC Clearinghouse and Parlor Press, 2013.

Yancey, Kathleen Blake. “Portfolios, Circulation, Ecology, and the Development of Literacy.” Technological Ecologies and Sustainabilities. Chapter 5. Eds. DeVoss, Danielle Nicole, Heidi A. McKee, and Richard (Dickie) Selfe. Utah State University Press, 2009.

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