Digital Portfolios

As students went through the process of choosing work to submit, uploading it to richerpicture, identifying the standards the work met, and creating a tour of their best work, I became somewhat disenchanted and frustrated with the amount of time and effort that was being dedicated to the digital portfolio. However, after participating in a week-long assessment of these portfolios I feel invigorated. Although there are flaws in the system, I feel that digital portfolio assessment week presented an amazing opportunity for us to talk about the quality of student work, with colleagues and students, in a very structured, comfortable format with tangible standards from where to initiate our constructive criticism and positive comments. This forum forced staff and students into a candid conversation about what constitutes proficiency, what is quality, and what the student needs to do to improve their work in the future. I strongly believe that the time dedicated to digital portfolios was well spent as students now have more clarity around our academic expectations.