Student E-Portfolio Initiative

Proposal by Elizabeth C. Garcia

Background: Background
In 2014, the 1:1 initiative began at V. W. Miller Intermediate. Pasadena Independent School District outlines the
purpose of the initiative as the following:

Pasadena ISD is preparing students for the Digital Age by integrating technology into their
classrooms. Technology serves as a tool to provide more engaged, relevant, meaningful and
personalized learning experiences. Through the 1:1 initiative, students will have access to a
computer and academic software throughout the school day.

Need for Improvement: Need for Improvement

Three years have passed and we must now ask ourselves, have we truly been fulfilling the purpose of the 1:1
initiative? We have encountered and overcome many obstacles since its implementation in 2014. One of the first
issues we saw was a continuous cycle of students not bringing their devices and teachers not using the devices. Our
campus addressed this issue with the students by allowing them to pay a smaller insurance fee to keep their devices
at school. Our campus addressed this issue with teachers by having them commit to using the devices at least once a
week. A combination of both efforts led to a significant increase in the number of students bringing their devices to
school daily. Technology is now being used, but is it being used in a meaningful way? Many teachers are revolving
their lessons around the technology in order to comply with their commitment rather than using technology as a
tool to support the students learning. How do we provide more engaged, relevant, meaningful and personalized
learning experiences for our students? This is where the Student E-Portfolio Initiative comes in.

E-Portfolios: What is an E-Portfolio?

Cooper and Love define a portfolio as an organized collection of documents or artifacts that can be used to
demonstrate knowledge, skills, values and achievements, which contains a commentary or exegesis to explain the
relevance, credibility and coherence of each artifact or document (2007). An e-portfolio is simply any electronic
form of a portfolio.

Goal: Overall Goal

Create more meaningful learning experiences at Miller Intermediate by integrating the use of student e-portfolios in
order to have students take ownership of their learning while simultaneously giving teachers the opportunity to
continuously asses the students learning in an authentic manner.

Purpose: Purpose
Its not just words, its not just pictures; its anything the students need it to be. By now we know that one size does
not fit all when it comes to learning, so lets give our students the opportunity to showcase what they have learned
in their own way, lets give them a choice. Too often we focus on the product (test results), rather than the process
(learning experiences). Carol Dweck suggests that if we focus our attention on the learning process, we are more
likely to instill a growth mindset in our students which ultimately leads to deeper learning (2008). E-portfolios will
not only advance the purpose 1:1 initiative as outlined by PISD, it will give teachers and students alike the
opportunity to really embrace the process of learning.

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 Student E-Portfolio Initiative
Proposal by Elizabeth C. Garcia
Vision: Vision
A department is about to finish a unit. Up to this point, the students have done labs, watched videos, solved word
problems, labeled diagrams, read articles, created visuals, etc. Usually there is some kind of review and a summative
assessment to measure how much the students learned. The students then take the test, get a grade, see the right
answers, and simply move on? The content thus far has been very rich, so why stop there? Rather than have the
students push all of those activities aside and just focus on the grade they obtained, lets do something more
meaningful and have them reflect on their learning experiences. It is now up to the student to decide how they are
going to show what they have learned in a cohesive post. Will they recall everything at the top of their head and
complete this task in a few minutes? More than likely not. They are likely to go back and look at their notes, find the
video they watched, look at the pictures from the labs, reference the diagrams they labeled, and ask their peers for
clarification. Focusing on the process will take time, but it will be time well spent. As students go back and sift
through the work they did throughout the unit they get to decide what was meaningful to them and expand on that.

Benefits: Benefits
Students will always have access to their e-portfolio, meaning that they can access content from one class to
another. The students are likely to feel more ownership over their work, therefore it will seem more relevant and
therefore lead to a more meaningful learning experience. Additionally, teachers could have students review each
others e-portfolios and have students collaborate in that manner. E-portfolios are student centered and allows for
students to express their creativity. Other benefits include but are not limited to the development of students:

writing skills
organization skills
higher-order thinking skills (metacognition)
21st century digital age skills

Call for Action: Call to Action

In order for this initiative to be successful, teachers and students will need support. To gain a better understanding
of what type of support will be needed it will be necessary to pilot the use of student e-portfolios. The
implementation of this pilot will also allow teachers to see the direct benefits this initiative can have on our students
and gain teacher buy-in. I propose starting with the students in my AVID elective classes due to the goals and
objectives of this course aligning so well with those of developing an e-portfolio. We already have the devices
available at our campus. At this point we need support from the administration team and the technology specialist
at our campus in order to assess the pilot and effectively plan how to carry out this plan school wide.

References: References
1:1 Information. (n.d.). Retrieved July 20, 2017, from
https://www1.pasadenaisd.org/cms/one.aspx?portalId=80772&pageId=3615468

Cooper, T., & Love, T. (2007). Electronic portfolios in e-learning. In N. Buzzetto-More (Ed.), Advanced principles of
effective e-learning. Santa Rosa, CA: Informing Science Press.

Dweck, C. S. (2008). Mindset: The new psychology of success:. New York: Ballantine Books.
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