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Online Portfolios to Support Developing Writers
Wouldn't you love to have a magical, secure filing cabinet in your classroom that encourages creativity and engagement in writing -- a place that students could access from home, a window into the classroom for parents to access through the Internet, a learning community that allows supportive adults to help students, a theater that creates audience to help students develop as writers? Come learn about just such a "cabinet" and how to integrate eFolio online student portfolios to develop students as writers.
The purpose for developing the online student portfolios was to help students develop as quality writers by providing audience and regular feedback fro ma variety of people.
Underlying the project are some assumptions we are making about how students learn in general and learn how to write specifically. We belief the students need regular feedback to develop as a writer. This feedback about their progress allows students to assess the success of their writing. The stress here is giving meaningful feedback that allows the writer to experiment with language and test its effectiveness. It's kind of like the way my eight year old daughter is trying to figure out how to dress everyday. She puts on an outfit and then looks in the mirror. If she likes what she sees, she might want to wear it to school. The real test about how cool her outfit is lies with the comments she gets from her friends. A positive response encourages her to wear something similar the next day. She also might get some less approving comments. If those are done in a non-hurtful way, she might just try out something else the next day. It is entirely possible though, that her friends' responses will discourage her from trying out new fashion styles. She will most likely adjust her choice of outfits based on the feedback she receives.
The same is true for emerging writers. They need to have a variety of people who can provide them with opinions about their writing. They need to be encouraged to try new things, even if not everything is always a success.
When writing with an audience in mind, the writing becomes authentic. It has a real purpose, whether it's to inform, to entertain, to reflect, to engage, or, in general, to communicate.Another belief we have is how we should use technology in the classroom. Technology is a tool that students can and need to use to enhance their learning activities. It is amazing to see how easy it is for kids to learn technology skills. Just using technology to learn can provide the students with plenty of skills. The necessity to use a tool makes its handling easier to learn.
Becoming a writer and learning to use technology have a few things in common. Both improve best when there is an authentic purpose, both need to be used often and in a risk free environment to become more powerful. Seeing the parallels in these two ideas and combining them created the foundation for this project.
The project emerging from these ideas has three main goals: Develop students as writers by providing a multi-step writing process; Show long-term development of students as writer; provide the audience with tools for frequent and specific feedback to encourage and inform developing writers.
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