RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PORTFOLIOS AND BLOGS
Taking into account what a portfolio is, and according to the guidelines proposed by Geneese & Upshur to have one; it can be said that to follow a blog like we are doing in assessment class, is a similar exercise to have a portfolio interactively.
For example, our blog follows some steps mentioned in the portfolio guidelines:
- Students are told exactly what to do, and they know from the beginning how the work will be assessed.
- This exercise encourages students to review and share the blog with others.
- It allows to always adopt a positive, collaborative and supportive attitude, especially when making comments. On
Besides that, there are more positive comments about our blog, made by our classmates:
- It helps us to work with critical thinking.
- It makes us to be more organized and disciplined, due to we have some deadlines.
- It helps us to improve our writing skills.
- It permits that students write their opinions and make comments freely.
- It also allows students and the teacher to talk about things (related to the topics studied) that couldn't be mentioned in class.
On the other hand, there are some others things to improve, like:
- To plan blog conferences periodically that allow students to review their work with their teacher.
- To discuss some posts from the blogs in class, so it can be had a deeper control of the process.
In conclusion, it is necessary to know the importance of following a blog and having a portfolio in our classes. Discussions and conferences can be done to look for strategies to improve this exercise, which in an early future will be part of our lives as teachers.
Hi Sandy, I agree with what you wrote about the importance of making this exercise of having a blog, which serves the purpose of a portfolio, as a way to improve certain aspects of our learning process, besides using blogs as an intensive part of the course, give us a lot of advantages whereas it allow students to become active participants of the assessment process, by being not only passive agents of evaluation, but having a crucial role, being active participants of the whole decision taking process. Also it is important to highlight that we as students definitely may feel more comfortable when expressing our ideas and impressions, which normally is quite difficult to achieve in a regular class.
ResponderEliminarTaking about portfolios in general, I think they are great when assessing, however as I pointed out in my previous post, there are certain limitations for students to carry this task out. For instance, students, even older students as we are, still need some kind of control to keep the portfolio/blog on track. Since this is a personal and independent activity, I have felt lost many times during the process. Also, a question that is still in my mind is how this particular task is going to be assessed? I think this is just a matter of Teacher's perception and it can carry a big amount of subjectivity.
ResponderEliminarAs soon as I read this article that you wrote, I realized that sometimes we as teachers did not use any strategy to assess students except tests. It could be because we did not know about the importance of those alternative assessments or maybe because there were no clear purpose for doing this. But now I can say that keeping portfolios and in this case an interactive portfolio as the one we have already created in assessment is an excellent way to share different opinions with our partners as well as improving our critical thinking. Another important thing is that through our blog we are working independently, we are taking as you say an active part in our own process.
ResponderEliminarI am a fan of portfolios and I alredy started to use them with my students, at the beginning they felt anxious about it but now they are really into it. I think that the best part of portfolios is that they develop sense of ownership and responsiblity because they know they have something that represents their work and they try to do it the best they can. Also, it makes them " competitive" but in the good side of the word, I mean they try to decorated and completed to win the best portfolio of the class award (Something I made up to motivate them to keep it organized).
ResponderEliminarThe only disadvantages I found for portafolios are that they are definitely not practical and they can be very time-consuming. However, under negotiated conditions and parameters they are good tool to assess students process.
already** sorry about the typing my pc is not the best ;(
ResponderEliminar