Assessments and ePortfolios

We can all remember sitting in school waiting for the bell to ring to signal the end of class. Why were these classes boring? Because we never knew how we were doing in the class. Jonassen contends that to better our experience not only as students, but future teachers, we should give assessments. These show how meaningful the material learned was to the students, and how much they retained.

Jonassen also talks about ePortfolios. His opinion of these compilations of pictures, personal works, personal credits, and perhaps multimedia like videos, is that these are not only the wave of the future; the stuff people will use for years and years to come, but that they are helpful resources now. Everyone has internet access (unless they are in a situation like mine this week, wherein I didn't have internet), and can more easily access your portfolio as opposed to a hard paper copy, which can only be passed around by hand or mail.

ePortfolios may be one of the most helpful tools to a student. It can ease tension stemming from the student's own self consciousness, and supress resulted fears.

Jonassen, D. (2008). Meaningful learning with technology (pp. 218, 220). Upper Saddle, NJ: Pearson.