The Power of Student ePortfolios

If you are considering having your students create their own ePortfolio websites, then I have several tips that I would like to share with you based on my experience in the classroom. If you really have no idea where to start, then I highly recommend that you checkout this incredibly detailed lesson that I put together here. TpT even recommended this resource in their blog post.

If you want to watch a short video that I put together about ePortfolios, check out the video below.  

If your district is using Google Apps for Education, then I definitely recommend using Google Sites.

• Embedding projects from Google Drive has never been easier. My 6th grade students love how seamless this process is! ​

Have your students create sketches of their website ideas before they create their ePortfolio.

• I instruct my students to use Google Drawings or Google Slides for their sketches.
• I require them to create at least 3 sketches.
• See some examples from my students here.

Show your students previous student examples so that they have a general idea of what they will be creating.

• See an example from one of my male students here.
  • I have received consent from the parents to share this website. Please note that individual items within the website (the Google Drive files) will not be viewable to the public for privacy reasons. ​

• See an example from one of my female students here.
  • I have received consent from the parents to share this website. Please note that individual items within the website (the Google Drive files) will not be viewable to the public for privacy reasons.
• See an example that I created that is more of a template to share with my students here.

Require your students to work their way through a Google Sites tutorial before turning them loose to create their website. From my experience, hands fly up like crazy in this unit. “How do I create a new page?” …. “How do I get this picture into the background?” … “How do you add a favicon?”

• If you need a ready made tutorial, I have one that I use with my students available here. ​

Create authentic self and peer assessments. Give the students a rubric that will make sense to them.

• This holds the students accountable for their own learning.
• I also believe that this encourages the students to strive for a better end result when they know that their classmates will see their website.
• Get the rubrics I created for my class here. 

Share the final websites with the parents.

• My students’ parents rave at the end of every semester of just “how awesome” their child’s website is. They are blown away that 11 and 12 year olds can design their very own websites (and some really great ones, at that)!

If you have any questions or comments about ePortfolios, please drop a comment below or email me! [email protected]

Thanks and happy designing!
~Hayley Wood

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