Digital Portfolios: Capturing and Demonstrating Skills and Levels of Performance.

Reported benefits of the electronic portfolio development process are similar to those that have been recorded for developing the hard-copy portfolio, but the enhanced medium offers additional ways to display unique talents and abilities, Ms. Wiedmer points out. The use of electronic portfolios is gaining popularity as educators and businesspeople alike are discovering their benefits as a means of validating individual performance. Aided by technology, individuals can develop portfolios by electronic means and create, store, and manage both products and processes for inclusion in working, showcase, documentation, and process portfolios. The new technologies make it possible to show, in ways that were not available before, what students and professionals working in the field know and can do. For the past few years, a team from the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and the Coalition of Essential Schools, with the support of IBM, has been studying the development of digital student portfolios. Digital portfolio software can be used to create a multimedia collection of student work and to connect that work to performance standards.(1) Digital portfolios are more than just electronic file cabinets. The technological enhancements add markedly to the value of a portfolio. What Is a Digital Portfolio? By definition, a digital or electronic portfolio is a purposeful collection of work, captured by electronic means, that serves as an exhibit of individual efforts, progress, and achievements in one or more areas. The concept for the digital portfolio grew out of the Exhibitions Project, an effort of the Coalition of Essential Schools that examined how schools began to use authentic assessments in the early 1990s. Complete with sound and text, digital portfolios display an individual's growth over time through diagrams and drawings or other snapshots of processes and products. They also include digital video/audio testimonies or explanations by the portfolio developer or other persons. Moreover, electronic portfolios can make use of such effects as animation, voice-over explanations of areas of performance, and scanned images that show completed projects or products. The CD-ROM format provides an ideal medium for storage and display of electronic portfolios. A CD-ROM can store up to 650 megabytes and costs about $2 when purchased in lots of 100. It weighs practically nothing, is virtually indestructible, and is small enough to put in an overnight delivery envelope. Because the data cannot be erased, a CD-ROM is excellent for storing critical data in an incorruptible format. And any CD-ROM drive can read any CD-ROM because the data-encoding process is standardized. CD-ROMs offer portfolio compilers the chance to include digital versions of the usual artifacts, such as assessments, awards, certificates, evaluations, pictures, projects, and testimonials. Indeed, many of the items that appear in a standard portfolio can be enhanced by the skillful use of video and audio clips. Benefits of Digital Portfolios One of the primary benefits of developing any portfolio is the depth of an individual's involvement in the selection and design processes. The development of a digital portfolio requires active participation from the very beginning of the process. Individuals must determine the exact media to use to capture special events and must determine the most appropriate software for managing files for present and future use. Since the main menu of digital portfolios provides viewers opportunities to examine a portfolio by clicking on buttons, the individual creator must decide the most effective ways to allow the viewer to see, hear, and review the artifacts that illustrate the creator's performance. Decisions about what to include as hard copy and what to include in video or audio format require serious reflection on the part of the creator of the portfolio. Reported benefits of the electronic portfolio development process are similar to those that have been recorded for developing the hard-copy portfolio, but the enhanced medium offers additional ways to display unique talents and abilities. …