Why has the portfolio persisted as a powerful tool in today’s classroom?

Teachers and students have been blogging/using digital portfolios for over a decade now.  So why does it continue to feature at conferences, as a topic of online discussion, and in education-themed podcasts?

Perhaps because it is the perfect blend of personal reflection and communal inquiry.

What helps a newbie or a novice develop the craft of community building via portfolios?

1. Spend a little while thinking about your why

(Simon Sinek on why the why is the heart of the start)

Philip Bruce, a fellow teacher-blogger suggests two potential ‘why’s’ in a recent post:

Personal perspective: To reflect by organising and crystallising your thinking on your chosen topic(s), over time, accountable to a public audience.

Community perspective: To build connections and contribute to conversations with a wider, public audience, over time.

Accountability to a wide audience may not be as important to you or your students as their own self-engagement with learning is.  It is worth stating that sometimes an audience can be a group of peers, or just a future-self rendered capable of returning to thoughts/ideas/questions by the portfolio itself.

2. Be intentional about commenting/feedback practices

If you are using your portfolio/blog to generate further lines of inquiry or to promote a sense of community, give think time and guidance to commenting procedures.  I recommend you change up these practices from time to time.  Here are a few options I’ve had success with:

Thinking Moves:

Thinking Moves for Blog commenting – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires;

Focus on being constructive

Constructive Commenting – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires;

Evaluate the use of a ‘checklist’

3. Pivot Points

Blogs are being used as agents of change.  I’ve curated 44 ways to connect your classroom with global initiatives in a post here.

Of course, you are always able to go ahead and create your own event.

If you or your students need a few good role models, start here:

4. Set the Tardis for 2025

So what do you need to work on to be marketable in 2025? Here are six skill areas that the experts recommend, as well some of the strongest job-growth categories, as defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and other sources—that relate to them.

Read the complete text from Fast Company here.

If you love to devour readings about ‘future-ready’ skills, this Forbes piece is by online standards already a bit dusty (from 2014), but I find it highly relevant today.

In her Harvard Business Review post, Dorie Clark suggests that “… for organizations and individuals that want to be known for their ideas, the clearest — yet most underrated — path is through blogging.”

Providing students with an opportunity to gain confidence with a ‘public voice,’ is likely to help them out down the road.

5. The power of choice is real

Menus, menus, menus.  Whether or not you develop them with colleagues, students, or all by yourself, be sure to provide options. Here is a sample menu for a grade 9 Global Perspectives unit on Popular Culture:

For a more general set of prompts, here is my menu of 50 ways to start a post.

Portfolio curation is a human skill at its heart.

Don’t believe me? Check out this post AND read through the comments.

If we want portfolios to fuel our community with conversation and creativity, we need to be patient, give ourselves time to process, and to ask for help.

Thanks Flickr for providing Creative Commons images like the ones featured in this post