Thursday, February 28, 2008

Task 2: Digitial Portfolio

- What are the three important features of a digital portfolio?

There are many important features of a digital porfolio. First of all, it is a goal-driven, organized collection of artefacts and reflections that are used to demonstrate a change of skills and knowledge over time. This is important because it shows the evidence of a students knowledge, and it also makes it easier for teachers to grade students work this way.

Another important feature of a digital portfolio is that it gives you a collection and series of a students work that they have completed over time. It is basically like a year book, telling you the students accomplishments throughout the task that was given. The porfolios also give you a wide range of their work. When you create your digital portfolio, the information that is given on it basically demonstrates the students learning skills, and what their understanding was like over time. Digital portfolios are not like the grades that you get in school and achieve, it is all about what you have learned and put onto your portfolio, and by the end of the process showing the teacher what you have achieved throughout this process.

Lastly, the portfolios allow teachers and your other classmates to see what you have learned and how you have improved your learning skills throughout the course. These digital portfolios are different from getting back test scores, because of the fact that it shows the teacher how you improve your learning skills almost everyday. Portfolios that have a lot of information on them shows the growth of a students knowledge and overall what knowledge they have gained by the end of it.

- List one advantage and one disadvantage of a digital portfolio.

There are many advantages when using a digital portfolio. One of these advantages are technology. This is because nowadays, technology is used the most to communicate. On digital protfolios, students can always include slideshows, and other multimedia videos through their portfolio. By using digital portfolios, this will also increase their knowledge on computers and technology which is very important these days because of the fact that most of the communication that is done with other people is used with technology. This will even improve your mistakes when using digital portfolios in the future because of everything that you learn in your first experience. This is just one of the advantages of using digital portfolios, there are many more!

There are also many disadvantages when it comes to using digital portoflios. One disadvntage of using a digital portfolio is plagiarism. This is because of the fact that anything you put onto the internet these days, could easily be copied and pasted onto another persons account. Since you put your information up in digital format, it is always eas to view this information on the internet, and can always get copied by another person using a digital portfolio. This is a big disadvantage because plagiarism is very common these days since a lot of information is so open on the internet. Students should always be careful with their digital portoflios and work, if they dont want it getting plagiarized by other people using the same websites and same type of digital portfolios. To be on the safe side when using digital portfolios, I think it is always a good idea to put yours on private, so that no one can view your portfolio, and this will prevent it from getting plagiarized.

- find a student digital portfolio that you like, hyperlink the URL and describe the strengths and weaknesses of this portfolio

I liked a digital portfolio by a student called Melissa Woodward. The hyperlink to her digital portfolio is is http://students.oswego.org/HOF/mwoodwar/. The digital portfolio overall, is very good and it is a great example for others to view when making their own digital porfolio. The digtial portfolio has many strengths, however there are many weaknesses as well. One of the strengths that she has is that the layout of the portfolio is very well set. This is because it is quite original and it is very eye catchy as well. The navigation buttons look like blobs of paint squirted out of a bottle which look really cool. One her homepage, her full name shows up. The font she has used is very uniqe and creative. This is because it is very different from the others because it blinks and flashes, rather than boring old text that is not attractive at all. When you enter the digital portfolio, you will find it really cool because her name first of all catches your attention, so that means that the rest of her digital portfolio would be amazing, since the homepage is just the beginning. The color of her font is nice as well. This is because it stands out and it isnt hidden. She has a good sense of choosing the right color, because it matches with the background which is black, and really stands out as well. As you click on the different navigation buttons, they take you to a diffrent page and give you a new set of information. When I will be making my digital portfolio, I now know that I should be original, because it looks very attractive for the viewers. With all these strengths, there are also many weaknesses that Melissa has on her digital portfolio. One of these weaknesses is that she doesnt display that much information about her project on her digital portfolio. Most of the pages are quite blank, and dont have that much information displayed on them. She should improve this because the point of a digital portfolio is to show others how you imporved over time when doing the project. By viewing this digital portfolio, I now have some tips that I will be sure to use for the future when creating my own portfolio.

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