TTT: Online Portfolios For Students

Today’s TTT topic, digital portfolios, has been sitting on my sticky note of ideas at school for quite some time now, but before I wrote this post I wanted to make sure I had some experience and feedback to share.

This year is the first year I’ve used Seasaw, a digital portfolio app, in my classroom.  In previous years I have had a blog, but found it was quite hard to update as much as I would like.  It also wasn’t really meant for sharing students work, it was more to share events and happenings in our classroom.

There were a few reasons why I choose Seasaw for my digital portfolio of choice.  First, the Kindergarten teacher at our school used it with the students last year so they were familiar with it.  Second, it is very user friendly for students of any age, students can enter their own work by simply scanning a QR code.  Third, it is FREE! Now, there is Seasaw plus which offers advanced tools for assessment, teachers notes, etc, but to be honest, I am loving the free version!

I will admit I am not as consistent as I would like to be with uploading photos with not having access to iPads all the time, it can be tricky to stay on top of it.  But, when I do post things, the parents are SO excited and when they leave a comment the kids are SO excited to see read them.

To finish this mini review I will create a pro and con list:

PRO’s:

-user friendly and accessible for students of all ages
-FREE
-easy for parents to use
-students work is easily organized and accessible to parents/guardians and teachers at all times.  Their online journals are great to bring up during parent/teacher conferences!
-a positive way to showcase students work

CON:

-if you don’t have iPads in your classroom it can become a tedious task for the teacher.

I will admit, it took Lindsay, our amazing Kindergarten teacher, a full year to convince me to give it a try and I’m SO happy I did!  If you’re on the fence about creating online portfolios with your students I highly suggest you take the plunge!

If you’d like to learn more about Seasaw, you kind watch this video:

or visit their website here! And no, this is not sponsored by Seasaw… although that would be sweet!