Breakout 4. E-Portfolios: In early childhood and in through to school.

This was my first session today after a really interesting and very thought provoking Keynote address by Pam Hook. She challenged John Hattie’s effect size and gave us a run down on the SOLO toxonomy. It was an interesting way to start the day!

Back to the Session:

This was a real fun session run by a lovely team of ladies from Rotorua Girls High School Early Childhood Centre. I found out that they produce e-portfolios by way of blogs. They started small, posing an action research question, doing some research and upskilling, and then selecting only 7 children from their centre to work with. 

We looked at the blogs that they had done with their children and also the posts and comments that had been entered by their families. I saw a video of a little boy (18 months) who knew he wanted a tractor on his blog and he ”told” the teacher what he wanted in his blog.  It was amazing!

I learned that the blogs are printed off for the ‘hard copy’ portfolios. Everything is done in the blog and then copies are made from there.

The Centre staff shared their problems, highlights and helpful hints for us and we had a great discussion time about transitioning these e-portfolio students to primary school. Relationships between ECE’s and Primary Schools are paramount for e-portfolios to be worthwhile for the students and their families.

 No-one in our group had come across students coming to their school with e-portfolios yet, but we all knew that this day is coming.

Yummy lollies and an evident enthusiasm made this session great!

Got lots to share with you Leanne! I know this one is one that you are interested in!