The MC Byte

With each passing year, our world becomes more digital. Covid-19 accelerated that tremendously, with the introduction of hybrid and remote learning and working. Having a presence online, especially a professional presence, is crucial to succeeding in any career!

To prepare your students for the digital world, a digital portfolio is vital. Once you implement digital portfolios into your classroom, the benefits will amaze you.

Discover five reasons you should add digital portfolios to your classroom:

Track Student Progress and Improvement

With digital portfolios, it’s much easier to see the progress and improvements that each student is making.

Instead of digging through piles of paper or straining to recall the last assignment’s notes, you can easily navigate to and reference older work.

This method will provide you with a better idea of what is and isn’t working for your class. It can also elucidate which students need more attention and academic support and which students need more of a challenge.

Improve Parent to Teacher Communication

Setting up an online portfolio is an excellent way to communicate with parents and give them a way to appreciate their child’s progress. When parents can access their child’s assignments with a quick internet search, your classroom will be much more transparent, and you’ll have happier and better-informed parents.

It can be a challenge to motivate kids to bring home their assignments, grades, and projects. When parents don’t have the ability to see their children’s work, there’s a disconnect between you and them.

With a digital portfolio, however, you won’t have to worry about lost papers. Parents will see more of their child’s work, which will make their lives easier and your career much more manageable.

Improve Homework and Project Feedback

With a digital portfolio available, it will be much easier to compare student’s work with their previous assignments.

In doing this, you can free yourself from relying only on grading rubrics! No longer will you be comparing every student to a standard. You can start rewarding students for improving effort and skill as they continue their educational journey.

Also, you’ll be able to notice individual student’s patterns that might otherwise be hard to identify. If a student is continually making the same mistakes, you’ll be able to pick up on that, verify it with a quick search, and solve the problem efficiently.

Give Every Student A Chance to Show Off Their Success

When students create something they’re proud of, a portfolio can become an excellent way to show and tell. With a good portfolio, students will feel like they have a digital display case to show off their best assignments. Many students might begin to build confidence in their work and even try harder!

Plus, it will help your students share content with far-off family and friends. It can help them stay connected to loved ones they might miss without scanning documents or bringing a physical copy with them when they visit.

Set Your Students Up for Success

The SATs, ACTs, and other standardized tests are falling out of fashion. Colleges have found that these tests aren’t good indicators of college success; instead, they only measure how good a student is at taking tests!

Instead of test scores and grades, colleges want to see concrete examples of student accomplishments. Having digital portfolios will provide your students with an invaluable resource as they apply for higher education.

Applying students won’t need to wrack their brain for all their relevant experience; they can use their digital collection to showcase their best work -with a simple link!

Also, if their dream college looks them up online, a portfolio appearing in the search results will give your students a phenomenal competitive advantage.

At Mastery Coding, we help students build portfolios. As students learn through our Game Development pathway, they’ll create an entire collection of website or game projects that they can show off online!