In June 2011, two of East Renfrewshire’s clusters worked with their pupils to create e-portfolios using Glow Blogs. This involved Eastwood High School, St Ninian’s High School and their associated primary schools. At the start of the 2011-12 academic session, the other five Secondary clusters did the same. Part 1 of this cookbook covers the background to this and the set up process for the e-portfolios.

Here in part 2, we focus on the use of the e-portfolios and the plans that one school has for this.

Context

The schools in East Renfrewshire are using e-portfolios as part of their adoption of the recommendations in Building the Curriculum 5, and whilst every school in the local authority is following the same basic adoption principles, each school has its own specific plans for implementation and use. This cookbook highlights the plans of one of these schools.

Crookfur Primary School

Crookfur Primary is one of the schools in the Eastwood High cluster.

Gillian Graham is Depute Headteacher in Crookfur and has responsibility for implementing the e-portfolios. Supported by the National Glow Team, the school created e-portfolios with all of their Primary 6 and Primary 7 classes. Building on this, Gillian then worked with the Primary 5 classes to do the same.

Gillian has been taking part in the Education Scotland pilot group for Pupil Profiles and when introduced to the e-portfolios, immediately saw a way to link them with the pupil profiles.

Working with staff and Headteacher Fiona Loudon, Gillian developed the format of the profile document that the P7 pupils in Crookfur Primary will complete. This document will contain the pupil’s reflections on their learning, their progress through the curricular areas, information on achievements across learning plus a section for parental comment on their child’s progress.

In ICT time, pupils add information to their e-portfolios about their weekly achievements, to build a permanent record throughout the year. This will be used at the end of the year to help pupils complete their profiles. These will then be attached to their e-portfolios.

Staff can access each pupil’s e-portfolio and comment on the posts that pupils write and parents can view the e-portfolios when their child logs in to Glow at home to show them.

In the following audio clips, Gillian Graham explains Crookfur Primary’s plans for use the e-portfolios:

Use of e-portfolios and Pupil Profiles (0:51)
Gillian Graham: Pupil Profiles

 In the following video, we’ll look at one pupil’s e-portfolio and how they have included their pupil profile in it.

Pupil profile in their e-portfolio (8:10)
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 2

You can also view a sample of the pupil profile document being used in Crookfur Primary in the following attachment:  You can also view a sample of the pupil profile document being used in Crookfur Primary in the following attachment:    Pupil’s primary 7 Profile

Ingredients

In order for pupils to be able to attach their profile to their e-portfolio, they first had to learn how to add content to their blog. The Crookfur pupils learned the same things as the pupils in all of the East Renfrewshire schools.

This included:

-          Adding information about themselves on the blog’s welcome page

-          Learning how to use the Blog Dashboard to write a post and edit it

-          Finding out how to categorise and tag a post

-          Learning how to attach documents and images to blog post

Pupils were also shown how teachers can comment on posts and how they can then read those comments and reply.
 

Recipe

Learn in the following videos how to do the things listed above:

How to set up the ‘All about me’ welcome page (8:48)
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 2
How to use the blog dashboard to write a post, categorise and tag it (9:54)
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 2
How to attach a document to a post (6:10)
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 2
How to add an image to a post (8:38)
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 2
How teachers access a pupil’s e-portfolio and add comments to it (7:11)
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 2
 

One additional thing which pupils did, to give ease of access to their e-portfolio, was to create a button on their Glow Light screen to take them straight to their e-portfolio. Find out how to do this in the following video:

How to create an e-portfolio button on the Glow Light screen (3:39)
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 2
 

 Impact

Each of the schools in East Renfrewshire plans to use the pupil e-portfolios in different ways and so the impact will be different for each.  

In the following audio clip, Gillian Graham gives her thoughts on the benefits of using e-portfolios, including access from home and parental access:

Ninian’s High School:
Josef Fuchs is Principal Teacher of Development at St Ninian’s High School in Giffnock. He has been heavily involved in the implementation of the pupil e-portfolios there and commented on the benefits that he and the school see for their usage:

 “E-portfolios allow our pupils to keep an online record of their progress and achievements throughout their school life.  These records can be categorized into achievements and/or curricular areas.  Pupils post updates on their progress and achievements, also being able to attach media files such as photos to evidence these. 

As these can be updated continually, this record is a much fuller account of their experiences than if completed as a paper exercise termly or annually which was the previous method. 

We have a strong emphasis on pupils being responsible for updating their own e-portfolios regularly.  Staff across the school encourage pupils to add in for example test scores, extra curricular activity involvement and achievements such as awards gained.  School staff can easily view and comment on pupils e-portfolios at any time although we plan to timetable a formal review on a termly basis. Another use is that we can make resources available, for example PE fitness test scores and Home Economics Food Diaries that pupils copy and paste into their e-portfolio and then fill in the answers online, allowing pupils and staff to access these.  It also removes the ability to lose them while also saving paper and filing space. We believe these to be invaluable as we prepare our pupils for the next stage in their lives. 
The benefits include: 

• Giving pupils the necessary communication tools to use in the world which is becoming more and more digitalised. 
• Preparing pupils for using e-portfolios at further/higher education level and beyond in many professions such as Medicine, Dentistry and Law.
• Encouraging pupils to be self reflective, important in many professions such as Teaching and Nursing.”

These comments reflect the impact on just two of the schools involved in the implementation of e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire. There are many other benefits being enjoyed across all of the schools.

In June 2011, just before the end of term, two of the East Renfrewshire clusters worked with their pupils to create e-portfolios using Glow Blogs. This involved Eastwood High School, St Ninian’s High School and their associated primary schools. In the secondary schools, every S1 pupil (the new S2 cohort) created an e-portfolio and in the primaries, every P7 pupil did so, in preparation for their transition to high school. In many of the primaries, the P6 pupils also created e-portfolios for use in P7 and beyond.

Context

In line with Building the Curriculum 5: A Framework for Assessment (BTC5) , the Assessment Team in East Renfrewshire was keen to ensure that all schools are providing opportunity for pupils to reflect on their learning, evaluate it and record evidence of what they have achieved, both in school and outwith. They felt it to be essential that there was a consistent approach across all schools in the local authority. This approach is encouraged in BTC 5:

“It is important that shared standards and expectations should apply among the primary schools in a cluster and across departments in secondaries. Transition will be greatly assisted by sharing ideas across sectors.”

To help ensure consistency, staff from East Renfrewshire contacted the National Glow Team to enquire about the possibility of having a custom-built Glow Blog theme created for their e-portfolios. This was readily agreed to and a theme reflecting the East Renfrewshire priorities was created. The theme incorporates an image for the header, widgets, categories and three ready-made pages. This can be seen in the ‘how to’ videos later.

Creating the e-portfolios

Members of the National Glow Team worked with staff and pupils in all of the Eastwood and St Ninian’s cluster schools to create the e-portfolios.

Each pupil created a Glow Group in their My Glow area and into that Group they added a Glow Blog. It is the Glow Blog that is used as their e-portfolio. All staff were made members of the Glow Group where the blog lives. This membership alone, however, does not enable them to access the e-portfolio. Since no one can access another user’s My Glow area, pupils additionally had to provide staff with a link to their blog. This link to the view of the blog was added to a web links web part in a school e-portfolio Glow Group. This Group had been created ahead of time in preparation for the pupil sessions.

Pupils learned how to add content to their blog by writing posts, categorising and tagging them, adding media such as images and attaching documents. They also learned how staff can comment on the posts and where they can then access those comments from.

Ingredients

In preparation for the pupils creating their e-portfolios, each school had to do some work in advance. This involved them creating a Glow Group to host links to the pupil e-portfolios. They also had to ensure that both Glow Light and Glow Blogs were switched on for all pupils. (This task is done by the school or local authority Accounts and Services Manager – ASM)

During the pupil sessions, the pupils required the following:

- To have Glow Light enabled

- Create a Glow Group in their My Glow area

- Add the Glow Blog web part to their Group and create a Blog

-  Add teachers and non-teaching staff as administrators of the Glow Group Note: One of the reasons that  (Administrator access is recommended so that any comments left by staff on the pupil’s blog are automatically published. If, for example, staff are given Contributor rights, they can still access and interact with the pupil’s blog but their initial comments would have to be approved by the pupil before they are displayed)

- Put a link to their Blog into the school e-portfolio Group to enable staff to access it

- Carry out some ‘admin’ on their blog – apply the Local Authority theme; delete the default post; delete one of the pages; set a static welcome page and a page to display latest posts

- Add information about themselves to their welcome page

- Learn how to use the Blog Dashboard to write a post

Recipe

The following videos explain the process that the pupils went through to create their e-portfolios, as well as looking at the preparatory work the schools did to create the Glow Group to host the links to the pupil e-portfolios.

Step 0 (for staff) – How to create a school Glow Group to host links to pupil e-portfolios
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 1
Step 1 – How a pupil creates a Glow Group in their My Glow
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 1
Step 2 – How a pupil creates their Glow Blog
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 1
Step 3 – How a pupil adds staff as members of their Glow Group
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 1
Step 4- How a pupil adds a link to their blog into the school e-portfolio Glow Group
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 1
Step 5 – How a pupil uses the Blog Dashboard to apply the local authority theme and customise it
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 1

The following video covers the whole process for steps 1-5 above. There is slightly less explanation than in the separate videos but the video provides a good overview of the entire process:

The whole process for pupils creating their e-portfolio
e-portfolios in East Renfrewshire – Part 1
 

For videos on how to add content to the blog, see part 2 of this cookbook.

Impact

Each of the schools in East Renfrewshire plans to use the pupil e-portfolios in different ways, depending on their particular focus. Part 2 of this cookbook looks at the plans for two of the schools and discusses the impact they hope the e-portfolios will have.

Building the Curriculum 5

From the recommendations contained within Building the Curriculum 5 Jennifer Richardson then South Ayrshire’s Curriculum for Excellence Assessment Team Development Officer, had decided to initiate a pilot project to use Glow to help schools meet the requirements. The documentation states that,

“children and young people should agree learning goals and should record them in ways that are meaningful and relevant.”

It also calls for the creation of a Learner Profile which should include targets and goals with information on all areas of the curriculum and wider achievement and a range of evidence of learning. It states that learners should have opportunities for reflection, sharing and dialogue.  Maintaining an electronic portfolio within Glow could provide schools and pupils with the ongoing information required for a Profile.

In this cookbook we will focus on work done in Barr Primary School in South Ayrshire as part of this pilot process.

Originally South Ayrshire were interested in some work done in East Ayrshire using Glow Groups as e-portfolios. However, since their introduction in the summer of 2010, Glow blogs have become an increasingly important tool within Glow. It quickly became obvious that they would be an excellent opportunity to provide an e-portfolio solution which would have many advantages over using a Glow Group.

Jennifer was originally keen to go ahead with using Glow blogs for this purpose as she saw the following benefits:

• they provide an accessible, electronic and manageable method of storing different types of evidence in one central place
• it can be accessed by both the learner, teachers, parents and peers (optional)
• learners can independently access and update their e-portfolio at any time and from anywhere with an internet connection
• teachers, parents and peers could comment on the learners work
• the e-portfolio can automatically transfer with the learner from class to class and from primary to secondary school.

Nation e-portfolio Glow Group

National advice and access to templates and helpsheets is available from the National level Glow Group here. The advice is given that the e-portfolios are created in a Glow Group in the pupil’s My Glow area. The My Glow area is chosen so that the pupils can have more ownership of the process but also because as the pupil moves to secondary school, if they are correctly identity matched to the same account, then they retain their My Glow and any groups within it. Rather than simply creating the blog on their My Glow it is created in a Glow Group so that membership can be set for teachers in the Glow Group without giving access to the pupil’s My Glow area. When a pupil enters secondary school membership can be reset for all teaching staff for the secondary in the way it was originally set at the primary.

Context

Barr Primary

In South Ayrshire we decided to build a template for schools to use, although local authorities are now able to work with the National Team to design a ‘Theme’ which can be used across the whole authority. Towards the end of 2010 South Ayrshire asked for volunteer schools to come along to a twilight training session. Both primaries and secondaries were keen to be involved. Fraser Baird came along from Barr Primary to find out how to get started with his pupils and kicked the process off with them when he returned to school.

Barr Primary School

Barr Primary were initially keen to use Glow Groups for e-portfolios and had already got started with doing this but then opted to give the Glow blogs a try instead. They began with creating them with the senior pupils in P5-7 but then set them up with the junior pupils as well. All pupils in P1-7 at Barr Primary have their own Glow blog to use for an e-portfolio.

To put the project in context click below to see Brian from Barr Primary take you on a tour through his e-portfolio blog:
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Ingredients

The prcess the South Ayrshire schools went through to create the e-portfolios was as follows:

• Pupils created a Glow Group with their own name as a title in their My Glow Area using the Glow Light interface.
• They added this Glow Group to their favourites.
• The pupils used the Advanced Settings link to add staff as Administrators of their Glow Group.
• They added the Glow Blog web part to the Glow Group
• They created a Glow blog, naming it with their Glow username, in order to keep the blog name unique.
• The pupils applied a template to their blog but this would now be done by adding a theme decided on by the local authority
• The pupils created their own header for the blog.
• A Glow Group was created by their teacher at school level.
• Pupils copied the URL for their blog and added this to a web links web part in the school-level Glow Group.

Recipe

If you go to the National E-Portfolio Glow Group mentioned above you will see videos and Helpsheets taking you through all the stages required for schools to set up e-portfolio with their pupils.

Brian shows us how pupils access their e-portfolios to make a post (1:22)

e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Brian shows us how to move from the dashboard to the e-portfolio (0:20)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Impact

The senior pupils at Barr Primary School

Barr Primary are very pleased with how the e-portfolio pilot is progressing and the pupils appear to really enjoy this way of working. They were generous enough with their time to let me go into the school and film their opinions on using their e-portfolios. Click on the videos in the sections below to find out what firstly, the pupils thought of various aspects and then what their teacher, Fraser Baird thought:

Introductions to the pupils (0:39)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

The pupils on creating the e-portfolios (0:51)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on why they’re using the e-portfolios (1:37)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on what they post on (2:04)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on using your blog as an evidence store (1:05)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on how to post (1:37)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on using vokis on the blogs (0:52)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on using it from home (0:30)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Pupils on getting comments from teachers (0:32)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on the decision to use blogs (1:13)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on getting started (1:27)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on e-portfolio for measuring pupil progression (1:09)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on the advantages of blogs over traditional methods (0:49)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on the pupils and blogs (2:21)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Fraser on what and how often the pupils post (1:05)
e-portfolios using Glow blogs at Barr Primary, South Ayrshire

Parts 1 and 2 of the cookbook series ‘S1 e-portflios in Scottish Borders’ explain the process of using Glow Blogs to create e-portfolios. Whilst this process is straightforward, as with anything there is always potential for user error. In this cookbook we will look at some of the issues that may occur should a user not follow the e-portfolio creation process correctly and, perhaps more importantly, how to correct these.

Content

Through experience of working with hundreds of S1 pupils in Scottish Borders to create their e-portfolios using Glow Blogs, certain situations have occassionally occurred, causing error messages or problems for the user. These are not Glow errors, but user errors, and whilst they occur infrequently, if they do occur, it is important to understand why and know how to remedy them.

Issues

Examples of these errors and issues are:

• When creating the Glow Group in ‘My Glow’ the pupil get a message saying,  ”A Glow Group with that name already exists or the name contains unsupported characters’
• When creating their blog, a message appears saying, ‘A blog already exists with the path that you have chosen, please enter another path’
• When going into Advanced Settings to add teachers as members of their Glow Group, they see a message saying ‘Sorry – You are not able to search for other Glow users’
• When adding the group of teaching staff to their Glow Group, they get a red error message on the page after they have typed in the teaching staff code which says: ‘None of the users or cross-site groups you entered could be added. Please make sure there were no typing mistakes on the previous page and semicolons were used to separate the names’
• When adding teachers as administrators of their Glow Group where the blog is, as well as seeing themself  and the the group of teachers as members, the pupil sees other groups of members too.
• If pupils do not add their Glow Group to their Favourites when they create it, they cannot then find or access it again.

Reasons

The first two issues listed above, are generally caused by pupils ‘double clicking’.
In Glow, a single click on a button or link is sufficient. Double clicking, particluarly when creating something such as a Glow Group or a Blog, can cause Glow to try to create it twice, hence giving an error. Emphasising to pupils the importance of a single click may suffice and so avoid the error messages apppearing, but if not, it is easy to remedy these issues. You can find out how in the videos in the ‘Remedies’ section.

The third issue is caused by pupils not clicking on the correct links in Advanced Settings. After clicking on Advanced settings and Site Settings, it is essential that on the first  page they click on ‘Go to Site Administration’ and then on the second page, click on ‘Manage users’. If on the first page they click on ‘Manage users’, as is possible, they will see the error message. This can be corrected by simply going back and clicking on the correct links.

The fourth issue of the error message when adding the teaching staff group, is caused by the code being entered incorrectly. This is corrected by clicking Back and then correctly entering the code.

The fifth issue of seeing additional members occurs if the pupil has actually added members directly into their My Glow rather than the Glow Group in their My Glow. The solution is to go into the Glow Group and repeat the process of adding members.

The remedy for the sixth issue, not adding the Glow Group to Favourites,  can be found by watching the relevant video in the next section.

Remedies

In the following videos we will look at what causes these errors and how to correct them.

Solution to: ‘A Glow Group with that name already exists or the name contains unsupported characters’ (2:53)
S1 e-portfolios: Part 4-Avoiding and correcting user error
Solution to: ‘A blog already exists with the path that you have chosen, please enter another path’ (3:50)
S1 e-portfolios: Part 4-Avoiding and correcting user error
Solution to: ‘Sorry – You are not able to search for other Glow users’ (1:42)
S1 e-portfolios: Part 4-Avoiding and correcting user error
Solution to: Seeing extra groups of members when adding teachers as members (1:34)
S1 e-portfolios: Part 4-Avoiding and correcting user error
Solution to: Pupils not adding their Glow Groups to their favourites and not being able to find it again (2:36)
S1 e-portfolios: Part 4-Avoiding and correcting user error
 

Impact

Content

Building the Curriculum 5 says:

“Approaches to recognising achievement, profiling and reporting should be manageable for all involved – children and young people, parents, teachers and other staff, partners and others who use this information.”

So, whilst the pupil e-portfolios serve a great purpose for pupils and staff in the Scottish Borders Secondary schools, staff felt that they were not necessarily what they needed in order for them to be able to collate information on all pupils so that they can report on it. With the e-portfolios, staff can access the achievements of an individual child, but for reporting purposes and for an overview of all pupils’ achievements, having to look at each e-portfolio separately and perhaps then record what they see in another way, was not ideal for their needs.

Wider Achievement Glow Group

With advice from the National Glow Team, many schools decided to create a ‘Wider Achievement’ Glow Group. They created a custom list and added this to the Group. Each school set up their list with columns to suit their own needs. Staff were made administrators of the Group and pupils were given contributor rights to enable them to add entries to the custom list. In addition to the Glow Group permissions though, separate permissions were set on the custom list web part so that staff can see all entries but pupils can only see their own.

The custom list enables staff to filter the entries so that they can, for example, look at only the entries for a single pupils, for all pupils who have completed an entry in a particular category (such as ‘Duke of Edinburgh’) or all entries for one of the Curriculum for Excellence capacities, such as Responsible Citizens. This helps them to report on specific pupils’ achievements and on achievements for specific elements.

In the following video we can see how pupils in one school have been using the Wider Achievement Glow Group.

Pupil use of Wider Achievement Glow Group (3:10)
S1 e-portfolios in Scottish Borders:Part 3 – Wider Achievement

Recipe

In order to have a Wider Achievement Glow Group, the schools needed to

• Create a Glow Group at school level
• Add all staff as Administrators and all pupils as Contributors to the Group – Staff need to be Administrators to enable them to see the entries for all pupils. Pupils need to be contributors to allow them to add entries.
• Use the Create option in Advanced Settings to create a custom list
• Configure the custom list to have columns to suit their own needs
• Set specific permissions on the custom list web part to ensure pupils can only see their own entries

In some schools, staff have asked pupils to add the Wider Achievement Glow Group to their Favourites to ensure they have easy access to it and with the hope that frequent sight of it will encourage them to add entries on a regular basis.

In the next section, find out how to replicate some of the elements mentioned above.

Method

How to create and use a custom list for recording Wider Achievement (17:25)
S1 e-portfolios in Scottish Borders:Part 3 – Wider Achievement
How to set user permissions on a custom list (3:44)
S1 e-portfolios in Scottish Borders:Part 3 – Wider Achievement
Editing the columns and choices within the columns in a custom list web part (2:37)
S1 e-portfolios in Scottish Borders:Part 3 – Wider Achievement

You may also find this document useful. It explains the process of creating a Custom List web part:
How to create a custom list web part

Impact

Schools see great advantages to having the Wider Achievement Glow Group with its Custom List web part.

It gives them a permanent electronic record of pupils’ achievements, which can be added to by a pupil throughout their entire school life. The responsibility is on each pupil to keep their entries up to date, but they can add entries both in school and out. Since specific permissions have been set on the custom list web part, pupils can only see and edit their own entries, so keeping it private to them and hopefully encouraging them to add content. Staff, of course, can see all entries.

Staff can filter it to look at records for an individual pupil or to find all of the pupil entries in a particular category. As part of the schools’ requirements to report on activities undertaken by pupils to enable them to develop the Curriculum for Excellence capacities, the custom list gives a way for recording this and again filtering to sort the data.

As the custom list can be re-customised at any time, the list can be amended over time to reflect new reporting requirements.

Related cookbooks:

Part 1 – S1 e-portfolios in Scottish Borders: Overview of process

Part 2 – S1 e-portfolios in Scottish Borders: Customising and using

Part 4 – Avoiding and correcting user error when creating e-portfolios

Part 1 of this cookbook series showed the process that the Scottish Borders Secondary schools followed to create their S1 e-portfolios. In Part 2, learn how to customise the blogs and add content then take a look at how schools have been using the e-portfolios for different purposes. Part 4 will then show how to avoid or correct any user-errors when creating the e-portfolio.

Content

Once the pupils had created their Glow Blog for their e-portfolio and given staff access, the next step was for them to customise the basic blog and add their own content.

Pupils learned how to use the blog Dashboard to write a post, categorise and tag it, then publish it for others to see. They learned how to add images to posts and attach documents.

In some schools, they also created new pages. They set one page to display all of their posts and then created other pages for specific purposes such as Personal Learning Plan pages or a page where they will attach electronic copies of all their report cards over the coming years.

Since each school has different reasons for asking pupils to use their e-portfolio, they all tackled this element of writing to the blog in different ways.  In the next section we will look at how two schools are initially asking pupils to use their e-portfolios, before finding out in the ‘Method’ section how to add replicate the elements mentioned above.

Focus on: Selkirk High School

One of the main drivers in Selkirk for using the e-portfolios is for pupils to have an online place for their Personal Learning Plans (PLPs) that they would previously have completed on paper and stored in a folder.

After investigation and discussion with other staff, Paul Samson (DHT) and Rachel Fagan (PT Pastoral) decided that they would like the pupils to have separate pages for their each of their PLP documents which normally they would complete in paper format. They learned that they could create a page in the e-portfolio blog, copy the content of a PLP document (from Microsoft Word) and paste it onto the page. This allows pupils to add their information to the page by editing then saving it. Staff can add comments to the page in the same way that they can for posts, so enabling the Pastoral team and others to engage with the pupils’ e-portfolios.

Click on each of the images below to enlarge them and see examples of pages and posts from one pupil’s e-portfolio:

'About Me' welcome page

PLP Page – P7 Transition

PSE post with teacher comment

The other purpose that Selkirk High school staff feel that a page in the blog could serve is a place where pupils can store their reports. So, each pupil has created a page called ‘My Reports’ and over time, they will attach electronic copies of their reports.

Paul Samson, DHT in Selkirk High School explains why the school were keen to provide their pupils with e-portfolios:

“We are hoping that as a school our pupils can start to build up an e-portfolio which will contain examples of their best work, act as a record of their personal learning planning and be a record of their wider achievement both inside and out of school.  Pupils will have responsibility for their own portfolio, which we feel is important, and the next challenge will be to give them the opportunities to maintain and update them.  The whole experience of working on this project has been very postive for both pupils and staff.”

Rachel Fagan, one of Principal Teachers of Pastoral Care in Selkirk, adds:

“We also hope that the e-portfolio, through the category and tag widgets, can be used as  a vehicle for pupils and teachers to recognise and profile literacy, numeracy, health and wellbeing across the curriculum, as well as  their personal achievements.”

Focus on:  Earlston High School

In Earlston, the use of the e-portfolios has begun in the English Department, with staff encouraging pupils to use their blog to write about things they have been learning about. This provides pupils with a record of their learning and an opportunity for staff to comment on pupils’ work. The pupils have been writing separate posts for each of the elements they have been learning about and are categorising their posts to enable them and staff to easily find them.

Click on the images below to enlarge them and look at examples of how one pupil has been using their e-portfolio:

'About Me' welcome page

English Post

Teacher comment on English post

Judith Weston teaches English at Earlston. In the following videos she explains the school’s use of e-portfolios:

Judith Weston: Why we decided to use e-portfolios (0:37)
S1 e-portfolios in Scottish Borders-Part 2: Customising and Using
Judith Weston: What are the e-portfolios being used for? (0:37)
S1 e-portfolios in Scottish Borders-Part 2: Customising and Using
Judith Weston: Future plans (0:25)
S1 e-portfolios in Scottish Borders-Part 2: Customising and Using
Judith Weston: Commenting on pupils’ e-portfolios (0:45)
S1 e-portfolios in Scottish Borders-Part 2: Customising and Using
 

Recipe

In Part 1, we looked at the main steps that the staff and pupils had to follow to create the basic e-portfolio. In order to customise it, they further had to: ensure that the blog had a static welcome page and a page to display latest posts. Delete the default ‘Hello World’ post

• Set a welcome page for the blog
• Set a page to display Latest Posts
• Delete the default post and default page created when the blog was created

In Selkirk and in other schools they also chose to:

• Create pages for Personal Learning Plan information
• Create a page for Reports

Pupils also had to learn how to:

• Write a post, categorise and tag it, then publish it.
• Add an image to a post
• Attach a document to a post

Method

Since the process for creating e-portfolios using Glow Blogs has moved on since the Scottish Borders schools undertook the work with their pupils, please refer to the Documents and ‘how to’ videos in the National e-portfolio Glow Group  (Glow login required) for current information.

Impact

All of the schools who have begun the process of using e-portfolios with their S1 pupils foresee many benefits to doing so.

For pupils, there are many benefits to them having an e-portfolio.

They now have an online environment where they can take responsibility for recording their own progress, attainment and achievements. Since Glow is delivered online , pupils can add information to their e-portfolio both in school and out, personal circumstances permitting.

By creating their e-portfolio within their My Glow area, the pupil will have access to this regardless of which school they are in, as their My Glow area moves with them from school to school, without any need for staff intervention to move it or any of the content within. This is a great aid to transition and indeed for pupils who might create their e-portfolio in P7, having it move with them to Secondary school is a great advantage, both for the pupil and for staff, who will be able to see what the pupil has previously achieved and the comments the P7 teacher has added.

Staff can converse with pupils on a one to one basis through their e-portfolios by leaving comments to encourage, praise and support. They can write posts in the e-portfolio if appropriate, perhaps to attach a document to give additional support to a pupil or provide extension materials, this done without other pupils being aware.

For schools transferring the completion of Personal Learning Planning documents onto the e-portfolios, they envisage cost savings due to reduced use of paper and photocopying. They will also minimise the need to find storage space for pupil folders and paper documents. Having all of this information online reduces the likelihood of it being lost or damaged.

Related cookbooks:

Part 1 – S1 e-portfolios in Scottish Borders: Overview of process

Part 4 – avoiding and correcting user error

In part 3 of the cookbook, find out how schools are additionally using Glow to enable pupils to record examples of their wider achievement in a way which will assist staff in their collation and reporting on this.

Overview

BTC 5

Building the Curriculum 5  has led many schools to look more closely at the ways in which they record pupils’ achievements and how they store that information. Many are considering how they might provide opportunity for pupils to easily contribute to the content of that store of information and how they might be involved in the design and development of their own learning profile. In this cookbook we will look at the work that the Secondary schools in Scottish Borders have recently started in order to help achieve this.

This cookbook comprises four parts. Part 1 explains the process that was followed to create the pupil e-portfolio and give staff access to it. Part 2 looks at how different schools have been using their e-portfolios as well as looking at how to customise the blogs and add content. Part 4 explains how to avoid and correct user error when creating the e-protfolio. In Part 3, you can find out how schools are using other elements of Glow to enable pupils to record their wider achievements in a way that will enable staff to collate and report on these.

Content

In January 2011, Depute Headteachers from the Scottish Borders Secondary schools met to discuss how they might use Glow to support the work they were doing on providing a portfolio for pupils to record their achievements. With support from Liz Marroni, Glow Key Contact for Scottish Borders, Lawrence Alexander, Curriculum for Excellence Manager, and advice from members of the National Glow Team, the schools decided to use Glow Blogs to create an e-portfolio for pupils.

Staff from each of the Secondary schools involved in the e-portfolio initiative were given some initial training in the use of Glow Blogs to enable them to become more familiar with their potential and to allow them to work through the process of creating an e-portfolio for themselves in the way pupils would. There was also discussion about how staff would access the pupils’ e-portfolios and who would be given access to them.

Click to enlarge

It was decided that the pupils would create a Glow Group containing a Glow Blog in their My Glow area, so keeping it private. This meant though that by default, no one other than the pupil themselves would have access to the e-portfolio blog.  A method was proposed which would enable staff to see the blog, but no other part of the pupils’ My Glow area.

The advantage of creating the e-portfolio in the pupil’s ‘My Glow’ area is this area of Glow moves with them, even if they move school, so their e-portfolio will go with them throughout their education. For e-portfolios created in P7, they will still be accessible to pupils in S1 and beyond, aiding transition.

In preparation for pupils creating their e-portfolio, staff in each school created a Glow Group at school level called ‘S1 e-portfolios’ (or similar). Into this Group they created and added multiple Web Links web parts which would later be used by pupils to add in links to their e-portfolios. Each web links web part was named as either a class or a pastoral Group, depending on each school’s personal preference. Details of this can be seen in the ‘How to’ videos in the Recipe section of this cookbook.

The next step was to work with the pupils to create their e-portfolio. This was done as follows:

• First of all the pupils went to the S1 e-portfolio Group in their My Glow Groups list and added it as a favourite to give them easy access to it later.
• Pupils were shown an example e-portfolio to help them understand what they were to build for themselves.
• Pupils created a Glow Group in their My Glow area via their Glow Light screen. They added this Group to their favourites.
• They added the Glow Blog web part to the Glow Group
• They created a blog and named it with their Glow username, in order to keep the blog name unique
• The pupils used the Advanced Settings link to add staff as Administrators of their Glow Group.
• The pupils then viewed the blog and copied the URL of the blog view.
• They went then to the S1 e-portfolio Glow Group and in the web links web part for their class/pastoral group, they pasted the link to the view of their e-portfolio blog. In the description field they put their name, to ensure this was displayed in the web part in the Glow Group.

Click to view

Since the staff had been added as members of the pupil’s Glow Group in their My Glow, they could simply click on a pupil’s name in the S1 e-portfolio Group and be taken directly to view their e-portfolio. They could also add comments to posts made by the pupil.

All of the above was covered in a single 50 minute period for each class.

In a second period, the pupils learned how to customise their blog and add content to it.

In some schools, a third period was used to show pupils how to add an image to a post and attach a document. This session also looked at the benefits of compressing images prior to adding them to a blog post in order to reduce the size of the file being uploaded (There is a 5Mb limit on each individual media item being added to a post. The whole blog has a default capacity of 100Mb, so compressing images prior to upload significantly increases the number of files which can be attached)

Also, the pupils created a button on their Glow Light screen to take them directly to their e-portfolio, giving them quick and easy access.

Each school had a slightly different focus for how they envisaged pupils would use their e-portfolio. In Part 2 of this cookbook we will look at some specific examples as well as learning how to add content to the blog.

But what does the e-portfolio actually look like?

In the following video you can see a sample e-portfolio to help illustrate potential use.

Video of sample e-portfolio (9:29)
S1 e-portfolios in Scottish Borders: Part 1-Overview of process
 

 Recipe

 What did the schools need to do and have in order to have an e-portfolio for their pupils?

• A school Glow Group where pupils could add in links to their blog
• Explain to pupils what an e-portfolio is and how they would be creating theirs
• Each pupil creating a Glow Group in their My Glow and add adding and creating Glow Blog within the Glow Group.
• Teaching pupils how to add content to their blog, add images and attach files.

The customising of the blogs and addition of content will be covered in part 2 of the cookbook.
 

Method

Since the schools in Scottish Borders went through the process of creating e-portfolios, advice from the National Team has changed. Changes have been made to make the creation process easier and the National Team has worked with Local Authorities to create bespoke e-portfolio themes.
You can find full details of this in the National e-portfolio Glow Group. Here, you will find a range of useful documents and ‘how to’ videos along with information on how to contact the National Team to request support.

Related cookbooks:

In part 2 of this cookbook you can find out how different schools have been using the e-portfolios with pupils, find out how to customise and add content to the blogs and find out the impact each school feels having the e-portfolios will have for them.

In part 3 of the cookbook, find out how schools are additionally using Glow to enable pupils to record examples of their wider achievement in a way which will assist staff in their collation and reporting on this.

Part 4 of the cookbook series highlights where user error can cause issues when creating the e-portfolios and shows how to avoid and remedy these.