Using Book Creator as an ePortfolio

I am currently supporting with a group of teachers to use Book Creator as an ePortfolio for junior school learners. The students have selected samples of work to share via their learning journals.

The goal is for students to be able to choose a variety of examples of work across the curriculum to show progress over time. They are able to select samples of writing, maths and other class learning.

They are able to use these to talk about their learning with their parents and whānau during their three-way student led conferences and discuss their progress with the family with a view to encouraging and setting scaffolds for further learning.

We chose Book Creator as a vehicle for this as it so easy for children to use but has many features that enable learners to enhance and record the experience.

Children took photos of their work, either from wall displays, from their paper books or screen grabs of their work.

They then wrote or narrated what they had inserted into Book Creator to further explain and expand on what they had wanted to share.

This process was simple enough for the junior school students to complete independently. They were then able to review what they had narrated so that they were able to ‘proof read’ and check that it was what they wanted to say. They were also able to get peer feedback from their classmates as they shared and showed what they had uploaded. Their classmates were also able to give them constructive feedback on their learning. There were opportunities to revise and further clarify meaning.

The books were then either exported as movies or to iBooks or to Google Drive for safe keeping.

The process of building a portfolio for juniors was made simple by the use of Book Creator.

For more ideas on using Book Creator in the classroom, visit the Redjumper Blog.