VERSION WITH PHOTOS
You Can Learn (Almost) Everything About “Free Websites for Students” From High Tech High School in San Diego, California: Assumptions, Myths and Tips about Digital Portfolios (with screenshots)
ABSTRACT
Digital portfolios or Electronic Portfolios have attracted attention from researchers. What can we learn from students at High Tech High Schools (where portfolios are part of the assessment process)? A lot. Problems of motivation and engagement that occupy professors at higher education can sometimes be solved by interviewing younger students. Screenshots are included.
Advocates for portfolios have spent years promoting portfolios, defined as “work that a learner has selected and collected to show growth and change over time” (Bartlett 2001). The arrival of computers in classrooms made storage of these materials easier. However, numerous obstacles have kept portfolios from being adopted universally.
Dr. Barrett’s collection of “Research on Electronic Portfolios” has collected nearly 100 questions for future research. Let’s see how some of these questions can be answered by interviewing two students from High Tech High School.
Research question: Greater learner ownership and control over the contents, purpose and process of portfolio development will lead to more intrinsic motivation to use the portfolio to support lifelong learning” (Barrett’s hypothesis).
Answer: True. Listen to how a student, Abel Thon, describes the process of learning a new system for making a free website. “I probably would say that it didn't take me longer then a couple hours to complete it because it was easy to put everything in. But when I first made a weebly website it wasn't quite as good as the way it is right now. It went through many drafts and many edits. Sometimes I had to reformat my whole entire website because I felt that it wasn't good enough or it wasn't professional or I thought of a better idea.” Clearly Abel feels ownership over the contents.
Research question: How do we get teacher “buy in”? The teacher must do more than just say, “This would be a good project to put in your portfolio.”
Answer: The students at High Tech High are not prepared to answer this question because the teachers are convinced that projects are effective ways of teaching materials.
Research question: How do we sell portfolios to students and parents?
How will portfolios help them get a job, scholarship, into college?
Is there any hard evidence of what portfolios have done for students?
Answer: Ben Staley got work through their internships, in part because of the videos and slide shows that they displayed on their portfolios (free websites).
The “splash page” created by Abel Thon, High Tech High School.
Research question: How do we find resources? Finding time, helpers, labs for student to use on “their” time.
Answer: It’s in the culture of the High Tech Village to make the time to complete projects.
Research question: Students don’t care about keeping, reflecting on and exhibiting their work.
Answer: According to the students who were interviewed, the culture at High Tech High doesn’t have room for such apathy. W. Edwards Deming points to the system, rather than individuals, as the cause of apparent “individual” misbehavior. Peple are not the source of disappointment; the system’s rules are to blame. “I should estimate that in my experience most troubles and most possibilities for improvement add up to the proportions something like this: 94% belongs to the system (responsibility of management) and 6% special” (the individual employee). To follow Deming’s prescription, we in education should change the rules of the system to give time to individuals for portfolios to be adopted. Dr. Barrett’s recommendations are certainly a place to start for changing the culture of a school.
Research Question: How important are grades and transcripts in eportfolio systems?
Answer: In the visits that I’ve made to High Tech High, I got the feeling that the system is not driven by grades but more by curiosity and a pursuit for “what can I do with this?” I wrote to Abel Thon the following question: I noticed that you have just a few categories. It is so much easier to read your portfolio compared to other students. I can see your internship and your projects. That's easy. How did you come up with such a simple format?
Here’s what Abel Thon replied: The way that I thought of making my website was something that was simple, easy to look at and easy to navigate. I made sure everything followed that. I also didn't want to cram every single page with loads of information that's why for my projects page you can see a description of a project and if you want to know more you simply click on the pictures.
Research Question: How does e-portfolios provide evidence of deep learning?
Answer: Look at how Abel Thon responded to the task of creating a digital portfolio. He demonstrated deeper learning by restructuring his website and learning another website making software (weebly.com).
The opening page of Ben Staley’s digital portfolio.
How to Set Up the Web Site
Here's what Ben Staley wrote (when asked for his system and secret to making a template):
The Adobe Master Collection is a series of programs used to manipulate photos and
videos. I edited pictures and made others and implemented them into my DP. In the
edit section of Google sites for any of the standard templates, you can replace images and settings. I recommend your students research using something like YouTube. The basic idea is find something you want to replace. Use something like Photoshop or Illustrator (programs included in the Adobe Master Collection) to manipulate, create or enhance an image. Then find that section of the page in the template settings and replace or add the image you created. As a general rule of thumb for any graphic creations, I recommend a limited color palette. Too much color can distract from information and gives the onlooker a sense of messiness. I learned most of what I know about Google sites from online tutorials, so that's what I recommend you do. Thanks, Ben Staley
Answer: does this demonstrate “deeper learning”? I think “yes.”
Other Research Questions
What kinds of barriers exist to introducing and maintaining portfolios?
Answer: Dr. Barrett’s research and writings give lists of forces that work against creating robust portfolios. She describes in her blog (2016) the tension between a “standardized” portfolio system (which is easier for the institution) and a “free form” portfolio, which some students prefer. She recommends a point between the two.
(2) Who gains the most from the portfolios: Directors of schools, teachers or guidance counselors? Are guidance counselors therefore the most likely person to initially provide support for digital portfolios? Who should be the target of advocates of portfolios? Who are most likely to be the agents of change within a school?
(3) What can High Schools learn from University research?
Research Question: “I believe that if we integrate the concept of reflective recordkeeping through portfolios in the early years, there won’t be a need to create buy-in at the elementary or secondary level. The Portfolio will become a measure much like report cards and will be as institutional as parent teacher conferences.” (Diane Demarest, University of Idaho, Parents as Teachers Demonstration Project.) Demarest continues, “Imagine what it might be like if this multi-dimensional story of the parent and child’s journey through 18 years of learning replaced the one-dimensional unimaginative transcript that moves through the system with the student.”
The Parents as Teachers Demonstration Project (University of Idaho) clearly has some data to support earlier attempts to train parents to collect “artifacts” from early years. The assumption is that parents and students will be used to the idea of a portfolio if the early collections of photos and videos can be curated into a useful collection. The process of collecting and curating can continue into elementary and secondary school, resulting in a natural habit (so that schools won’t need to “train” students to build portfolios).
More research questions can be added to Dr. Barrett’s list by writing to eportfolios@gmail.com.
Summary
A 2015 press release from Inside Higher Education has revealed that 80 colleges in the USA “are creating a platform for new online portfolios for high school students.” (Jaschik). Directors of high schools, teachers and guidance counselors (who advise their students about “what’s next” in their academic work) might want to learn how to help students create free websites to display their stories. Much can be learned from students at High Tech High in San Diego.
References
Deming, W. E. (1985). Out of the Crisis, page 248. Retrieved at https://blog.deming.org/w-edwards-deming-quotes/w-edward-deming-quotes-from-out-of-the-crisis/
Staley, B. (2014). Quoted in Show Your Work, an ebook available at TinyURL.com/showyourwork.
Thon, A. (2016). Quoted in an ebook Put the Work of Your Students on Free Websites: A letter to directors of schools about Digital Portfolios (Fourth Edition), by Matthew Blazek et al. TinyURL.com/sunportfolios5
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Abel Thon and Ben Staley, two High Tech High students who spent time explaining their personal philosophies and approaches to making free websites.
Thanks to Thomas Toch for his 2003 book High Schools in the Human Scale, which got me to notice HTH.
To Bill Gates for pointing out “Projects are the way to go.”
To Dr. Helen Barrett for her focus on “portfolios as stories.”
To the teacher who posted the HTH guidelines on www.WhatKidsCanDo.org website. The artifact (a seven page worksheet) preserved important procedure in the building of the culture that makes up the heart of High Tech High’s system. Search terms
To my principal who saw “Createspace” and said, “Projects are the way to get deeper learning.”
To Bill Gates, who said, “Projects are the way to go” during a visit with Oprah Winfrey to the High Tech High campus in San Diego. Search “Bill Gates Oprah High Tech High” on YouTube.
My behavior has changed: A simpler website allows a story to emerge more easily than a crowded website. Curate, don’t just collect.
BEFORE: This is an example of a free website that I made before I interviewed Abel Thon.
AFTER: This is an example of my new format.
Clearly I have changed my approach. The amount of information shown to the viewer is much reduced.
Author’s Biography
Steve McCrea is a high school teacher in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is in the middle of a yearlong experiment, set to end in May 2017, to encourage the principals of ten schools to post “a list of websites made by students” on each school’s website (copying a procedure that High Tech High uses). As of May 2016, two schools have agreed to participate. McCrea can be reached at ManyPosters@gmail.com and his mobile (954) 646 8246. Skype: SteveEnglishTeacher. You can follow progress of the “Student Website” project at portfolioswithsteve.blogspot.com and tinyurl.com/xydfbprojects (a Facebook page). http://tinyurl.com/sunstevemccrea
The High Tech High School’s model for a “list of links to websites made by students.”
