Using ePortfolios in early childhood education: Recalling,reconnecting,restarting and learning

Abstract

Portfolios are widely used in New Zealand for documenting children’s learning; there is now an increasing move to online ePortfolios. This article presents findings from a doctoral study which investigated the impact of the introduction of ePortfolios in an early childhood education setting where traditional paper-based portfolios were previously used as the formative assessment tool for children’s learning. The findings demonstrate that a significant benefit of the ePortfolio system used in this study was the ways in which they could support children to revisit their learning and become involved in their own formative assessment. This is described as recalling, reconnecting and restarting. Through participating in these processes, children become active contributors to their own learning journeys which is a significant factor of formative assessment.

Keywords

assessment case study early childhood education learning portfolios

Introduction

This article responds to a key requirement of formative assessment – that it contributes to ongoing learning (Black, 2001, 2010; Black and Wiliam, 1998a, 1998b; Black et al., 2004; Crooks, 1988, 2002; Wiliam, 2011). It presents the findings of a doctoral study which investigated the impact ePortfolios had on children’s learning in an early childhood education (ECE) setting which previously used the traditional paper-based form of documentation. From the data collected for this study, three categories of learning through ePortfolios emerged. I have called this formative process recalling, reconnecting and restarting. The possible sequence is as follows. When children are recalling their learning they are able to remember a past event through looking at their formative assessment documentation. They will often share this with an adult or peer. Once they have recalled the event described earlier in the portfolio, they may be able to (or be invited to) move onto something else. When children reconnect with learning they may then continue, with support, where they left off. When restarting the learning, they will continue the learning process but will expand on the learning by moving in a different direction. Empowering children to recall, reconnect with and restart learning is one of the central functions of a portfolio, be it paper-based or online. Through doing this, children are able to construct their own learning journey, guided by their teachers, parents and families. The importance of this was stressed by teachers, parents and families alike. The journey of the teachers, parents, families and children are described in this article through a series of vignettes drawn from case studies which informed the findings of the study.

Assessment – summative and formative

Globally there are differing purposes behind assessment for children attending ECE settings. Some of this is summative assessment as opposed to formative assessment. For example, in the United States this assessment is intended primarily to provide a form of accountability by identifying ‘at-risk’ children and those with learning difficulties (Boat et al., 2005; Downs and Strand, 2006; Gredler, 2000; Shaughnessy and Greathouse, 2006). This form of assessment can be viewed as a deficit model which provides summative information in order to identify gaps in children’s development. Stobart (2014) points out that tests may play a part in formative assessment if the responses are used to identify what has, and has not, been understood, and if this leads to action to improve learning. While useful in some settings, this form of summative assessment is not adequate to provide detailed information on how children learn and develop because summative assessment is decontextualised. In other countries, such as the United Kingdom, Italy and New Zealand, the move towards formative assessment (also known as assessment for learning) has strengthened over the last several decades (Bath, 2012; Carr, 2001). This move means that children have become more visible in their own learning by becoming active contributors to that learning. Formative assessment aims to improve outcomes for all children (Black and Wiliam, 1998a, 1998b; Carr et al., 2015; Hill et al., 2010). Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam have written extensively on the role of formative assessment in education. Their work built on that of Royce Sadler (1989, 1998) who maintained that formative assessment must include children contributing to their own learning. Black (2001) described formative assessment as a tool for educational change, as it became more popular than summative assessment which, he suggested, could have adverse effects on children’s learning. Black et al. (2004) defined formative assessment as follows:

Assessment for learning is any assessment for which the first priority in its design and practice is to serve the purpose of promoting students’ learning. It thus differs from assessment designed primarily to serve the purposes of accountability, or of ranking, or of certifying competence. An assessment activity can help learning if it provides information that teachers and their students can use as feedback in assessing themselves and one another and in modifying the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged. Such assessment becomes ‘formative assessment’ when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching work to meet the learning needs. (p. 10)

An assessment activity can help learning if it provides information that teachers and their students can use as feedback in assessing themselves and one another and in modifying the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged. Such assessment becomes ‘formative assessment’ when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching work to meet the learning needs. As Black et al. (2004) suggest parents and families must also be engaged in their children’s learning, this study investigated how this could be achieved through the use of ePortfolios.

Portfolios and ePortfolios

The ways in which formative assessment is presented to children, their parents and families could impact on the ways in which they engage with the assessment and subsequently the learning involved (Cohen, 1999; Seitz, 2008; Weldin and Tumarkin, 1998). Traditionally, in New Zealand, assessment documentation has been presented in a paper format and is usually contained in a portfolio which children can access. Klenowski (2010) defines portfolios as ‘a purposeful collection of process artefacts and products that involves selection of evidence to demonstrate achievement over time and reflection on the process and value of the learning itself’ (p. 236). This definition supports the ways that portfolios are used in New Zealand.

Barrett (2007) noted that an educational portfolio will contain work and other artefacts (in ECE this would be things like artwork) that the learner (and others such as teachers) has collected over time. She suggested that the learner will have reflected on the work contained in the portfolio and the reflection will show that growth has occurred. Although earlier literature focussing on paper-based portfolios (e.g. Engel, 1990, 1993; Grace and Shores, 1991; Murphy and Smith, 1990; Valencia, 1990) identifies that this does occur, the extent to which children reflect on the documentation in an ePortfolio is an area which requires further investigation. With advances in technology, more educational services are turning to electronic forms of documentation, such as ePortfolios, to demonstrate and document learning (Barrett and Garrett, 2009; Boardman, 2007; Dooley et al., 2011). Klenowski (2010) further defines ePortfolios as ‘a digital collection of diverse evidence of an individual’s achievements over time involving selection, design, and reflection for a particular purpose and presentation to one or more audiences’ (p. 236).

In Austria, Schallhart and Wieden-Bischof (2010) trialled the use of ePortfolios in a kindergarten classroom. From this study, they concluded that ePortfolios were an exciting prospect to enhance children’s educational journeys, something this study supports. In New Zealand, studies focussing on ePortfolios (Goodman and Cherrington, 2015; Ministry of Education, 2014) found that they are an excellent tool to engage parents and families in their children’s learning but did not focus on the children’s use of ePortfolios to enhance their own learning. Therefore, a question remains: How do children use ePortfolios as a learning tool in early childhood education?

Learning stories

In New Zealand, the favoured method of collecting evidence of children’s learning is by using Learning Stories (Carr, 2001). Drummond (2012) notes ‘A Learning Story is first and foremost a story. The storyteller shares a tale of emergence, speaking to the child, to the child’s family, to guests, and to ourselves as observers and educators’ (para. 1). Developed by Margaret Carr, an Academic at the University of Waikato, Learning Stories were a direct response to the new challenges of assessment which came with the publication of New Zealand’s Early Childhood Education Curriculum, Te Whāriki (Carr, 2001; Carr and Claxton, 2002; Carr and Lee, 2012; Carr et al., 1998; Ministry of Education, 1996, 2017). Teachers needed to find ways to form the ideas and themes presented in Te Whāriki into effective programmes which included worthwhile assessment (Carr et al., 2002). A project undertaken in 1995 by Carr, called the Project for Assessing Children’s Experiences (Carr et al., 2002), discovered that if a child’s learning is first recognised by the teacher, then documented by the teacher, teachers would be able to guide the learner in a more meaningful way. From this project the Learning Story Framework was developed. Learning Stories have proved to be particularly useful in providing formative assessment and are now used throughout New Zealand in ECE settings (Mitchell, 2008). Learning Stories can assist teachers to identify and build on children’s interests and in turn influence their learning dispositions (Carr, 1998; Carr and Claxton, 2002; Carr et al., 2002; Hooker et al., 2008).

Theoretical lens

The notion of the ECE setting as a hub of a ‘community of practice’ was the basis of the theoretical framework for this study. The term ‘Community of Practice’ was introduced in the early 1990s by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger who were studying situated learning by investigating apprenticeships (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 2000, 2011, 2015; Wenger and Snyder, 2000). Lave and Wenger (1991) found that the members of communities of practice work together to gain knowledge about a topic so that they can develop it and improve on it in practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Tummons, 2012; Wenger, 1998, 2000; Wenger et al., 2002). The concept of communities of practice is a social learning theory, based on the claim that for humans, learning is a social endeavour (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Tummons, 2012; Wenger, 2000, 2015; Wenger et al., 2002). The underlying premise of social learning theory is that an individual is not solely responsible for their learning and development (Bandura, 1977). Rather, an individual is influenced by the environment around them, their own knowledge and previous experiences and behaviour – their own and those of others (Bandura, 1977; Hanna et al., 2013). This is a view that somewhat resonates with the significant work of Lev Vygotsky who developed sociocultural theory from his supposition that individuals learn with others (Anh and Marginson, 2012; McBride, 2011; Mahn, 1999; Tenenberg and Knobelsdorf, 2014; Vygotsky, 1978). With regard to education, sociocultural theory suggests that a child’s development and learning is affected by environmental dynamics, meaning that a crucial role is played in this learning and development by teachers, parents, family, other children and the community (Kozulin, 2002; Mahn, 1999; Vygotsky, 1978). The theoretical lens was apt for this study as it investigated the way that children’s learning could be supported and promoted alongside others through ePortfolios.

Methodology

Using qualitative forms of methodology, in particular, Case Study and Narrative Inquiry, this research posed the following research question in relation to children’s use of ePortfolios:

In what ways do children use and contribute to their ePortfolio?

Case study methodology proposes that a question (or questions) is asked which the study aims to answer (Stake, 1995, 2000). A case study can be defined as an intensive study of a single group, incident or community (Cronin, 2014; Crowe et al., 2011; Stake, 1995; Taylor, 2013). The case studies in this investigation were the wider ECE setting within which were ‘nested’ six case studies. The setting wide case study included all the teachers, parents and families who completed the surveys, whereas the nested cases studies were made up of individual families (parent and child) and their key teacher (a key teacher has primary responsibility for individual children thus developing a strong relationship). By making links between all the case studies, overarching themes were discovered. The techniques used in case studies were considered an effective form of data collection and analysis for use in this study because they would provide rich data documenting the journeys of the participants as they explored changes in the way they engaged with children’s assessment for learning.

The data from the case studies were interpreted using narrative inquiry (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000; Clandinin and Rosiek, 2007; Hendry, 2010) meaning they would tell the stories of the participants as they moved from traditional paper-based portfolios to ePortfolios as a method for documenting and sharing children’s formative assessment. By using narrative methods, the study was able to discover detailed information the participant’s journeys. As narrative inquiry has a place in social science, and educational research as a robust and meaningful method it was considered appropriate for use in this study (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000; Clandinin and Rosiek, 2007; Gibbs, 2009; Hollingsworth and Dybdahl, 2007; Lyle, 2013; Murrihy, 2009). This methodology allowed the researcher to view the holistic development of participants (in this instance, teachers, parents and children) as their stories were told.

Methods and participants

A mixed methods approach was undertaken in the more extensive doctoral study, the findings in this article are based on three methods – parent and teacher interviews, surveys and observations. Data were collected over the period of a year and was completed in three rounds – initial, midway and final.

The participants in this study were the teachers, parents/families and children who attended the ECE setting. This article is mainly based on the findings of the nested case studies, of which there were six. This included six parents, six teachers and six children aged from 6 months to 4 years. All the case study children had siblings attending the ECE setting so they were sometimes included in the findings as the parents and teachers also referred to their journeys.

Data analysis

The data were analysed to find commonly occurring themes. Sections of text from the surveys and interviews which had meaning to the inquiry were identified; these could be sentences, paragraphs or even just one word (Mukherji and Albon, 2015). These sections of text were then coded by category names, which were established as pre-existing categories (identified prior to the data analysis) and emerging themes. For example, categories were things like frequency of engagement, level of contribution, type of contribution, changes in contribution and so forth. Also of particular interest in assigning categories for analysis was the way in which assessments were carried out. Was there a change in the ways teachers carried out formative assessments using the two different forms of documentation? Did parents and families contribute different types of assessment depending on which type of portfolio they were contributing to? As the data were analysed it was important to record researcher reflections on an ongoing basis (Burnard et al., 2008; Cohen et al., 2018). These reflections provided a secondary form of data and were significant when looking for commonalities, differences and similarities in the way participants engaged with paper-based portfolios and ePortfolios.

The data showed that portfolios, in whatever form, can play an important role in documenting and sharing children’s formative assessment. It also identified, though, that in this particular setting ePortfolios dramatically changed the assessment landscape. The remainder of this article will discuss these findings.

The role of ePortfolios in supporting children’s learning through recalling, reconnecting and restarting

The participants in this study were invited to discuss the role of ePortfolios in their children’s learning. The following vignettes highlight the ways in which parents/families and teachers thought that ePortfolios could support children’s learning. It was important, in the first instance, to define what the participants thought children’s learning was.

How children learn

In the Initial Surveys conducted for the data collection phase of this study, the teachers and parents/families were asked to describe how they thought children learnt. The participants identified several different ways that children engaged in learning. Learning through play and associated experiences were seen as a vital element of learning for several participants. Children were also able to learn through imitation – watching others then repeating what they had seen. Doing – meaning allowing children to participate in different activities and experiences – was an important part of learning. It is of interest that the respondents felt that interactions were also a strong driver of learning – with teachers, parents/families and with their peers. This shows that the participants thought that children were active contributors to their own learning. The ways in which children used their ePortfolios to contribute to their learning have been grouped into the three categories identified earlier – recalling, reconnecting and restarting.

Revisiting learning – recall, reconnect and restart

The teachers and some parents/families in the study were regularly using the paper-based portfolios to revisit children’s learning with them; these interactions were usually initiated by the children. When the ePortfolios were introduced there was a shift here. The participants were still regularly revisiting learning with the children but now they were initiating these interactions more often than not using the children’s ePortfolios. So, one of the key purposes of using the ePortfolios in the ECE setting and at home became revisiting learning with the children. In turn, this enabled children to recall, reconnect with and restart learning. It also meant that children were becoming involved in learning conversations with the teachers and parents/families more often than in the past when only using paper-based portfolios. The following vignettes provide examples of how this was occurring.

Recalling through videos

The introduction of ePortfolios allowed children to revisit and subsequently recall learning experiences that they had had at the ECE setting. For several families the inclusion of videos in the ePortfolios strengthened this feature of learning.

Jasmine (Parent), who had not initially seen much, benefit of the paper-based portfolios thought that the formative assessment documentation contained in the ePortfolios could support children’s learning, specifically because of the inclusion of videos with some Learning Stories (Carr, 2001; Carr and Lee, 2012). Jasmine’s children were always keen to watch the videos in their ePortfolios and did this over and over again. Through this recalling, connections were being made to what the children were trying to do at home. A story written for her son Jack included a video which showed that he had learnt how to ride a bike. Jasmine reflected that she hadn’t been aware that he could do so until she saw that particular story, ‘He learnt to ride a bike there and I did not even know until I read it [the learning story with video] and I was like, oh, okay’ (Jasmine, Parent, Final Interview, August, 2014). For Jasmine this meant that she could make sense of some of the things Jack had been trying to do at home. In this instance, he wanted to build a ramp to ride down. Jasmine was wary of this ‘I would think oh my God, that’s my baby’ but because the evidence in Jack’s ePortfolio showed that he could ride down a ramp she let him do this at home too.

The teachers in the ECE setting frequently used the videos contained in the children’s ePortfolios to encourage recalling of previous learning. Joanne (Teacher) noted that they brought an extra dimension to planning for the children’s strengths and interests. This was because teachers could view them again and again and each time they would notice things that they hadn’t noticed before. They were also helpful for encouraging a child who was adamant that they couldn’t do something when the teachers knew that they could. Joanne provided a lovely example of this and the fact that the video was posted by a family member made the recalling of the learning even more powerful:

Recently I had a child telling me that they needed a push on the swing and that they can’t. So I actually accessed the tablet, because there is a video of her, that her mother has put up, of her [the child] at the park, on the swing, pushing herself high, as high as high can be. So I sat down with her and said, look your mum shared this video with us and then she was like, oh yeah, that’s me. Being able to share how your mum shared this with me, so now I know this about you, can you show me how you can do that? I think it was quite cool for her . . . ‘Oh okay, so now you know so I will have to push myself [child] every day now’. (Joanne, Teacher, Final Interview, August, 2014)

Recalling through conversations

Trudy (Parent) identified that the introduction of the ePortfolio meant that she was having deeper conversations with her daughter about her learning. She thought that Lila (Child) liked the ePortfolio better than the paper-based portfolio and that this was partly because they were looking at it a lot more together now. Trudy talked about the conversations she had about learning with Lila, this showed that she was supporting Lila to recall her learning experiences. Trudy said because the ePortfolio was so accessible that this enabled Lila to show her what she had been doing that day and then she could encourage Lila to continue this learning at home. An example of this was Lila’s fascination with hair styling which had been recorded in her ePortfolio. Trudy followed up on this interest at home as they researched hair styles together on YouTube, Trudy documented this in a learning story which she uploaded to Lila’s ePortfolio. Having parents and family members contribute to the children’s ePortfolios by writing Learning Stories was a major shift in this setting, this had not occurred with the paper-based portfolios.

Megan (Parent) commented that children learn by trying new things and from playing with and interacting with other children. In the Initial Interview, she said that the paper-based portfolio helped in the learning process because she could see their strengths and this enabled her to carry on their learning at home. Megan felt that the ePortfolios still did this, but she was now more involved in her children’s learning. She said,

I feel I’m more involved day to day or week to week, so I can consolidate that learning at home or talk about it . . . there’s ideas that come through that are really good that we can then use at home. (Megan, Parent, Final Interview, August, 2014)

I want to paint a tiger – reconnecting

Through using ePortfolios as a teaching tool, teachers were able to assist children to reconnect with their learning. This was demonstrated in the following example taken from an observation as Leslie (Teacher) assists Michael (Child) with his artwork. Leslie was very quickly able to find the story for Michael that she remembered and was further able to support this by comparing the story to pictures on the internet, allowing him to reconnect with previous learning:

Michael had been painting for a while and had several images on his picture. He did not appear particularly happy with any of them. After studying his work for some time Michael approached Leslie and said ‘I want to paint a tiger’. Leslie asked Michael what he thought a tiger might need to have in a painting. He responded with ‘I don’t know’. Leslie reminded Michael of the time he had painted a dog and she had captured this in a learning story for his ePortfolio. Leslie suggested that they look at the story together to see if this would help Michael with his painting of a tiger. Leslie sat with Michael at the art easel and together they revisited the learning story and Michael was able to reconnect with this previous learning experience and discover what he needed to add for his picture to look like a tiger. Alongside supporting Michael to reconnect with his learning story Leslie was able to use the tablet to find a picture of a tiger on the internet to further support Michael with his painting. Leslie moved back and forth between the picture of the tiger on the internet and Michael’s previous learning story in his ePortfolio.

Revisiting previous interests – restarting

When children can revisit previous interests that have been documented, they are able to restart their learning. The following example recorded in a child’s ePortfolio demonstrates how an interest can be rekindled and then taken in a different direction:

Milly (child) had an interest in parties and this was documented in her ePortfolio in a learning story. When Milly kept talking about parties in the ECE setting another teacher responded to this interest with a learning moment (a short anecdotal record of a conversation) and together they revisited the learning story about parties in Milly’s ePortfolio. Subsequently the teacher encouraged Milly to further this interest through planning a party for the ECE setting. Milly took on the role of ‘party planner’ and set about organising the event which was to be a dress-up party. Milly’s developing literacy was encouraged as she made invitations and signs for the party, this was recorded in Milly’s ePortfolio in a learning story entitled ‘Literacy in practice’. Several other learning stories and learning moments are included in Milly’s ePortfolio which document this learning journey until the day of the party.

Précis

The examples demonstrate that the participants in this study thought that children learn through experiences, and that portfolios, in particular ePortfolios, can support learning (Barrett, 2007; Goldsmith, 2007; Klenowski, 2010; Schallhart and Wieden-Bischof, 2010). The inclusion of videos that the ePortfolios afforded was an important aspect of supporting and extending the children’s learning and several parents and teachers referred to these as being useful for them. The majority of parents appeared to be more involved in their children’s learning through the ePortfolios and were looking at them with their children far more regularly than they were with the paper-based portfolios. By using the documentation contained in their children’s ePortfolios, the case study parents were enabling their children, when they were at home, to recall, reconnect with and restart learning experiences which had occurred at the ECE setting. Likewise, the teachers could articulate the value of portfolios in supporting and extending children’s learning. The introduction of the ePortfolios strengthened the way the teachers were already using the children’s formative assessment documentation. Through using ePortfolios relationships with parents and families had been further developed, the teachers planning had become more robust and connected and the children were being involved in their own formative assessment documentation (Black, 2001, 2010; Black and Wiliam, 1998b, 2004). The other changes that occurred through the introduction of ePortfolios in this ECE setting are detailed below.

Further benefits of ePortfolios

In addition to assisting children to recall, reconnect with and restart learning the ePortfolio system used in this study provided some further benefits for teachers, children, parents and families. These are described below.

Connecting and strengthening relationships between teachers and parents/families in ways that benefit the children

Joanne (Teacher) felt strongly that children learn through relationships, something undoubtedly supported by literature (Cankar et al., 2012; Daniel, 2009; Hattie, 2010). The paper-based portfolio aided in developing these relationships, she thought. Through revisiting the documentation in the paper-based portfolios the children were able to recognise relationships they had in the past, or were currently involved in, and could further connect with these. The paper-based portfolios also allowed Joanne to strengthen her relationships with parents and families and this in turn increased her ability to support the children to learn. Joanne felt that the relationships had become stronger with the introduction of the ePortfolios. An important aspect of the impact that the ePortfolios had on relationships with parents and families that Joanne had noticed was the way they encouraged extended family to be part of the ECE setting (Goodman and Cherrington, 2015). She talked about one child in particular whose grandmother was in the United States of America. Through reading the stories in the ePortfolio, the grandmother felt that she had got to know the teachers, children and the ECE setting’s wider community before ever coming to visit. When the family had a new baby and the grandmother came to New Zealand for a month to support them, it was no problem for her to drop off and pick up her grandson from the setting. Joanne said, ‘she got to share his stories from half way across the world, and now she’s here and she knew us, she knew the room and the environment he was in’ (Joanne, Teacher, Final Interview, August, 2014).

Improving teachers’ planning

Stephanie (Teacher) considered that children learn best when they feel safe and secure. She thought learning could be built on when children were allowed to follow their own interests and passions, particularly if they were given the time and space to do so. Stephanie felt that there was potential for the paper-based portfolios to support this learning but she was not really sure how. She said, ‘I haven’t seen it in action though, not yet’ (Stephanie, Teacher, Initial Interview, July, 2013). Since the introduction of the ePortfolios, Stephanie’s thoughts around how portfolios could support children’s learning had changed somewhat. She considered that the implementation of ePortfolios had improved teachers planning. She felt that because it was easier to review stories it was also easier to expand on them. Through doing this children’s learning experiences were being extended. Stephanie thought being able to easily see what other teachers were writing also made planning for learning experiences simpler.

Georgina (Teacher) also valued the paper-based portfolios as a teaching tool. Like Stephanie, Georgina used the formative assessment documentation in the paper-based portfolios to plan future learning experiences for children. At the start of the data collection period, Georgina thought that she was still learning how to best use formative assessment as she was a relatively new teacher, this had shifted significantly for Georgina since the introduction of ePortfolios. She said,

[The ePortfolio provider] is way easier for planning. It’s been fantastic in that respect because it’s so easy to access previous stories for a child and it’s always there, whereas the portfolios go out of the centre. They’re not always available, or if I’m outside and I want to access stories I can do it on the spot, rather than having to come and find a portfolio. Also, it’s really easy to read what other teachers are writing so you can see, make links and then build up the planning from there. It’s just having it all in one place that’s so easily accessible and just easy to scroll back through and find a story that you might want to link the learning to. (Georgina, Teacher, Final Interview, August, 2014)

Furthermore, the teachers were sharing different ways of writing with each other and were constantly challenging themselves to undertake effective professional development which centred on learning and teaching. Leslie (Teacher) highlighted several of these changes when she commented:

All the child’s learning is created into one folder which can be easily accessed when we write a story for them. This makes for easy linking between stories as we reflect upon who the child is as a learner, who they are as an individual and then build upon this over time. This way of documenting supports individual planning as we write more meaningful [Learning Stories], with links to future possibilities. I also think as teachers we are writing more stories for all children, and on the floor we are working in pairs (different teacher each day), so in moments on the floor we are engaging with each other more meaningful dialogue for individual children. I noticed this and this person – and the other teacher is responding and then adding in stories to support these discussions. Children’s individual portfolios are so much more richer through more stories and they are deeper by having connections made over time. (Leslie, Teacher, Final Survey, August, 2014)

Communication as a team about all the children’s learning progress

All the teachers stated that their communication as a team had improved since the introduction of the ePortfolios. They were having rich conversations while teaching about children’s learning and how they could extend and support it. This was something that previously had only really been discussed during specific planning meetings. The teachers were showing each other their stories with more excitement and enthusiasm, and this was something that had been noticed by the management of the ECE setting. The ECE setting’s supervisor had noticed her teaching team working together as peer learners. She said that the teaching team was becoming involved in ‘. . . peer coaching around documenting. So we’re looking at each other’s and going I really like the way they wrote it that way, and then having a go’ (Erica, Interview, March, 2015). The administration team leader who was heavily involved in setting up the ePortfolio system also noted that the ePortfolios were assisting the supervisor when she was mentoring her team. She said,

The other thing I think it’s really helped Erica in her role for mentoring and coaching staff by having it online, because it’s much easier to provide that feedback. Or if she’s approving a story it’s sent to her, she can suggest changes and staff can quickly edit it with Erica, not having to go through paperwork. It just seems streamlined. (Toni, Interview, March, 2015)

Involving the children in their assessment

Georgina (Teacher) was regularly using the ePortfolios to involve children in their learning documentation. When the ePortfolios were introduced Georgina embraced the new concept. She was using the ePortfolios during her interactions with the children to support or extend their learning and she was writing Learning Stories alongside the children. She also empowered children to be involved in their formative assessment documentation (Black, 2001, 2010; Black and Wiliam, 1998b, 2004) through photo selection and near the end of the research period she was teaching the children how to upload their own photos.

Leslie (Teacher) also used the ePortfolios to support children’s learning on a regular basis. She was also involving the children in the writing of their formative assessment documentation using the ePortfolios, something which she had not done with the paper-based portfolios. Leslie had found the tablets that the setting provided for the teachers to use to document children’s learning ‘a bit scary at first’ but over the year she had worked out a strategy to become more familiar with them. She made sure that whenever she was rostered inside the setting, she would use the tablets to document her Learning Stories. This was when Leslie was writing her Learning Stories alongside children; therefore, their voice was captured in the story as it was evolving:

When I am inside teacher for sure I will only use the tablet to document my stories and I often sit beside the children writing their voices as they are involved in their learning. So then I will repeat back to them and share it with them to build on it along the way. (Leslie, Teacher, Final Interview, August, 2014)

Children’s sense of ownership and extending learning

Robin (Teacher) saw the paper-based portfolios as an artefact to extend the child’s learning. She noted the assessment for learning documentation contained in the portfolios allowed teachers to

. . . extend on what they’re [children] doing and help them on their learning journey. And sharing their love of learning is another way of thinking about it too. When a teacher is excited about what a child’s doing, parents soon pick up on that excitement, so yeah, I find them [portfolios] a very, very, valuable tool. (Robin, Teacher, Initial Interview, July 2013)

She supposed that the most important function of the paper-based portfolios was that they allowed the children to remember what experiences they had had in the past. She felt that the portfolios were a personal record of a child’s journey and that the children felt a sense of ownership of their paper-based portfolios. For this to be achieved Robin considered that it was essential that the contents of the portfolio were shared with the children. She said ‘. . . the most important thing for me is that the stories are shared with the child, and that the child is aware that they’ve been recorded and shared’ (Robin, Teacher, Initial Interview, July 2014). After the introduction of the ePortfolios, Robin still felt that they enabled children to remember past learning experiences. However, she thought that this was now a timelier occurrence. As the formative assessment documentation was uploaded and available for children to look at very quickly, they were able to recall learning, and perhaps reconnect with or restart the learning, within a much shorter time frame.

Summary

It is evident that portfolios, in whatever format, are an important tool to help children to revisit their learning, while in the ECE setting and when at home. By revisiting their learning children are able to recall past experiences and share these with a significant other or others. They are able to reconnect with the learning and perhaps pick up where they left off, or they are able to restart the learning and take this in a new direction if they desire. The additions of videos to the ePortfolios were an important aspect for this study. Inclusion of supporting evidence in this format enhanced the quality of the stories and children, parents, families and teachers could see the learning happening. Videos, as well as photos, captured the children’s interest and encouraged them to participate in their own formative assessment documentation, increasing their sense of ownership (which was already strong in terms of the paper-based portfolios). The ePortfolios also allowed teachers to revisit past stories more easily, so that the stories were more connected. This meant that the written documentation showed growth and development over time. Each medium contained in the portfolios has different possibilities for communication and the inclusion of videos particularly strengthened this.

The way in which the teachers were using the ePortfolios as a teaching resource demonstrates increased collaboration. The teachers were talking more about the ways in which they could use the children’s formative assessment documentation to extend and support learning (Black, 2001, 2010; Black and Wiliam, 1998b, 2004). From these discussions they were making connections to experiences they had witnessed and had thought of recording, sometimes leading to Learning Stories which were contributed to by two or more teachers. The teachers considered that through the introduction of ePortfolios their planning had become more effective, and a lot of this was because of the platform’s ease of use.

What had changed?

The teachers, parents and families involved in this study recognised that the way children learn is multi-faceted, and this can be different for each child. However, they acknowledged the important role that portfolios, paper-based or online, can have in assisting a child to get the most out of their learning experiences (Barrett, 2007; Barrett and Garrett, 2009; Goldsmith, 2007; Klenowski, 2010; Schallhart and Wieden-Bischof, 2010). Through the formative assessment contained in a portfolio children are able to recall learning from past experiences. They are able to share this learning with others who are important to them. Portfolios allow children to recall experiences that they may not remember – for example, something that occurred when they were a baby. Furthermore, portfolios allow children to extend on their previous learning experience. By reconnecting with past learning, children can ‘pick up where they left off’. They are able to return to an experience and try again – particularly if they were not successful the first time. Finally, children are able to restart learning experiences through portfolios. They can take an interest and expand on it. For example, an interest in dogs may extend to an interest in tigers as demonstrated on the observation of Michael and Leslie mentioned earlier. The way these experiences have changed with ePortfolios is twofold. By using electronic technology children are able to quickly access their learning at home with their parents and families (Goodman and Cherrington, 2015; Ministry of Education, 2014). Their learning is affirmed and supported, and connections are made in a timely manner between the ECE setting and home. The technology also means that teachers can quickly and easily extend on and support children’s interests by accessing the internet.

The contents and ease of use of the ePortfolios contributed substantially to the changes identified in this article. The parents and families particularly liked the inclusion of videos in the ePortfolios, something that was not supported in the paper-based format. They enjoyed looking at the videos with their children (and this was often prompted by the children) and through this medium they could make connections between the ECE setting and home. Through the multi-modal communication tools in the ePortfolios, parents and families were assisting their children to recall, reconnect with and restart learning alongside the teachers, a key component, according to Black (2001) of formative assessment.

The increased collaboration among the teachers evident in their planning was a direct result of the introduction of ePortfolios. The teachers were using the ePortfolios far more effectively as a teaching resource than they were using the paper-based portfolios. The ease of use and ease of access were the main contributing factors to this. The teachers felt that the ePortfolios were easier to use than their paper-based counterparts. They found that they were able to review the contents easily and that this meant that more robust connections to past learning were being made. The teachers were using the ePortfolios more effectively to plan for future learning experiences; in effect they were becoming skilled at using the past to plan for the future.

Nevertheless, even though the introduction of ePortfolios has been very successful for this ECE setting, it is essential to note that ECE settings need to ensure that the children’s portfolios are accessible to them, to their family and to teachers. ePortfolios allow adults to easily access children’s formative assessment at any time they choose, and anywhere (provided they have access to the technology which allows them to do so). This is not necessarily the case for children. While it is a strong finding of this study that ePortfolios are beneficial for children’s learning, if they are not accessible to children some of these benefits are lost.

Conclusion

This study has established that portfolios, in whatever format, play a prominent role in supporting children to recall, reconnect with and restart learning. Learning experiences can be supported and extended through portfolios by parents, families, teachers and children (Cohen, 1999; Seitz, 2008; Weldin and Tumarkin, 1998). In this study the ePortfolios introduced into the setting, further strengthened the children’s formative assessment learning cycle (Barrett, 2007; Barrett and Garrett, 2009; Goldsmith, 2007; Goodman and Cherrington, 2015; Klenowski, 2010; Ministry of Education, 2014). The ease of access and ease of use meant that teachers, parents and families were making regular and timely contributions to assessment documentation and the majority were sharing these with children. Towards the end of the study, teachers were encouraging children to be contributors to their own formative assessment documentation through photo selection and storytelling. This is an area that warrants further investigation as the strongest formative assessment contains the voices of all involved (Black, 2001, 2010; Black and Wiliam, 1998b, 2004; Crooks, 1988, 2002; Wiliam, 2011). However, the introduction of ePortfolios must be considered carefully. They cannot replace paper-based portfolios if children, parents, families and teachers do not have consistent access to them. ECE settings must strongly consider how they are going to provide for this when making decisions about how they will document children’s formative assessment.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Tracey Hooker

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