Wiki Portfolio Possiblities

     So for another use of Wiki's in an educational setting, I got to thinking how it could be used in a different form than just student collaboration (not that I'm insulting collaboration by any means).  One thing then occurred to me which was the VGLA.  This is an alternate assessment program for students who may not perform their best on standardized tests.  Instead the teacher is held responsible for creating a portfolio of the student's work over the year to show that they have mastered the year’s content.

    Wiki's would be a great asset for portfolio based assessment.  The reason for this is that a teacher or student can upload student's assignments to the wiki with little trouble, for safe keeping.  This makes storage or sending it to the grading committee a non-issue.  The teacher would be made the wiki’s moderator, so that the student free to contribute, and make alterations but at the end of the day the teacher is the one who decides wiki.  This prevents the student or anyone else from permanently altering any assignments once they have been submitted and finalized.  Also using a wiki allows a teacher to use more than just written assignments to show that a student understands the content.  Students could add podcasts as they talk about content, photos of visual based assessments, or even a teacher could video record skits and other performance based assessments and upload them onto the wiki.  Since the point of a portfolio based assessment is to allow for differentiation when grading a student, a wiki is definitely a way to allow this.

     Another great use for a wiki as a medium for a portfolio is that it is accessible for the student, teachers, and guardians to look at whenever they want.  This allows the involved to watch for student growth or trouble.  With the information only a few clicks away the student and guardians at the very least will be able to stay informed of student achievement before it is too late for any changes to occur.  I know that my parents would have loved to have been kept up to date on my progress, and would be sure to alter my behaviors if progress was not being made. The benefit for teachers extends to more than just the teacher for that year.  Teachers who have the student the next year could also benefit from seeing a student's work the year prior.  In this way they can better prepare for the student's strengths, weaknesses and maybe able to notice trends before the student has left their class for the year.

     In the end, I think that a wiki has amazing potential for use in an educational setting.  They could be used as a project based assessment to make sure that a student has mastered a certain SoL.  They also can be used in a setting such as portfolios to monitor progress, and ensure that a student is taking in more than just one unit's worth of SoL's.