Creating digital portfolios is a great way to empower students voice and motivate them to actively engage in the learning process. Learning, however, is a process, a life-long one and we need to approach it as such. Portfolios emphasize the ‘process’ nature in learning and represent it as a social practice. Through portfolios students get to showcase their learning, document their progress, and express their voice.
There are several tools to help students create digital portfolios and we have already covered some of them in previous posts. In today’s post I am sharing with you this handy Google Sites template called Student Portfolio. This is probably one of the easiest ways to create a portfolio website without having to worry about HTML and CSS coding. Everything is pre-made: sections, pages, placeholders, etc. Students can customize the site by adding their personal touch. Here are some tips on how they can go about editing the portfolio site:
To access Student Portfolio template, click on Template Gallery from Google Sites’ home screen.
1- Add/delete Pages
This template comes with three pages: Home, Classes, and Activities. Students can easily delete or add new pages. Here is how:
-Open the Student Portfolio template
– Click on Pages on the right hand sidebar
– To add a page click on the plus button in the bottom and select new page
-To delete a section on a page click on it then click on the bin icon on the left hand side
2- Change background
To change the background of a certain section in your page click on the section you want to edit and select the palette icon from the left hand side. Choose one of the four options there. The fourth option allows you to add an image as a background to your section.
3- Insert sections into pages
To add a section into an existing page in the Student Portfolio site, click on Insert on the sidebar on the right, scroll down to Layouts and select one of the options there.
4- Add content to pages and sections
To add content to your Student Portfolio website, click on a section, then on Insert and choose from the options there. You can add a Docs, Slides, Sheets, a map, a calendar, a Youtube video, table of contents, text box, and many more.
When the site is ready click on publish in the top right corner. Voila! Student portfolio is now live.
