Assessment + bulb Digital Portfolios

bulb Digital Portfolios is the place to store artifacts of learning from any form of assessment. It is both the creation and curation place where students take ownership of their learning, activate metacognition, and reflection. Digital portfolios allow educators to see their students apply the learning and help gauge the student’s understanding of the learning process.

The platform makes it easy for students and educators to find all of their assessments in one place, instead of scrolling through an LMS. Other apps used for assessment like FlipGrip, Google Forms, Nearpod, etc, can all be embedded within bulb. No matter the type of assessment you use to meet your classroom’s needs, bulb makes it easy to assess a student’s speaking, reading, writing, listening, and critical thinking skills.

The Results

With users around the world, bulb has a unique perspective into the results of pairing alternative assessment and digital portfolios. From speaking with bulb users, we’ve compiled a list of the top 8 results teachers, parents, and students experience:

Documenting growth over time: A digital portfolio tracks student work from year to year, showing a holistic view of their growth over time. Here is an example from a 3rd grader, Kaden, who shows his writing progression over the years. Other forms of summative assessments can be documented in bulb—like unit reflections, final projects, or final portfolio reviews to show process and progress over time. Educators can also provide rubrics within a bulb page to help guide students when completing assignments.

Encouraging creativity: bulb digital portfolios gives students options in how they express their learning. They can add interactive media, outside sources, audio recordings, videos, and images to truly show what they know and make the learning their own. Students in this bulb page created a video to show they fully understood the science principle they were learning about.

Metacognition: Digital portfolios show the process of learning, helping students identify their strengths and weaknesses. Because students can document each step, this encourages them to reflect on what they did and become more aware of their thought process. See how an 8th grader, Angela Olsen, reflects on personal goals within her portfolio.

Ownership of learning: bulb is built for life. When a student graduates, or moves, they can take their work with them by adding a personal email address to their account. , Over time, students who have actively used their digital portfolio will be able to see all of their work and accomplishments. Seeing the whole picture of their growth encourages them to continually learn. William Robinson III has built his portfolio since college and over the course of his career, and it shows the remarkable outcomes of having a digital portfolio for life.

Personalized learning: When master teacher Belinda Medellin uses digital portfolios to assess her students, she can easily give them personalized feedback and instruction. Digital portfolios help her keep track of each student’s progress with each subject she teaches. Having a tangible record of a student’s work that she can access at any time allows her to respond to each of her student’s goals and identify how she can help them achieve them.

Displaying capabilities & competencies: Digital portfolios help students display capabilities and competencies. A great example of this is Caroline Schulze’s portfolio. As a civil engineering student at the Oregon Institute of Technology, she uses her portfolio to keep track of her diverse interests and talents. She then shows to her portfolio visitors how she brings her learning and talents together in her Capstone Project, providing evidence of what she’s capable of.

Iteration: Learning is an iterative process and assessments help the learner identify where they are at. With a dynamic digital portfolio, students can revisit and build upon their past work. They can take feedback and apply it, and see the progression of their learning. Shrayes G, an art student, captured evidence of composition over multiple years.

Learning beyond the classroom: Work can be done within a digital portfolio at any time, from anywhere, on any device. For educators using authentic assessments, this is a dream come true. Students can be encouraged to engage with the world outside of the classroom then share it in their digital portfolio. These experiences can then be easily shared with teachers, future employers, colleges, and peers. Take a look at Derrell Walker, who started using his digital portfolio to document coursework, and is now using it to document his career in culinary arts.

One thing is for sure: No matter the form of assessment, when paired with a digital portfolio the results are dynamic.
What results will you discover?

bulb + is free for educators, always. Try bulb.