I often get asked by teachers about the best way to easily share ePortfolios from Blackboard Learn.  More specifically I am asked to show how students can share their academic accomplishments while undertaking their graduate/post-graduate programs.

Sharing an ePortfolio in Blackboard Learn is a quick and easy process. Students can share their ePortfolio with others, both within HCT (e.g. peers, teachers) and outside (e.g. with potential employers).  Every time a student wishes to share his/her ePortfolio with other users (e.g. their peers, teachers, potential employers), they can create a static snapshot of that portfolio (in its current ‘state’) at that given point in time.  So typically what gets shared is really the static snapshot of their ePortfolio.  If students choose to make edits that they want to share, they will need to share the ePortfolio again.

Let me explain with an example.  Let’s say a student in a two year graduate program is required to maintain an ePortfolio over the duration of his/her program which represents his/her learning activities and reflections. The student may be required by the teacher to provide this ePortfolio for evaluation each semester over the duration of four semesters of their study program. The student shares his/her ePortfolio, which creates a snapshot of the portfolio at the time of evaluation, but he/she can also continue to work on further iterations of that ePortfolio without interfering with its evaluation.

 

A typical ePortfolio created in Blackboard Learn