Are you planning to introduce digital portfolios this school year? Book Creator is a fantastic tool teachers can use to capture student learning journeys. It’s an adaptable, student-friendly platform you can use throughout the school year. I love how flexible it is for student projects, particularly for capturing a collection of student work.
The beginning of the school year is the perfect time to introduce students to the concept of a digital portfolio. They can set up their ebook so they have a space to document their learning starting on day one. Or they can start collecting projects to put into a portfolio library — a new option in Book Creator. Book Creator’s simple interface allows students of all ages to showcase and celebrate their learning in a digital portfolio.
Today on the blog, we’ll explore how you can use Book Creator for digital portfolios in any subject area at any age!
Digital Portfolios with Book Creator
If you’ve followed along with the blog and podcast for a while, you know I’m a super fan of Book Creator. I’ve had the chance to work with their team in the past to create resources for teachers. And I love sharing this dynamic, creative tool with educators and students. So, I’m very excited today to spotlight how educators can use Book Creator for digital portfolios.
Starting at any age, students can set up a digital portfolio in Book Creator. Then they’ll have one platform that travels alongside them. From kindergarten or elementary school students to all the way to graduation, you can use digital portfolios in the way that fits best with the needs of your group. And now there is a new feature that gives students their own My Portfolio Library in Book Creator for domain (school and district) customers. With this new feature, their portfolio stays with them year after year!
Book Creator’s student-friendly user interface makes it easy enough to use in elementary school but sophisticated enough to use with middle and high school students. The adaptability and flexibility of this platform is one of the reasons I love sharing it with teachers. Teachers can control whether students can add books to their own portfolio through their library settings. Their portfolio library can follow them from the first year they get started (maybe kindergarten or first grade) through graduation.
Boost Engagement with Digital Portfolios
When you open Book Creator, you’ll see right away how it is the perfect hub to showcase work across all media, subjects, and grades. Students can snap pictures or record videos to add to their pages, use voice-to-text or audio recordings, and so much more. There is also the option to annotate an image, draw a picture, or use graphic organizers.
Book Creator is also accessible enough to allow students with special needs and multilingual learners to thrive. You’ll find options to add alt-text to any image on a page and the ability to add captions to videos. There is even a quick way to access Open Dyslexic font. These features ensure every student has exactly what they need to showcase and celebrate their learning.
One of the reasons Book Creator is always high on my list of tools to share with teachers is how well it works with other tools, too. This makes it an especially great choice for students who might create a digital learning artifact (like a movie, illustration, or podcast) in another tool. They can embed, upload, or add a link to their digital portfolio made with Book Creator to something they created in another favorite EdTech tool.
Getting Started Using Digital Portfolios with Book Creator
There are many ways to make portfolios part of your routine this school year. Book Creator is flexible enough to evolve with the needs of students and lets you both choose how to demonstrate progress over time. Students might share updates over a single semester, a school year, or the entire journey of a school year.
As much as I love using Book Creator as an open-ended tool with its blank canvas, if you want to provide more structure to students, Book Creator has made templates available to users. These new templates can help you and your students get started with digital portfolios. A simpler version is perfect for working with younger students or when you’re exploring digital portfolios for the first time.
For teachers working with older students or looking for something more complex, there is another option using a “Portfolio of a Graduate” approach. At the bottom of this landing page, you can flip through the templates to see all the pages you and your students can customize. These templates are perfect for taking digital portfolios to the next level in your classroom.
Ready to get started with digital portfolios? Learn more about how to use Book Creator for digital portfolios and get access to their new templates. I can’t wait to see what you and your students create this school year!
