Sessions
The Power of Digital Portfolios for Primary School Students at the iEARN Conference
Lisa Lau
www.educoa.org
Lisa Lau was born and raised in New York City. Throughout her professional career, she has maintained a passion for empowering youth through education and new learning opportunities. She has worked almost a decade in the international development field, including at World Links, an international education nonprofit, the World Bank,...Read Full Bio
Lisa Lau
Lisa Lau was born and raised in New York City. Throughout her professional career, she has maintained a passion for empowering youth through education and new learning opportunities. She has worked almost a decade in the international development field, including at World Links, an international education nonprofit, the World Bank, and at the International City Management Association (ICMA). She has managed international programs funded by USAID, US SOUTHCOM, and the World Bank.
While attaining her master's degree in International Education Policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, she examined the education system and the entrepreneurial climate in Ghana. She and her classmate put together a social enterprise business plan to address how to transform the way youth learn in school to inspire them to innovate, which later served as the platform to eventually launch EDUCOA. Lisa graduated from Brown University with a double major in Anthropology and International Relations.
Session Description
Youth today are growing up in an incredibly digitally connected and technologically advanced time. Without the experience of communicating and organizing information using the internet and electronic means, youth from under-resourced areas are especially at a disadvantage in the global market. This skills gap has contributed to a high rate of youth unemployment in sub Saharan African countries, such as Ghana. The organization that I started, EDUCOA, has introduced the use of digital portfolios (DPs) that allows students to record their assignments on a digital platform throughout the school year. This ignite will share my experience and challenges in implementing this model.
What will educators learn and be able to do at the end of the session?
The goals of the session will be to:
1) Introduce the concept of Digital Portfolios and the Evernote platform, in which DPs are created and maintained.
2) Present on how EDUCOA's students are making use of DPs and how it boosts digital literacy.
3) Present on challenges, successes, and potential of the methodology.
Additional Session Information
We believe that engaging students in creating DPs at an early age will help students gain practical digital skills, learn to set goals, be prompted to think about their identity and how to present themselves to their classmates and teachers, and later on to other parties and the world, which are all critical skills needed for their future professional development. EDUCOA seeks to help every primary school student to create their own DP by the time they leave primary school so that they can consolidate and demonstrate their skills and achievements and continue to build their DPs for future endeavors.
With approval from the Ghana Ministry of Education, EDUCOA launched a pilot program with three schools in 2015 and have expanded to eight schools in 2018, with the focus of developing DPs for students. Continually improving on our methodology, EDUCOA has also introduced the use of smart phones and tablets to facilitate working on DPs in the classroom. EDUCOA also invests in teacher training to help teachers gain confidence in incorporating technology in the classroom, and provide support to teachers and students throughout the year.
Session Resources
The Power of Digital Portfolios - Ignite Slides
This is the presentation for the Ignite Session, consisting of a cover slide + 20 slides.
EDUCOA website
This is EDUCOA's website that will allow the audience to learn more about organization and activities/methodology, including DPs.
EDUCOA Brochure
This flyer provides more information on EDUCOA, to go along with the Ignite talk on DPs.
EDUCOA Device Donation Flyer download this related session resource!">
This flyer is to raise awareness of EDUCOA's efforts to collect devices for our schools to work on Digital Portfolios.