If you look at some of the examples I have posted you will see that I fully recognise that making it available online provides a teacher with greater scope to share work – that is why I titled the examples on Google Docs “Portfolio” and not “report”.

I don’t think I have “clouded” this process at all – Google Docs is a tool that is currently in place for all our students as part of Ed Apps, and so is an ideal platform to share a portfolio with parents and pupils. A simple solution for us. Even so, the desire to share children’s successes and progress in learning in a better way was the starting point – not the tool.

I don’t see ‘on-line reporting’ as anything of this nature. If my car engine were to overheat I am sure that I would get a red light flashing or a simple message to check or drive more carefully. On an F1 race-track a black flag would tell me to pull off into the pit-lane. This is how I see on-line reporting – a flagging device that shows some sort of concern or commendation – without a long detailed explanation.

The practicality of this is relatively simple and need cause teachers no keyboard induced RSI. Teachers are well used to entering marks and even short comments which are stored in real-time on the school’s MIS. These grades can be aggregated and displayed graphically in a simple and easy to understand way. Some assessment tools, like SmatAssess do just this. These on-going results are then displayed whenever the child’s parent/carer accesses this through their Remote Access facility. Any obvious causes for concern are made obvious and indicate that parents should ‘pull over into the pit lane’.

The above simple system is in contrast to another area that you refer to and is best accommodated through an easy to use e-Portfolio system. When displaying artefacts, possibly with the invitation for comment, the e-Portfolio is the best tool to manage the formative feedback and even repeated ‘conversations’ without the need to clutter up the MIS. This is where the progress in, say, handwriting or practical activity can be documented so much more naturally and, even, across different schools.

I fear that your starting point with Google Docs has possibly clouded what, in my mind, can be a very simple solution for teachers and parents alike.

IWB could do lots of old things in new ways but it was always the transformed learning experience that was important to me. For example not just doing handwriting on the IWB like any old blackboard or whiteboard – but transforming it through the use of notebook recording software and video playback of writing demonstrations.

Much the same is needed here, something new. But we still have to ensure it is practical and manageable from the parents point of view. It has to build upon what we know is good not just completely reinvent. There has to be a fine balance and I hope over the summer I will be able to find it.

I would appreciate your thoughts on the overall structure of the report and what you would consider to work well in this way.

I am pleased you consider this post important and would appreciate your thoughts on the style and structure of the report itself.

Thanks for the comment.

Thanks for digging into the “safe harbour” topic. I’ve been trampling about in that area, and what you’ve learned is helpful to me.

You’re right to be wary of computerising the existing batch reports system. New technologies, if we’re not careful, are too often used simply to do the same things, but we need to think what new possibilities they enable.

I agree with your use of the term portfolio, and am struck by the way your re-thinking of reporting is starting to look very like ePearl, a system I learned about from Dan Isele when he visited earlier in the year, and which we’re planning to try out. As you’ll see from the site, ePearl starts not from a technical approach, say by aiming to build a VLE, but from what we know is pedagogically effective, and uses tech to support those effective activities. These include goal-setting, peer feedback and parental involvement, for example.

I really am rather buoyed by the ‘Safe Harbour’ information you’ve discovered and now my mind’s buzzing with ideas.

Thanks Tom!