Darija Hohnjec, Vrtec Rogaška Slatina

The child’s porfolio has appeared in Slovenian preschool in 1999. During the last years the “classic” child’s portfolio that mostly appeared in paper form, has been transformed in the e-portfolio. A modern child’s portfolio is based on the same theoretical principles as before but contains evidence mostly obtained and saved with ICT. As a kindergarten teacher I have formed and used portfolios in my educational work for more than fifteenth years. Analysis and interpretations of the collected evidence help me in effective teaching of young children. Portfolios provide additional information on the strategies and the effects of children’s learning: about designing  their theories, planning, interests, problems, social commpetences of participation with their peers etc. Such monitoring allows the identification and upgrading of child’s strong and weak areas, authentic audio and video records contribute to more frequent evaluation of participants.

Children’s portfolios can also be used for a meaningful planning of activities. As example: designs of children documented in the e-portfolios were used in the project Designing of Our New Classroom. I added children’s comments to their design ideas which were drawn by hands and by Painter program, and forwarded them to our headmaster. They will be taken into consideration in renovation of our new classroom. In this case ICT documents showed rich and diverse activities and allowed the teacher to get clearer insight into learning and participation of children.