Republic of the Philippines

Marcela Marcelo Elementary School

Schools Division Office - Pasay City

                    Portfolios have been used in education in different formats, in a variety of ways and for different purposes. In RPMS, it is used as evaluation tools, to showcase accomplishment, to integrate collection of work, to share work, and to support reflection and professional growth for teachers. At the beginning of school year, teachers start working to achieve required by RPMS, they need documents to show what have done so. They gather documents required only by the tool, and they need to organize those documents properly and accurately. However, it becomes a challenge to the part of the teacher the preparation and organize of documents for RPMS portfolio. The practice of the paper portfolio makes additional to their already paperwork, they must add more reports, pictures, documents, files, etc. as a proof of the attainment of set objectives. Moreover, it requires an investment in physical materials, which can get costly, not only monetarily, but also time wise. It seems to be hassle of copying and distributing hard copies then collecting them so comments or feedbacks can be placed in one master document. If the teacher needs to edit or make changes in the portfolio all relevant documents will need to be resaved with changes and then printed off.  Besides, it requires a person to physically have it with him/her always, which is bulky to lug around.  

                   These challenges in the RPMS portfolio of teachers makes the school formulate a “Project RPMS Digi-POT (Digital Portfolio of Teachers)”. Project RPMS Digi-POT is a school-based initiative that offers an alternative to a traditional paper-based portfolio. This project collects electronic evidence assembled and managed in a website. Planning/meeting was held with the School Head, Master Teachers, and Grade Leaders and unanimously approved to use the project and conduct different activities in relation to digital portfolio.  For this school year, instead of paper format portfolio the teachers in Marcela Marcelo Elementary School make a digital portfolio. The digital portfolio process includes digital creation, online storage, organization of MOVs, and presentation of portfolio artifacts via arrange of generic technologies including word processing, multimedia authoring tools, portable document format (PDF) files, and web logs. Google drive and google sites are the tools were used to create digital portfolio. All electronic evidence collected by the teachers were saved to google drive and all files are simultaneously synchronized so they can access the updated information using different gadgets. While Google sites is a website that enables the user to collate digital evidence of their electronic portfolio. All MOVs were presented and published on this site. Both tools are friendly user and free, but it requires internet connection.

                      Part in the implementation of the project is the training and technical support offer to the teachers, depending on the level of ICT skills and experience with technological tools. The proponent conducted two-session on how to use of google drive and google site in the preparation and organization of documents for RPMS digital portfolio.  After the two successful sessions with the teachers, they started collecting evidence and saved the acceptable MOVs in the google drive. Every month, the proponent provides technical assistance to the teachers on using the different tools in google site for their portfolio. Recorded videos during the training are also helpful to the teachers as the support system for their learning.

                        In three months, from the date of implementation, the digital portfolio of the teachers is partially available, because the digital portfolio process and RPMS Cycle is still on-going. But the rater can still view and assess the RPMS Digital Portfolio of Teacher for Mid-Year Review using the link provided by the ratees. Moreover, editing portfolios is very easy and anytime teachers can update or make any changes on his/her portfolio. Instead of putting the MOVs collected by the teachers at the bottom of the drawer, in a folder or in any places, teachers simply update the file on the computer and capture real-time access. With the help of this project, no more printing or photocopying more copies of portfolio, it saves money, effort, and time of the teachers. Besides, it saves the environment from the huge consumption of paper.

                        Overall, this project is helpful to the teachers because it lessens their burden of additional paperwork to their regular paperwork. The other benefit of this project is that digital portfolios can be assembled remotely and shared simply and securely. In this time of pandemic this is very convenient because of the working arrangement of the teachers and community quarantine declaration in some areas. It also addresses the issues of physical storage of all the RPMS portfolios of teachers in school. Furthermore, creation of RPMS digital portfolio is not time consuming but rather it gives time to teachers to reflect metacognitively. In the short period of time, we received positive attitudes from the teachers in regards of transitioning process of paper-based portfolio into digital portfolio.