e-Portfolios – a parent's perspective

Justin: thank you Sophie. That leads us into a parent's perspective. I would like to introduce Turanita Tipene who is Te Ropere's mother. She will tell you about how learning journals have impacted their family.

Turanita: Thank you Justin for that introduction and I just want to say thank you to the children for the marvelous job they have done so far. It is scary getting up in front of a whole bunch of adults, so well done to you all. And I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here, me and my little bubs so.

I'm really excited and passionate about education for children and when they first introduced the parent portal as they called it, I sort of thought oh goodness. I actually had to ask my son to help me to log on and he was the one that taught me, you need a password from Mr Bradbeer, so we got the password and everything sorted out and away we went.

It is awesome because it instantly connects me to the classroom environment. I'm able to see what the teacher's comments, I'm able to see how he is interacting with his peers, and check on how his learning is going. And I have to say from my own observations it is a powerful learning tool. It really has helped my son, and I'm sure all the other children as well, to really encourage them to be independent thinkers. I mean we're in such a powerful business if you like, encouraging and nurturing our young children, because they're our leaders of the future, they're our problem solvers and they're our think tanks that are going to be solving some of the world's big problems. And it all starts here with these simple reflective questions, you know, asking for feedback from peers, I just think it is a wonderful, wonderful tool. And empowering him really and the others to really become that lifelong learner and to achieve and make a difference.

I enjoy watching my son's little comments he makes to his friends online. I tried to help show my son how I used to do long division back in the day, he mentioned to a friend of his that he didn't understand what his mum was teaching him and then the friend said, why didn't you understand what your mum was teaching, not to embarrass you son, but it was a good learning thing for me. Hey, I need to sort of take a little bit of a reflect, am I explaining things properly? Rather than just telling him and expecting him to, you know put the knowledge in there and expecting him to understand, but you know, but rehash it and even connect a little bit more with my son.

A great tool if you are a busy, busy mum. I have four sons, my oldest is a college student. He is diagnosed Aspergers, so he is on the autism spectrum which is a lot of work. So this convenience of being able to log on whenever I want to, go in and have a look at what's been going down, what's been going on, where he is at in his learning, is really great for me as a parent with all that I have going on. It is wonderful.

And it is great to have that connection between, you know, the parents and the kids and their learning. So I've really enjoyed it. It is a wonderfully positive channel to improve their confidence really. They are not afraid to give a few questions to their peers or take the feedback. Like kids were saying, it wasn't my best work but I'll throw it out there anyway, get your feedback and see what you think.

At Red Beach School we have very much a whānau feeling in our school. We are all looking after each other. It takes a village to raise a child, and this is one of the little tools that can help us to do that for our children, and to support their learning. So I'm really excited about this and I know the kids are really excited about it because my son is on it any chance he can get. It is a little bit addictive. Younger brother wants to get time on the computer, "He's playing games" "No he's not, he's doing homework". So it is a good example too for the others in the house. So, yeah, again passionate about this and hope we've been able to share with you about what helps us and helps our children. Thank you.