Teachers can use Exibi to help students think about their progress toward learning targets or other outcomes. Students can upload artifacts and link them to a specific target and reflect on their progress toward the outcome. The metacognition involved in choosing what to share and how to organize it helps them own the learning and data. The published portfolios could be used at conferences to help inform parents of student learning. It could also be used by students to synthesize the learning of a specific case study or class. Teachers could guide students in creating meaningful resumes and portfolios that might help secure internships or jobs, or to submit as part of the college admissions process.
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Exibi is a specialized product for producing and publishing eportfolios. It includes tools to collect and organize student work into curated collections. Students can reflect on their work and include these reflections in published portfolios. In line with Common Core, Exibi encourages students to support claims with evidence. Students can link various artifacts to a learning outcome and reflect on how they met the outcome. These claims can be added to the portfolio. Before students can publish their work, it must be approved by a teacher. Once approved, many sharing options are available. Exibi can serve as a walled garden for sharing work. A school can allow sharing only within its community or choose to open up the portfolios to the world.
Exibi is organized hierarchically, starting with artifacts (student work). Artifacts can be uploaded or hyperlinked. Students can then group artifacts into collections. Collections are the place where claims and reflections are added. Multiple collections can be organized into portfolios, which are called exhibits. A resume tool is also included. Artifacts and collections can be added to resumes.
Exibi's hierarchical structure creates lots of flexibility and enables students to think carefully about how to organize their work. When used well, Exibi is a strong learning tool because students need to reflect carefully on what artifacts to upload and how to curate them. The tool requires deeper thinking to produce a quality portfolio, especially if the claims option is used. While Exibi has strong potential as a flexible learning tool, its hierarchical organization makes it challenging to get started. A new set of vocabulary and a unique interface must be mastered before students can make progress on a portfolio. The various layers add flexibility -- but also complexity. Exibi displays links to student work in the portfolio, but it would be much easier to navigate if the work were displayed directly in the portfolio. It takes many steps to upload, organize, and view the portfolios, which might be more tedious than rewarding.