Digication Partners with Whipplehill to Provide e-Portfolios for Independent Schools:
Partnership Enables Schools to Integrate e-Portfolios with Whipplehill’s Solutions

Digication(TM) Inc., a leading provider of e-Portfolios, today announced that it has partnered with Whipplehill Communications, Inc., the leader in independent school software systems, to provide its customers with e-Portfolios for students and teachers to showcase work, collaborate on projects and prepare for college admissions.

Providence, RI (PRWEB) July 7, 2008 — Digication(TM) Inc., a leading provider of e-Portfolios, today announced that it has partnered with Whipplehill Communications, Inc., the leader in independent school software systems, to provide its customers with e-Portfolios for students and teachers to showcase work, collaborate on projects and prepare for college admissions.

WhippleHill has been helping advance and market private and independent schools through content-management software and award-winning Web designs since 1998, serving more than 300 schools in 30 states, Canada, Europe and Asia. Adding Digication’s e-Portfolio solution to Whipplehill’s market-leading Podium product, will provide schools a rich and easy to use e-Portfolio platform for classroom, project, college-prep and marketing purposes.

The partnership with Digication will enable WhippleHill customers to seamlessly integrate and display student work on their portals using Digication’s e-Portfolios. Using a single sign-on to access e-Portfolios, students can upload illustrations, poetry, short stories, papers, photography, PDFs, HTML, video and Flash projects. A channel in Whipplehill’s Podium can pull student portfolios to display thumbnail images on the portal, increasing exposure to student work.

“The idea of e-Portfolios has long been discussed by our clients, but so far we’ve never had the opportunity for such an integrated solution, where portfolios can be made this easily,” Travis Warren, president of WhippleHill, said. “The potential rewards reach beyond the work students have produced in class. From what we can tell, more and more colleges are looking for precisely this in their admission decisions.”

More than 2,000 schools have deployed the Digication e-Portfolio solution. Its Web-based e-Portfolios allow educators and students to share ideas and achievements, improve communication and expand the educational experience beyond the classroom. With Digication, teachers can easily archive classroom progress for future reference. Students’ work can be published to the Web to be shared with other students and family members. Since Digication is easy to use, teachers and students can instantly become engaged in building an e-Portfolio and work towards college acceptance.

“We’re excited about the opportunity to partner with a clear leader in independent school software systems,” says Jeffrey Yan, CEO of Digication. “To look at the current generation of learners – their culture, their lifestyles, their needs – we know that they are already engaged in many social networks and communities online outside of school. The idea of a community is not foreign to them. e-Portfolios will help build a rich and engaging online community that is based on authentic work and will provide additional motivation, better engagement and hopefully even better work.”

About WhippleHill Communications, Inc.:
Since 1998, WhippleHill Communications has been helping advance and market private and independent schools through content-management software and award-winning Web designs, serving more than 300 schools in 30 states, Canada, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit http://www.whipplehill.com/.

About Digication, Inc.:
Designed by educators, for educators, Digication is a leading provider of easy-to-use e-Portfolio solutions for teachers and students at all levels, from K-12 to higher education. Students at more than 1,500 schools use Digication’s e-Portfolios to easily, flexibly and professionally showcase their work and achievements across schools and districts. e-Portfolios create new opportunities for learning, reflection, communication, assessment and career advancement. Digication is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island. For more information, visit http://www.digication.com.

Michael Skeldon, a teacher and Academic Dean at the art-focused Beacon Charter School, created a portfolio to lead seniors through their Capstone project. This project is a required element in the State of Rhode Island’s Performance-Based Graduation Requirements.

For the project, students create an autobiographical film. They use Digication to post each component of the process, from journal entries exploring potential ideas through several revisions of the screenplay. In addition, students must comment on other students’ work at each step of the process. Upon completion of their projects, students must present their films to a panel of judges consisting of artists and other stakeholders from the community as well as faculty and staff from Beacon. The Capstone process culminates in a public film festival at the historic Stadium Theatre in Woonsocket, RI.

Mike’s portfolio has detailed information for students, such as the Capstone schedule, syllabus, links to each student’s portfolio as well as resources that assist with various phases of the project.

Students create an academic portfolio in the ninth grade and update it throughout their studies at Beacon. In addition, students are working on their own portfolios which include some of their Capstone project process as well as other information about their experience at Beacon Charter.

Links:
Mr. Skeldon’s Capstone Course 2007-2008
Beacon Charter School e-Portfolio Directory

We found this grant and thought some of you would be interested in applying. It’s through the National Endowment For the Arts and focuses on youth art education. By creating the grant, “the Arts Endowment hopes to call attention to projects that recognize and cultivate best practices in the field of arts education for children and youth”. The grant offers from $5,000 to $100,000.
For more information, take a look at the following links:
Grant information from grants.gov
Detailed description on the NEA page

The deadline is June 9th, 2008, so don’t wait!

To counteract falling test scores and high dropout rates, Hope High School was reorganized into three smaller learning communities in 2002. Several teachers from the arts-based Hope Arts have Digication portfolios, including English and Writing Development teacher Megan Thoma, who set up her e-Portfolio “as a tool for the students in my classes, their parents, and anyone interested in the work being done at Hope”. She says:

“I like how easy it is to update. When I mentioned that I posted homework every day on my site, my students teased me and suggested I spent hours online. Little do they know, it takes me thirty seconds before I head out the door to go home.”

Links:
Megan’s e-Portfolio
Hope Arts e-Portfolio

Here are some great new e-Portfolios we wanted to share with you. We feature our favorite e-Portfolios on the Digication home page and also on our pages of recommended teacher and student e-Portfolios. If you have one you’re proud of, send us a link through the contact page!

Curvin McCabe Visual Arts: 6th Grade Flat Pack Toy Design
Brian Hutcheson, recent alumni of Rhode Island School of Design’s Art + Design Education Department, created this portfolio to highlight a fantastic Flat Pack Toy lesson. It’s filled with incredible student work and resources for teachers in any discipline to create Flat Pack Toys with their students. The Flat Pack Toy template as well the student creations can be downloaded as pdfs so you can create your own!

Pickerington High School Central Art Department
Pickerington High School
This e-Portfolio helps art students at Pickerington High choose their art classes by offering an interactive syllabus for each class, complete with work samples and detailed descriptions of each lesson. Students can also be inspired by senior portfolios and find out about the school’s Art Club.

Artists Abroad
Smithfield High School
Three art teachers take students on an exciting 20-day trip abroad to France, Italy and Greece. Their e-Portfolio includes a detailed schedule, information about the places they’re visiting, daily photos, and more.

Bell High Literary Arts Magazine
Bell High School
An art and a writing class at Bell High joined forces to create this multi-media literary magazine. It does a great job highlighting the talents of both classes, including videos, poems, photo collages visualizing poetry, and more.