Today I learned that Barack Obama talked about the use of digital portfolios for student assessment in a speech he gave on November 20, 2007 in New Hampshire. This made me wonder how he might have learned about what we do in New Hampshire with our ICT literacy standards and the digital portfolio requirement. I suppose it could have been (a) some NH educator discussed it with him at one of his informal campaign stops along the way or (b) someone on his campaign staff was responsible for doing a little homework on what’s happening in education in our state. Regardless of how this came about, I think it’s pretty cool that digital portfolios were even thought about on the campaign trail. Here’s what he said:
New Hampshire has been a leader on this. You’ve developed innovative assessments, including digital portfolios, to develop and demonstrate student proficiency in technology, science, and other core content areas, and there’s no reason we can’t start replicating this all across the country.