There are many ways in which writing can be assessed. I prefer to teach writing using a process strategy, and I feel that this is also a good way to assess students' writing skills. One of the ways I do this is by creating a writing portfolio. Writing portfolios are collections of a student's work, which showcase their writing, and while a portfolio can contain all of their writing samples, it usually contains only select pieces. The pieces included usually show writing assignments from the beginning of the course until the end, which shows their growth as a writer.

Using Moodle, there are many ways to do this. You have the option to use external portfolio software like Elgg or Mahara. Elgg is an open source social network package that allows you to create local or school-wide social networks. This can be used in different ways and could be set up to act as a portfolio. For more information about Elgg, check the following site: http://elgg.org/. Mahara, however, was created to be a free and open source e-portfolio package that offers a lot of options for personalization and acts as a social networking system, and most importantly, it integrates very well with Moodle.

So, what can Mahara do? Well, like Moodle, it allows users to set up personalized profiles including usernames, contact information, messaging options, and so on. It also allows users to make decisions on who can access their work and network and allows for easy teacher-student and student-student communication.

In the portfolio section, Mahara has developed an easy and intuitive way to lay out the pages. Students can choose which blocks they want to display by simply clicking and dragging the blocks into their display layout. Students have the option to include: files, folders, images, RSS feeds, blogs, and so on.

The drawback with Mahara is that it requires a server to run it and if you are using a hosted site, this could prove problematic for you. We did not go into too much detail about Mahara here other than a brief overview, but I recommend going to its site at http://mahara.org to look at the demo, sign up for a free portfolio, and see if it is something you would like to use in your class or school. If it is, the installation process is well-documented and fairly easy to follow. You can find more information about the installation process at: http://wiki.mahara.org/ System_Administrator%27s_Guide/Installing_Mahara.

Another option for creating writing portfolios is using a blogging site. Blogging sites like Blogger.com or Wordpress.com offer free blog hosting and using these services, you can upload your work, comments, images, as well as allow others to read and comment on your posts.

Moodle also offers contributed portfolio modules. One of the more useful options available is the Exabis e-portfolio block. It can be used for nearly everything you could want in a portfolio, from note-taking and uploading files to a place to store all your favorite links. It is well-documented and we will not go into how to set it up since all the information related to it is available in detail on the Moodle.org site by going to this link: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Exabis_e-portfolio_block.

Another option, and the one we will look at, is using Forum to create portfolio-type activities. We can use Forums to create places where students can show their work as well as give and get feedback. Personally, I find Forums to be some of the most useful places to write and assess writing, since the entire interaction and all the drafts are included in the thread, which can be browsed anytime, allowing feedback to be reviewed and acted on, as well as allowing the instructor to rate each thread in a variety of ways. We will go through how to set up a very basic way of creating a portfolio for your students using Forums.