iChat with Class

I did an online iChat with a class in Fresno last night. Most of the questions asked were very insightful (with a summary of my response):

• What is the advantage of all the work required to do a portfolio electronically? (there isn't if you are only doing text-based portfolios... for me the real advantage is two-fold: adding multimedia elements, especially video; and communication, better able to share the portfolios with a wider, but intentional, private audience)
• What do parents think about electronic portfolios? (I've never really asked them...even though I have done several presentations on family involvement in e-portfolio development. I only have experience from my own family, but I imagine the parents at Mt. Edgecumb, a boarding school in Alaska, appreciate seeing their children's work; but the motivation behind the question had to do with confidentiality of information, which is another reason that I am not a fan of web-based portfolios for children)
  
• Can I do this with very little technology access, like a single mobile computer cart in a high school? (frankly, no... unless you can leverage the technology that is in homes, which was not likely in low-income communities)

We also used Tapped In to send web pages (type "/project URL" in chat window) to each participant logged in to the chat room. It worked on previous ocassions, but last night, I found it to be too distracting (based on the chatter in the chat session), and I think in the future, I will create a single web page with all of the links I want them to visit in a short time frame.