How+to+use+Penzu



Penzu is a website oriented to any person who likes writing and wants to keep an online journal.

Penzu is ideal for students to have electronic portfolios. An e-portfolio is a digital collection of a person's pieces of writing. The advantage is that it can be easily edited and shared with the world or just with the teacher or classmates.

With Penzu, you can even attach pictures right next to your writings, which will appear on very realistic sheets of paper inside a thick leather notebook.

When you first access Penzu a blank page will appear. You have to sign up to become a member. (It's free) press the green "sign up" button and fill in your data.

When you have become a member, you are ready to start writing.

Write on the blank page and add a picture.

How to add a picture:

1º Press the camera button



If you want to choose a picture from your computer, then press "go" below the computer icon and browse your picture in your files.

You can add to your "entry photos" bank as many pictures as you like.



From the bank of photos you can either drag them to the page where you are writing (picture 1) or attach them at the margin of the page (picture 2)

Picture 1

Picture 2



Go to "entries" to see all the list of entries you have opened. To go to your list of entries click on the button circled on this picture.



From there, you can select the entry you want to modify and use the tools above the list to open, erase, rename, print them and other functions.

When you are logged in and you open you journal in Penzu, it looks like this:



Ask your students to create their own journal online. They have to write all their final drafts in their e-portfolio.

The criteria of evaluation of a portfolio is different from any other technique. Here we evaluate the progress and not so much the product. The objective is that the students reflect on their improvement and develop writing and thinking skills. It's not so important how well the studens accomplish the tasks, but how they accomplish them and if they are making headway.

Mariana Garrone