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Building Student Portfolios

Learn best practices for how students can save and organize their CodeHS work for their portfolio.

Talia Smith avatar
Written by Talia Smith
Updated over a week ago

A student portfolio is a collection of work that shows what a student has learned and created over time. It highlights skills, accomplishments, and growth. A helpful best practice is to encourage students to add work to their portfolio regularly, including assignments that show both progress and mastery, so their portfolio tells the story of their learning.

CodeHS supports the creation of student portfolios in a couple of ways:

  • Every student has access to a personal Sandbox where they can save and share code. Each program can be shared as a URL that allows others to run it, with or without seeing the code. Students keep access to their Sandbox even after they are no longer assigned to a class section, so their portfolio remains available in their CodeHS account.

  • Students can download code from assignments or their Sandbox to save or share anywhere.

Using the Sandbox as a Student Portfolio

The Sandbox provides a personal space where students can save, organize, and share programs over time.

Copy Code to the Sandbox

To add a program to the Sandbox:

  1. Open the program (assignment, project, etc.) in the code editor.

  2. Select and copy the code from the code editor.

  3. Create a new program in your Sandbox and paste the code there.

Screenshot of the create program button in the Sandbox

Note: If copy/paste is restricted in your class, students may need to download the code first and then create a new Sandbox program from an uploaded file. To download the code, refer to the directions here.

To upload a file to the Sandbox:

  1. Click the down arrow next to the Create Program button.

  2. Click Upload from Zip.

Screenshot of the Upload from Zip option you get from clicking the down arrow on the create program button

Students can upload files to their Sandbox if they’ve downloaded code previously and want to continue working on it in CodeHS, or if they’re importing code created outside of the platform.

Organizing Sandbox Programs

Students can create folders to organize programs however they'd like to, such as by class, school year, or project type.

To create a folder:

  1. Click the Create Folder button.

  2. Enter a name for the folder.

  3. Click Create Folder.

Gif demonstration showing how to Create a folder in the sandbox

To move a program to a folder:

  1. Click the three "..." dots next to the program.

  2. Click Move to Folder.

  3. Choose a folder and click Move to Folder.

GIF showing how to click the three dots next to a Sandbox program and choose the option to add it to a Sandbox folder

Sharing Code in the Sandbox

There are many ways for students to share a Sandbox program. One way is to click Share on the program to get a URL to share with others, where they can choose to show or hide the code.

Screenshot of the code editor highlighting the share button

Check out this article for more information on how students can share Sandbox programs and adjust sharing settings.

Downloading Code

Students can download the code for any assignments or Sandbox programs on CodeHS as a Zip or .txt file, regardless of the programming language. This can be useful for saving personal copies of their work, tracking their progress over time, or sharing projects outside of CodeHS (for example, in a digital portfolio or on GitHub).

To download code:

  1. Go to the CodeHS code editor and click the More tab.

  2. Under More, select Download.

  3. Click Download Code as Zip file or Download Code as a .txt file.

Gif showing user clicking More and download tabs

Still have questions? Contact our team at hello@codehs.com to learn more!

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