This post first appeared on Edutopia. Learn more from Avra on Twitter: @avrarachel

Throwing items away has never been a skill of mine. That feeling of “I might use this someday” only worsened when I became a teacher and then a mother. My “keep or toss” decisions became clouded by sentimentality, and I couldn’t bring myself to throw away the precious gems my daughter created in school.

But the large artifacts she brought home eventually created a storage issue, so I began taking pictures of them and getting rid of some. I didn’t realize it at the time, but by digitizing those physical artifacts and storing the photos on my computer, I had started creating her digital portfolio.

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