A social electronic learning system, including a plurality of computing devices for communicating with a plurality of users in an educational community, and at least one server in communication with each of the plurality of computing devices, each server in communication with at least one data storage device configured to host a plurality of electronic portfolios, each electronic portfolio associated with one or more users of the plurality of users in the educational community, wherein each server is configured such that one or more users may associate one or more digital items with each electronic portfolio, and the plurality of users may take actions on the digital items in each electronic portfolio depending on authorization criteria.