Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Digital Portfolios- Beginning the Process

One of my main tasks this year is to pilot the implementation of digital portfolios. Right now it is an amorphous idea, and I need to (very quickly) make it concrete so that I can go back to sleeping at night.

First steps-
1. Decide to focus on grades K, 5 and 8. --DONE
2. Decide what platform to use for the portfolios. We have decided to use wp multi-user, hosted on our website. Each student will have their own site for their portfolio. --( sites have been set up/are currently being set up. I need to follow up on this and finish creating sites that have yet to be set up.)

Next steps:
-Meet with teachers to formulate a timeline, standards and process for artifact collection and evaluation/reflection.
-explore resources and examples. Formulate a template or templates and a plan for each grade K, 5 and 8.

Process, thoughts, and ideas:
-Met with 8th grade language arts teacher.
We assigned tasks:
•Teacher is responsible for creating a rubric for the language arts section of the portfolio.
•Teacher is responsible for deciding on required work samples to be included in the portfolio.
•I am responsible for creating a template and a timeline.
We discussed having each student present their portfolio at the end of the year to a group of adults (parents, principal, teachers, representative from high school, etc).

-I really like the idea (from 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens) of formulating a personal mission statement. I envision this as the home page of the portfolio. I have discussed this idea with the 8th grade LA teacher and the 5th grade general studies teacher. I ordered the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens workbook and have started exploring online tools for learning about and creating a personal mission statement. One site I plan to explore in further depth and possibly use with students is this one from Franklin-Covey. I need to reserve some time in my schedule to plan this lesson.
Ideas: share the mission in writing, view the mission in wordle, student reads the mission statement on video as the intro to themselves and their work.

-I have begun creating my own professional digital portfolio. As I work with students I will be doing many of the same steps they are doing. For example, I will also work to define my personal mission statement.

-I need to learn how to format the wordpress sites in order to design a template for each grade level. I have scheduled time with Silvia to work with me on this.

-I briefly spoke and brainstormed with Kindergarten teachers. We need to meet again soon to formulate a plan.

-I have been bookmarking examples and resources on delicious. I need to make time to explore these to mine for ideas.

-I started a digital portfolio group on the Curriculum 21 ning as a way to connect with others who are at various stages in this process. Please join me there.

Now that I've taken the time to document some of the things that I have done, I feel a little bit better. There is much to do, but it is about the process (and the product) but more about the process (and sharing, documenting, and reflecting on the process).

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