We are beginning to dip our toes in the water in Ireland where e/digital Portfolios are concerned.
This is a blog post I wrote on a poster from Scotland on ePortfolios.
Scroll down and look at the individual elements of a portfolio - excellent!
Digital student portfolios can provide what other assessment tools cannot: Real, unabridged, minimally processed artifacts of learning that make sense to all the learners in the classroom, including the teacher. Technology used in this way can bring us as close as we can get to peering inside our students' hearts and minds to find out what they currently know and are able to do.
Students and teachers can use digital tools to document current understandings, make revisions as thinking changes, share student products both locally and globally and celebrate successes with peers and parents. Although this practice is only one part of a balanced assessment system, there are many benefits that learners, both student and teacher, can gain for developing digital portfolios.
Students take photos of their work and narrate their VT. Great tech. application and I'm sure the parents loved it. So much more dynamic than just showing the work.
The particular software and services used to create these portfolios is a subject of some interest, to be sure, but it is secondary to the "big idea" itself: compiling a dynamic collection of information from many sources, in many forms and with many purposes, all aimed at presenting the most complete story possible of a student's learning experience.
Over the last year, I've been working on a committee in my school district to think about the role that digital portfolios can play in helping students to document their learning. I LOVE that our district is committed to the idea of portfolios simply because they promote more reflective learners and help our schools to move from a culture of grading to a culture of feedback.
One of the best decisions our team made last summer was to pre-install Casper (5) profiles on all of our iPads. We pulled
the student IDs from our ASPEN (6) student
information system, logged each student into Casper and installed the four
profiles needed for our plan. The profiles took Safari web browser off the iPad.
As we progressed through the year, we discovered that these tools took a lot of
time to create something we were trying to move away from in the first place.
The reason for moving away from textbooks is that they offer a myopic vision of
a world that is ever-changing. Simply viewing a textbook on an iPad does not
change or innovate learning, nor does it use the iPad to its full potential. If
your plan is to digitize a standard textbook, save your money and renew your
textbook licenses.
This year we are incorporating K-12 digital portfolios along with revised
information and digital literacy standards. Every BPS student will have a Google
Apps for Education account that they will use in conjunction with the Blogger (15) application
to begin creating their Life of Learning portfolio
Begrundelser for anvendelsen af iPads i undervisningen bevæger sig fra en forestilling om at erstatte tekstbøger til en forestilling om at kunne lærerne kan samarbejde med eleverne i skyen ved hjælp af værktøjer, der automatisk synkroniserer med eleverns iPads
The students that make it into help desk are those who not only enjoy working
with technology in an educational context, but have a desire to serve, support
and possibly solve problems in the school on a daily basis.
.
Aside from simply troubleshooting, our
students help their former teachers at the middle and elementary levels as well
as create how-to scripts and videos for students, faculty and the Burlington
community. Our students have not only helped within the BPS community, but have
helped our Tech Team organize two major conferences in the past year:
You can have the most precisely calculated plan in place before you launch, but
if you don't have the right support in place, your launch may stumble. I regard
our IT department as one of the best I have ever worked with. I say this in all
sincerity because I do "work with" this team. These guys not only manage a
robust infrastructure, but they take part in the educational conversation and
give our staff the best tools to create dynamic, engaging classrooms.
Teknisk support er en del af løsningen og de skal deltage i den løbende pædagogisk/didaksike debet
However, we must work to incorporate information and digital literacy standards
into the K-12 curriculum as early as possible. Students in Kindergarten should
understand what it means to be nice to someone and how that will translate to
writing and living on the Web. As students grow up through the educational
pathways, they must be exposed to new and emerging technologies as early as
possible in a safe, responsible manner. By doing so, we are preparing them for a
global economy that requires these skills.
Our middle school is adding character education to the arts and humanities curriculum. Teaching students at a young age to be thoughtful and responsible with technology will make it a much better experience inside the classroom.