Friday, July 20, 2007

e-portfolios

Siemans talks about making sure what we do in school has a relevance. I try to relate to students how what we are learning might relate to them now or later in life. Last summer I participated in a state summer institute on ITC literacy and e-portfolios. Part of our mission was to create sample school guidelines, assessments and portfolios. We used part of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills for the ICT Literacy component. To do this we worked collaboratively in groups face-to-face and later, after the institute, using Moodle. We were able to add to our work, comment on those changes, and eventually agree on a finished sample. In the past I have had students do research on planets, or ocean plants/animals. I wonder if students could do this using networked learning by either being able to add notes/information to an individual’s notes, or to work together as a class on several planets/animals. As a student finds pertinent information or has ideas, she/he could add it directly. Would this work better in the form of a wiki or blog? Maybe a blog if one student is working on one item, and wiki if the class is working on several items together.??
e-portfolios are a way that can add to the relevance of work. This could possibly be a more collabative project as well.
David

http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/

3 comments:

Jeff said...

I like your thinking and hopefully has the class progresses it becomes clearer what will work best in your classroom. Here is the e-portfolio site I set up at our school.

http://blogs.saschinaonline.org/

Basically every student gets a blog, that blog stays with them throughout their schooling. They can upload files, link to resources, write about both personal and school related activities. Teachers can use them for assignments and reflections....the possibilities are endless.

Unknown said...

I think a wiki would work best for both instances (individual or class) and a blog would work well as a supplement to the research being done. I say this because because I feel a wiki is the best place for conducted research to be placed. The blog would be kept as a journal containing the thoughts and opinions of the student as they went through the research process and completed their work. For example, imagine if Leonardo da Vinci or Albert Einstein could have had a wiki and a blog to use when doing their projects or research. The wiki would contain the final product of their work,which is outstanding enough, but having a blog (diary)of their thoughts as they went through the process for us to know and read today would have been amazing to read.

Unknown said...

I like the idea of wikis as electronic portfolios. Here are some other ways teachers in Alabama have used these tools in their classrooms.

http://del.icio.us/abpcjohn

21st Century Collaborative