Eportfolio and remote learning

Today, within a matter of hours, my next 11 days went from full to empty. The City of Houston cancelled all sorts of events, including the Cross Court volleyball tournament my daughter and her club team were supposed to play in.  Just a few hours later, Disneyland announced they are closing on March 14th and will remain closed for the remainder of March. Cancelling chaos ensued.

In the midst of all this, a lot of local universities are extending spring break (which is next week and now the week following) and parents/students of our district are asking"Will we be next?" Honestly, I don't know the answer...

But all these school closures and Twitter discussions about #remotelearning got my wheels spinning about portfolios in a time like this - could an e-portfolio be a logical choice to demonstrate student learning during this time?

Earlier this week, I listed to an episode of the Shake Up Learning Podcast about, as they put it, home learning. It was really cool to hear a former co-worker talk to Kasey, and share her experiences as a parent and as a tech coach.  She had a lot of great ideas like having students take pictures of things in their home and write about them, whether informative or stories.  As she was describing the idea, I started to think it sounded like a portfolio. 

I think a student portfolio would be a great idea for school closures during this time. Students could complete offline activities and then share and reflect on them in a manner of their choosing. Some ideas include:

  • Sharing about what you are reading, whether just a simple synopsis or a detailed reflection.  It could include some activity options about theme, characters, or main idea. Reading options are limitless - from graphic novels to books online to blogs and online magazine articles. 
  • Sharing what you are observing when you go outside. Students could discuss weather, animals, flowers, and then research what they saw.  
  • Selecting household items and calculating their volume and if they were to wrap them in wrapping paper, the surface area of each of these objects.
  • Shopping online (not for real) and calculating the difference of shopping at a retail store versus Amazon or Walmart or Target. How does shipping costs come into play? 
  • Taking a picture of a picture the student drew or a crafty project and share the steps they took to complete the project. 
What other ways could a student use a e-portfolio to show their learning while at home during this time in our country, when we are practicing social distancing? 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Math Icon Board

Image
In my job, I am always looking for new ideas to share, whether it is a new activity or a new twist on an established one. Recently I got an email from Matt Miller at Ditch That Textbook with this idea -   an icon board for visual thinking.  I really got me thinking about how it could be used... and what other icon boards could be created. Since I am a former math teacher, that is where my mind heads - to math.  I started looking at the icons in the Insert Icons for Slides add-on, and sure enough, I found plenty that apply to math. So I started adding them, and thus creating my Math Icon Board My goal was to add icons that could be utilized in a variety of math and science classes. Obviously I do not have everything, partly because I couldn't find it or it didn't come to mind during my creation. When students use this, my suggestion is that they copy the icon (either by right-clicking and choosing copy OR hitting ctrl and C keys at the same time) and then pasting it
Read more

Remote Learning Recommendations, part 1

Now that many of us are in the thick of remote learning, or for those of us in my district, where we are preparing for remote learning, I have come across some great resources that I wanted to share. I am sure that throughout all this that there will be more, so that is why this is part 1. First, I have to say, I love Slidesmania . Her templates are amazing and I am constantly recommending her site to everyone. Right now, her Weekly Planner template is a must for teachers teaching remotely. Check it out! Second, I have seen a lot about educational technology companies reaching out to teachers, schools, and districts with free offers of normally paid versions.  On one hand, that is really cool, but it can be really overwhelming to teachers to decide what new tools to try in their classes.  Edweek  even wrote a very good piece on it. Based on what I have seen, planning with teachers and instructional coaches for remote learning, my recommendation is for teachers to generally use wh
Read more

My Personal User Manual

Image
One of my bosses, Ryan Smith, recently blogged about the clarity of a personal user manual . As I thought more and more about his post, I thought about how it might help me in my role as an ITS. Something like this might be useful, considering a large part of being successful at my job requires building and maintaining positive relationships with my staff. So here is my personal user manual: I'm a pretty positive person and I tend to smile a lot. Sometimes I worry that others will think my smile is fake or looks fake because I do it so much. But I promise it’s not… I can’t really fake a smile. One of my biggest strengths is that I am willing to say yes to new projects and innovative ideas. One of my biggest weaknesses is that I have a hard time saying no. So if I say no to an idea/project, it is not because I don't want to be involved, it is because I feel that I cannot give it the time that it deserves. I hate looking incompetent. I prefer to be "in th
Read more