The Portfolio Continues

I'm on spring break this week, but in my own self interest I've been trying to move ahead with the portfolio project for my most recent class. This week I've created vision and mission statements, as well as identified standards that I will be holding myself to. The mission and vision were difficult in that I'm pretty comfortable with the values that I aspire to in my class, but finding a concise, less than cheesy way to communicate them can be hard. I spent the better part of an afternoon writing, watching a movie (Ali), then going back to do some editing, more Ali, and finally finishing up the assignment. If you want to take a look at what I finally came up with, they are here. I would appreciate any feedback. If you could care less about my portfolio you can watch a great movie intro to a period in history. Even after this exhaustive editing/movie watching experience, I'm still not 100% comfortable with the writing.


The second part of the project has been to identify standards that you work with, then supply artifacts that demonstrate your competency in them. I went with the NETS standards for both students and teachers and I'm beginning to have my doubts. The problem I'm having is I view these standards as a goal for my classroom, so as a result I don't yet have artifacts to demonstrate some portions. Or the artifacts I do have are from my class, and not so much the Stritch program. I need to get in touch with the professor to check on the status of moving forward in this manner. I'm hopeful, because as I mentioned before I really like the NETS standards and feel they offer me more guidance and support than my curricular state standards.

Finally, I'm looking forward to Easter and the end of Lent. This year for Lent I gave up sweets, with mixed success if I'm to be honest, which I think I should be on the topic. I have however done very well in giving up Cadbury Creme Eggs, which are by far, without a doubt the greatest little treat out. Needless to say on Sunday morning and throughout the day I plan on downing quite a few of those delicious little eggs.

Professional Portfolio

Looking at the professional portfolios this last week was an interesting exercise.  It is amazing how like kitchens many of them don't age well unless they are regularly updated.  I'm hopeful that during this process of portfolio creation I'm able to find pieces or components that I can take a regular interest in updating down the road.  I feel like the classes during this cohort that I've done the best in are projects that I find meaning with, so I'm happy to have the portfolio to work on. 

I'm excited to work on Google Sites.  We have it in our district connected with Google Apps so this will be a great experience that I'll be able to translate into working with and assisting students on their sites. It also suits my need of enjoying fiddling around with new tools and troubleshooting.  I did take some time to set up my portfolio skeleton last week and the Google Sites do seem like they will be very easy to work with and allow for a high level of customization.

Back to the portfolios from last week.  I noticed that the best ones do seem to follow the skeleton that has been created for us from this class.  I found some portfolios that had organizational systems, but none of them worked from my point of view.  The key I see to the portfolio is that when faced with the front page you ought to know what you are looking for, and exactly where you are going to find it.  That wasn't always the case in some portfolios that I came across.  That would seem to be a pretty obvious lesson, but one that some have apparently missed.

I'm feeling pretty good after week one of the portfolio progress, we'll see how it goes down the road, but I'm optimistic, which is good.

30 days, 1 year, and Learning More

In the next 30 days, I am going to make a real effort to jump start some of my classes asynchronous discussions and when I do I want to be a better facilitator.  I know I can't respond to every post, but I can give some recognition and work to summarize the key points of discussions.  I think that by just doing these two things the quality could be improved. 

Over the next year I would like to have more online materials, work, discussions, and submissions.  Reduce the paper that gets pushed around my room.  I would like to have my class go from 85-15 f2f-online to closer to 70-30.  I think that is a better balance, and would allow some students to take the balance further, if they were comfortable in that arena. 

What I would like to learn is, would my students be interested in a synchronous discussion that would take place outside of the school day and online.  It would be a unique opportunity to discuss items that were tangents to in class discussions.  I might also be a way to involve new groupings and some students who aren't comfortable in the in class environment.  I think it would definitely have to be casual and enjoyable to be anything a 7th or 8th grader would be interested in, but it would be an interesting experiment.