For my Fall 2010 ENGL 0950 classes, we will be exploring the potential uses of eFolioMinnesota, along with initial advantages and disadvantages.
We will consider the use of eFolioMinnesota in our particular class, along with use after this class has ended.
We will also consider comparisons to other digital "tools" or "products" that might be used for portfolios, such as blogs (e.g., Blogger), MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
For now, however, here are some of the most important links:
eFolioMinnesota
Minnesota Satellite and Technology (MnSAT)
Dr. Helen Barrett's Home Page
The REFLECT Initiative
An Initial Tutorial at YouTube
More later!
Showing posts with label portfolio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label portfolio. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Monday, December 15, 2008
Final "Portfolio" Reflection #3
Will I have my students keep and present a final portfolio of their coursework? Yes, definitely.
How will I have my students keep and present their final portfolios? Their individual blogs? The course wiki? Individual wikis? The "eFolio" from the State of Minnesota. Ugh! I don't know. Yet. Perhaps I should let them choose? Or would that cause too many headaches?
What will I have my students include in the portfolio? The answer to this one is easier. Our English Department at Anoka Ramsey Community College already has a portfolio process and committee -- and I have participated in this process in the past, but not consistently. If my memory is correct, the current portfolio process for English 1121, our college-level first-year writing course, asks for the following:
I see now that some things are going to have to be modified if I'm going to have my students do this "digitally," especially the last two items.
For item #3, including all cited research sources shouldn't be too difficult -- most of this should be possible with hyperlinks. And, if a source is not "online," hopefully we'll be able to attach PDF files somehow. And, even better, I ask my students to highlight in their sources the material they cite in their paper, and they should be able to use the highlighter feature in Adobe for this! If nothing else, I can have my students do what I had to do for Professor O'Brien's "Struggling Adolescent Readers" course: they can send to me a compressed/zipped folder containing all their documents.
For item #4, this will be trickier. The intention behind the in-class essay is to see what a student can do on his or her own, without multiple drafts and without peer feedback. Partly, it exhibits a student's writing fluency, and partly it is a plagiarism check. To have students write this on a computer, or online, does present some challenges to both of these purposes, since blog posts or Word documents can be easily changed, after the posting or initial draft, and it is pretty much impossible to prevent this ... and useless, hopeless, unnecessary, etc. ... to "police" it.
Including other digital projects -- such as VoiceThreads or SlideRockets or YouTube videos -- should also be easy. Hyperlinks can be created and copied, or HTML code can be embedded.
Ultimately, for me, the first decision seems to be the "form" the portfolio will take ... blog, wiki, or eFolio?
And, ultimately, for the students, the reflective piece will hopefully be the most important.
How will I have my students keep and present their final portfolios? Their individual blogs? The course wiki? Individual wikis? The "eFolio" from the State of Minnesota. Ugh! I don't know. Yet. Perhaps I should let them choose? Or would that cause too many headaches?
What will I have my students include in the portfolio? The answer to this one is easier. Our English Department at Anoka Ramsey Community College already has a portfolio process and committee -- and I have participated in this process in the past, but not consistently. If my memory is correct, the current portfolio process for English 1121, our college-level first-year writing course, asks for the following:
- A cover letter or introductory piece, which also serves as the reflective piece.
- An essay of the student's choice, preferably expository or persuasive, with all drafts from first to final.
- The argumentative research paper, with all drafts and with all cited research sources.
- An in-class essay.
I see now that some things are going to have to be modified if I'm going to have my students do this "digitally," especially the last two items.
For item #3, including all cited research sources shouldn't be too difficult -- most of this should be possible with hyperlinks. And, if a source is not "online," hopefully we'll be able to attach PDF files somehow. And, even better, I ask my students to highlight in their sources the material they cite in their paper, and they should be able to use the highlighter feature in Adobe for this! If nothing else, I can have my students do what I had to do for Professor O'Brien's "Struggling Adolescent Readers" course: they can send to me a compressed/zipped folder containing all their documents.
For item #4, this will be trickier. The intention behind the in-class essay is to see what a student can do on his or her own, without multiple drafts and without peer feedback. Partly, it exhibits a student's writing fluency, and partly it is a plagiarism check. To have students write this on a computer, or online, does present some challenges to both of these purposes, since blog posts or Word documents can be easily changed, after the posting or initial draft, and it is pretty much impossible to prevent this ... and useless, hopeless, unnecessary, etc. ... to "police" it.
Including other digital projects -- such as VoiceThreads or SlideRockets or YouTube videos -- should also be easy. Hyperlinks can be created and copied, or HTML code can be embedded.
Ultimately, for me, the first decision seems to be the "form" the portfolio will take ... blog, wiki, or eFolio?
And, ultimately, for the students, the reflective piece will hopefully be the most important.
Final "Portfolio" Reflection #2
What have I learned in class, and how have I changed because of the class? Wow! This post could be lengthy, but much of it I covered in the previous post, so I'll just add a few more comments here.
This class was the perfect class for me at the perfect time. First, both "fortuitous" and "serendipitous" come to mind as I try to describe that day back in August 2008 when I decided to check the UMN course schedule one last time. I don't know how I had overlooked the course before; I don't know if the double-numbering (5475/5330) threw me off, or if the 5330 description wasn't added until later on. However, I do know that the certificate program I am in did not leave a lot of "wiggle room" in terms of electives; perhaps that also partially blinded me, until I decided I might be able to petition for a change, which I did.
Second, I am grateful to be on sabbatical, to have the time to devote to the course, to be able to find my way about the course and all the "digital tools" without the distractions I would have if I were teaching at the same time. I don't know how my colleagues/classmates in this class, who are also teaching, can do it. I'm sure they're doing just fine, but I've never been one who works well with many things going on all at once.
Finally, this class provided the structure and learning environment I needed, especially for this particular topic. I don't know if I would have taken on "Digital Writing" on my own, and I don't think I would have learned as much if I had tried to do it on my own. But I do know that my comfort level -- with technology in general, and with the "digital tools" we've covered in particular -- has risen immensely. I feel I will be able to return to the classroom in the Fall of 2009, not only ready to include some of these things in my courses, but also able to introduce them with a fair measure of confidence.
I do know, however, that I need to do more thinking and brainstorming about specific applications of the digital tools I have learned:
This class was the perfect class for me at the perfect time. First, both "fortuitous" and "serendipitous" come to mind as I try to describe that day back in August 2008 when I decided to check the UMN course schedule one last time. I don't know how I had overlooked the course before; I don't know if the double-numbering (5475/5330) threw me off, or if the 5330 description wasn't added until later on. However, I do know that the certificate program I am in did not leave a lot of "wiggle room" in terms of electives; perhaps that also partially blinded me, until I decided I might be able to petition for a change, which I did.
Second, I am grateful to be on sabbatical, to have the time to devote to the course, to be able to find my way about the course and all the "digital tools" without the distractions I would have if I were teaching at the same time. I don't know how my colleagues/classmates in this class, who are also teaching, can do it. I'm sure they're doing just fine, but I've never been one who works well with many things going on all at once.
Finally, this class provided the structure and learning environment I needed, especially for this particular topic. I don't know if I would have taken on "Digital Writing" on my own, and I don't think I would have learned as much if I had tried to do it on my own. But I do know that my comfort level -- with technology in general, and with the "digital tools" we've covered in particular -- has risen immensely. I feel I will be able to return to the classroom in the Fall of 2009, not only ready to include some of these things in my courses, but also able to introduce them with a fair measure of confidence.
I do know, however, that I need to do more thinking and brainstorming about specific applications of the digital tools I have learned:
- What, exactly, am I going to ask my students to contribute to the class wiki?
- How, exactly, am I going to ask my students to conduct peer reviews?
- Am I going to ask my students to blog, and, if so, about what?
- I know I'm going to include an "interactive presentation" as part of my course, but what is going to be the assignment, or the topic, for these presentations?
Final "Portfolio" Reflection #1
Well, it looks like I've written 35 or 36 posts since I began this blog back in September! Wow! Time sure has flown. And, I can't believe I've written that much. I had figured 1-2 a week for the 15-week semester, which would be about 15-30. Well, I guess it's close. (Too many "wells"? I'm still not sure if I've found my "tone" or "voice" yet!)
The first major thing that comes to mind when reviewing my posts is something Alyssa R. said to me in class a few weeks ago: "These blogs sure are public." When I asked her what she meant, she replied that someone from SlideRocket had found her blog, and her post about SlideRocket, and they had left a comment for her. Like me, I think she thought no one would find these blogs except our classmates. But someone had found hers! Then, just a day or so later, I saw a comment to my podcasting post, and Chuck Tomasi (one of the co-authors of Podcasting for Dummies) had left a comment thanking me for using and mentioning Podcasting for Dummies in my blog! Then, a few days after that, the SlideRocket people had also found my SlideRocket presentation and blog post, and had left a message as well. Of course, it's all about recognizing "product placement" and advertising, but it's also "cool" to think that these blogs are "out there, and lovin' every minute of it," as Kramer once said on Seinfeld.
My best blog post? Maybe the two posts about American Literature, and comparing my course to a course Donald Ross is currently teaching. But why are these the best? Maybe because they were not assigned for my Digital Writing class. (Which is where we want our students to also end up, eventually.) But also maybe because I'm really enjoying my sabbatical and having the time to do things like this, to take this Digital Writing course, and to sit in on another course that I enjoy teaching. So, I don't know if the two posts are necessarily "good" because of the writing itself but because I enjoyed the creation of them, the experiences which led up to them.
Likewise, my "worst" blog post ... perhaps the one(s) having to do with podcasting ... because I struggled, at first, and partly throughout, with the podcasting activity itself, with figuring out Audacity, with take after take, with finding music, with editing. But by the time I was looking for music, and editing, and using the envelope tool, I was actually starting to have a bit of fun.
So that may be the "key" for me, the criterion that I would use for evaluating my blog posts: Which activities gave me the most frustration and struggle, and which activities were fun (or even became fun as time moved along)?
Frustrations:
And that's what I have to keep doing: reflecting on HOW AND WHY I might have my students use these tools. Yes, I want them to have fun, to be motivated and engaged, but I also want them to be writing and to be improving their writing. And I want to be confident that these tools are indeed helping them to do that.
The first major thing that comes to mind when reviewing my posts is something Alyssa R. said to me in class a few weeks ago: "These blogs sure are public." When I asked her what she meant, she replied that someone from SlideRocket had found her blog, and her post about SlideRocket, and they had left a comment for her. Like me, I think she thought no one would find these blogs except our classmates. But someone had found hers! Then, just a day or so later, I saw a comment to my podcasting post, and Chuck Tomasi (one of the co-authors of Podcasting for Dummies) had left a comment thanking me for using and mentioning Podcasting for Dummies in my blog! Then, a few days after that, the SlideRocket people had also found my SlideRocket presentation and blog post, and had left a message as well. Of course, it's all about recognizing "product placement" and advertising, but it's also "cool" to think that these blogs are "out there, and lovin' every minute of it," as Kramer once said on Seinfeld.
My best blog post? Maybe the two posts about American Literature, and comparing my course to a course Donald Ross is currently teaching. But why are these the best? Maybe because they were not assigned for my Digital Writing class. (Which is where we want our students to also end up, eventually.) But also maybe because I'm really enjoying my sabbatical and having the time to do things like this, to take this Digital Writing course, and to sit in on another course that I enjoy teaching. So, I don't know if the two posts are necessarily "good" because of the writing itself but because I enjoyed the creation of them, the experiences which led up to them.
Likewise, my "worst" blog post ... perhaps the one(s) having to do with podcasting ... because I struggled, at first, and partly throughout, with the podcasting activity itself, with figuring out Audacity, with take after take, with finding music, with editing. But by the time I was looking for music, and editing, and using the envelope tool, I was actually starting to have a bit of fun.
So that may be the "key" for me, the criterion that I would use for evaluating my blog posts: Which activities gave me the most frustration and struggle, and which activities were fun (or even became fun as time moved along)?
Frustrations:
- Podcasting (recording and editing audio) ... the first three-quarters of it
- Vlogging (recording and editing video) ... I don't actually consider what I did to be a vlog ... OK, it's definitely NOT a vlog, I do know that ... and it took a long time ... but again, the fun came later, when I got the "hang" of iMovie ... and it was fun to use video of my cat and creatively connect it to writing ... and it was fun to actually post something to YouTube!
- Creating the WritingMinnesota wiki
- Bubbl.us
- Flickr SlideShow
- VoiceThread (x2)
- SlideRocket Presentation
And that's what I have to keep doing: reflecting on HOW AND WHY I might have my students use these tools. Yes, I want them to have fun, to be motivated and engaged, but I also want them to be writing and to be improving their writing. And I want to be confident that these tools are indeed helping them to do that.
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