ePortfolios in the High School

My colleague, Jim Fitzgerald, and I have decided to embark on something a little more than we may have originally intended.  We are both committed to using ePortfolios in our classrooms, and attempting to implement them school-wide at some point in the near future.  Although this is something I have spent the last few months pursuing, I have yet to be able to complete the entire process.  But essentially, isn't that what an ePortfolio really is all about.  It is a constant process of growth and every time you learn something new, you realize how much more there is to learn.  Here's where I am currently in the process:

I began by using Word Press as the basis of their ePortfolios.  At first, it was a little cumbersome to get off the ground.  Each student was assigned a student blog through http://blogs.isb.ac.th/.  For some of the students the process was like second nature.  For others, I still feel as if I am speaking a second language to them.  Hopefully tomorrow's use of flextime after school should clear up the last of the glitches.  This past week I posted an ePortfolio grade in PowerSchool to put a little fire under their belts.   Then we looked at numerous examples of ePortfolios on the SmartBoard from various students, educators, and celebrities to illustrate how students can begin to showcase their best selves to the world.  

When their interest was peaked, we looked at statistics and a few blog posts from admission directors at prominent universities to see how they screen their applicants.  One that really made them start to think about their online presence was Shaun McElroy's blog entry: Guess Who's Looking at Your Facebook.  After that, I had each student Google their name.  This seemed to be enough of a motivator for many of my students to begin uploading their school work to showcase their academic lives.  In addition, we just completed the poetry unit in Grade 10, and many of my students chose to include a few of their autobiographical poems on their ePortfolios.  From there I suggested a few ways they could continue to take ownership of their ePortfolio.

Ten new things to do on your ePortfolio:

1. Create a cool name for your portfolio
2. Use a theme layout that makes sense to you
3. Create a header for your portfolio that represents you as an individual
4. Delete the "Hello World" post
5. Post one or all of your poetry
6. Create some categories: English, Social Studies, Art, Math, Science, Creative Writing, Community Service, Athletics, Travel – whatever works for you
7. Add these widgets: tag cloud, categories, links, clustr maps (you can add more if you like, this is just a start).
8. Link to "D Watts" (inside.isb.ac.th/dwatts10)
9. Replace "Another ISB weblog” with your own words.
10. Add/Edit the about page - include your first name (no last name) and a bit about you and point of your blog site.

From here I created a NetVibes page which took far more time than I originally planned.  I currently have almost 100 students.  For each student I had to enter their address into the "add content" section of NetVibes.  Although my students had their blogs already set-up for them from the Ed Tech Department at my school, many of their blog addresses do not match their names exactly due to the length of their name.  For example my student Yonathan Tadesse: the address for his blog is http://blogs.isb.ac.th/yonathat; only the first seven letters of his name are used and the last letter is missing from his blog address due to the length of his name.  In the end, the trials and errors of finding all of my students was well worth it.  Now I have one page to enable me to read each of their ePortfolios and see any recent contributions.  It makes grading a snap.

Now the hard part begins, or so I think.  Jim and I have create a GoogleDoc of all of the items we wish to accomplish over the next few months.  I have started to create a rubric for ePortfolios to enable students to see how they are being graded.   I have joined various organizations that are exploring all the facets of ePortfolios in the classroom, and attended the ISTE conference in DC this summer to expand my knowledge base and contacts worldwide in the field of ePortfolios.  But as I stated earlier, the more I learn, the more I know I need to know. 

Once we gather everything we need, we intend to create an iMovie that illustrates all the benefits of using ePortfolios in the classroom.  We hope that our presentation will enable students and teachers alike to embrace the concept of ePortfolios so they become a school-wide initiative, not just an English Department requirement.  We aren't there yet, but keep watching.  It will be here when all the chips are ready.  Stay tuned for more. . .