Eportfolio tools: revisited

 Eportfolio tools

For me the most important thing is to articulate what I have learned about educational technology from my academic , professional and personal experiences. The exponential benefits of being able to purposefully and effectively elaborate on the tools that I currently work with and that make my teaching technique more plentiful are of great grandeur. It will not only show that I am apt for upcoming challenges but also will display a potential of problem solving during my working career and in my working environment.  

I would also like to be able to answer any questions that I may have regarding educational technology and that professors have identified and are familiar with. I would like to dwell and venture into their problem solving methods to strategies and be able to identify the troubles they have seen.  As a teacher who is in constant contact with technology this course gives me an idea of how to give my understanding a shape.  Something to work with and replicate when needed and to learn about identifiable problems by professionals is very important. It can equip me with the tools needed to remediate problems if I ever come in contact with them. 

In regards to an electronic portfolio. It stands atop when in comparison to an assessment acquired from traditionalist methods such as tests, essays, homework, worksheets etc...  The purpose of a portfolio is to engulf the skills and knowledge acquired throughout a course, life experience, personal choice and the randomness of spontaneity in life events.  It is a trimmed and well taken care of, display of skills of an individual.  Its affordance to its viewers can guide them to a broader scope of an individual.  As a spectator you can see components that might benefit you when you are looking to hire someone. It can also show you methods of how they’re able to adapt their knowledge to your needs as an employer. 

When comparing an eportfolio to a physical portfolio the logistics of an eportfolio are very easy to see.  You don’t have to carry anything around just a webpage name that can be accessed on any computer with internet access. The physical portfolio includes features that are tangible and express the manual capabilities of an individual but as we go into the future those features can easily be animated on a computer.  Also a physical portfolio holds those past memories of a resilient technology that connects the past with the present. I do not have anything against physical portfolios and if someone hands me one I would gladly take a glance of its artifacts. Not only is it the summation of someone's lifes works but it is also a transport to the past providing that tangible tactile experience, just as a book and its pages still does. There is something about having an actual physical element in our hands. For my purpose it  would be best to just stick to eportfolio due to its accessibility and quickness of resource acquisition. You can elaborate a well built eportfolio right at the comfort of your desk and computer. 

When considering giving my students an assignment to create a portfolio I would only assign them an eportfolio version due to the accessibility. Given that they already have a laptop and internet connection every student has the same access to the tools and the only thing that will differentiate them will be their skillfulness and creativity, both skills are in an eternal need of development on any individual at any time.  The freedom of being able to access it anywhere there is an internet connection is the social equalizer. 

In order to make an eportfolio effective as a lesson to my students they will have to be able to  understand the tools of the technology used. This will impact their understanding tools and their uses. They will be able to learn the common aspects of different tools such as a word processor and editing tools and how similar all of them are across the internet. The icons are repeated across softwares.  Creating the eportfolio will give them access to tools that develop learning standards and allow them to make tables, charts, bar graphs and maps to organize, examine and evaluate data. Skills they  will need to develop and nurture in science and other subjects.  Another standard that can be applied is the impact of technology on life to create a foundation of technology skills.  

For student work I work with a lot of diagrams and it is hard for my students to visualize the concepts without one.  It would be an assignment where they can display their understanding of a process such as the water cycle. In class we would have to cover the water cycle and the processes it undergoes in order for water to make one full cycle. They will create a page on google site.  This tool is already provided by the district and students have full access to it.  

We would be replacing the hand drawn diagram and instead use an online diagram tool called diagrams.net. The inserting it on their google site. They will add pictures to add visuals to every step of the process. At the end they will shareit,. 

Example

They will have to use a flowchart to illustrate the processes of the water cycle. These tools will be used to substitute the paper and pencil aspect of it. Now to get it to the Redefinition students will have to display other types of media to represent the information.  Google sites have youtube access and all they have to do is look for a video of the water cycle that explains it.  They can also record themselves explaining the process and adding the video to their eportfolio. Other students can jump in and comment on what they are seeing using the JAMBOARD feature provided in google suite. https://jamboard.google.com/ With this tool they provide a forum where students can share their comments to everyone and the owner has control over what it is published there. They will also be provided with https://www.lucidpress.com/pages/ which is an image editing program that is free and included in the google suite where they can create eye catching visuals to include on their page. 

One great strategy I just learned about was telling the students to create 4 prototypes of the same work and then compare it with each other. Then on the next part the class will critique and they will make changes. This assignment gives them a great opportunity to practice those skills. 

The cool thing about google sites is that it is private and only other students have access to other student pages that are under the district's domain. This keeps their work and identity safe and secure. 

This week I experimented with various etools to compose an eportfolio. One of them was www.wix.com which provides a page and tools to make a webpage. It provides a very easy to follow step by step process on how to create your own webpage.  There is a vast amount of templates to choose from.  They are pretty straightforward and suffice to an extent. When you want to personalize your page it does allow you to do so by providing tools as you scroll through the page.  Every section of the page lights up with tools to edit. I could use wix to make a front page that includes video, blogs, forums sections that can provide you with places to display your information.  For pictures you could use Instagram which is included as a tab with wix and all you have to do is link both your accounts. Wix is a well equipped page creator that can give you access to visual engaging tools and easy to use tools. I would recommend it if you want to make your eportfolio here. 

Now to create the content such as video youtube is the place where you can create and edit your videos, upload them and publish them on any platform simply by providing the page or youtube provides you with an embedded code you can add to the code. www.youtube.com Also provides you with a set of tools to edit and even upload subtitles to your videos. This can help you showcase your skills and even make a more personalized introduction to your eportfolio.  

The eportfolio tool that I will be using to create it is google sites. After carefully exploring it I find that it is the one with the most tools and easy access for me.  The interface is pretty easy to navigate in and if I need to access any of my media all I have to do is go dig into my google drive. I will add different pages to display my teaching methods, student feedback, and tools that are used in my class. Also mini lessons and full curriculums with videos and samples of my work.  Other tools in the google suite are provided such as google slides, docs, 

Now to using tools to make my eportfolio: 

Now, if I want  to embed any page on my page I would use the embed feature on the tools and generate one with https://www.iframe-generator.com/ this page allows you to embed almost any page as code onto your page just by adding the page link and generating the code. I constantly make quizzes for my class but www.quizziz.com does not provide me with a code to embed so I use an iframe and do that. This can help me on one of my eportfolio pages to display a lesson including a quiz feature in it. 

If I want to display my skills as a lesson crafter for my class or any class I would use www.nearpod.com this tool helps me create lessons in a slide format. I can provide an student paced lesson for my eportfolio that can be accessed by anybody and I can create a lesson to show how elaborate my student paced lessons can be.

It provides me with the tools to control the pace of the lesson when students are online with me while teaching.  I can also use it as a student pace mode and add it to my page embedded as a code.  This can provide a full lesson created by me where I can include videos from www.youtube.com and notecards from www.quizlet.com  and to check understanding from the students I can use their quiz features and their gamified option called “time to climb”. This tool can help add a sample lesson to my portfolio.  Another tool that I use a lot and incorporate it to the google site  is www.kahoot.com that serves the same purpose to quiz and create lessons. 

Well after experimenting with various eportfolio tools I noticed a lot of similarities and the one that delivered the best affordances was google suites everything else had the same or less features they also kept some tools for paying members only while google sites did not.  I will continue to explore more tools to add to my portfolio. This assignment helped me have the vision of a completed eportfolio for my class.  Something that has purpose and meaning for me and the people that I want to hire me.