Student Digital Portfolios (Using New Google Sites)

Why digital portfolios?

As the end of our first trimester draws to an end, it's a great time to reflect. We build in times for reflection throughout the whole year of course, but with the end of a grading period comes time for more formal thinking about our learning process. As teachers we are thinking about report cards and making conference schedules. Conferences are student-led in our sixth grade which does not happen without a lot of teacher guidance and support. The main tool for our students through this reflection process is creating student digital portfolios. We set them up now in the Fall of sixth grade and add to them throughout this year. In seventh and eighth grade, the process continues with students sometimes adding on to the original sixth grade site or redesigning a portfolio for each each. It's their choice. By the end of our middle school program in the eighth grade, they will have a body of work to look back on along with reflections and goals through the years.

Google Sites' new update makes it easier than ever!

I am so excited by the new Google sites update. It is sleek and so user friendly. This year's group of sixth graders have taken to it like ducks to water. The themes are simple yet easy on the eyes. This frees up the students to focus less on playing with the font styles and colors with more emphasis on their work choices and reflections. I love it! If you haven't seen it yet or had time to play with its features, check out this introduction on Youtube. Also, here's a handy "cheat sheet" by the wonderful Jennifer Judkins.

Digital portfolio process:

My Digital Portfolio Model's Home Page

Preparation:

* I started by first setting up my own example portfolio. It helped me guide my students by going through the process myself as well as served as a model for them throughout the process.
* Set up an assignment sheet. We use Schoology, but here's a Google doc version of my assignment sheet with rubric and help links that students had access too.

In Class with Students:

1. Introduce the idea to classes and brainstorm a list on the board of what we did in each class over
the trimester. This takes time but it helps them realize what they've learned and how much they have accomplished in just one trimester. It also helps to have them write a trimester reflection in their notebooks as a "bell-wringer"/warm up. The prompt can be a simple: How has this trimester gone so far for you?
2. Show my example digital portfolio and explain the requirements. I gave students an overview of how the website builder works (modeling with my own portfolios) but didn't go into detail. I've found that many can't take it all in visually in these early stages and tune out to long explanations of tech features until they actually need them. So I opted not to show the whole how-to video of features but to link a video for students who needed it to use as they needed it. About a quarter of students opted to view this first while many wanted to jump in first for some hands on experience.
3. Students had three and 1/2 class periods to build their pages. I gave a few quick tips at the

beginning of each class and referred them back to the requirements.
4. On the last page building day, students choose partners and we peer edited with this sheet to see what still needed to be completed.
4. After they were "done" building, I went through and evaluated each digital portfolio providing my feedback of what could be improved for each student.
5. Students had time to address concerns and redo parts to make them better (and earn back points). Those that were still having trouble after the recheck were asked to come in for an extra help session at lunch.
6. We'll write speeches in our Language Arts time next week, practice in small groups, and then present them to parts at student-led conferences.

It's not an easy process, but by the end students have a digital portfolio that they can be really proud to show their families. It also helps shape the culture of learning at our school in which work is not just to be seen by teachers once and then forgotten. Instead, work is displayed digitally, revisited, and hopefully remembered.

Classroom Twitter Feed

One of the best things I've done in the past couple of years as a teacher has been to add a classroom Twitter account after a suggestion at Monterey Bay Aquarium's teacher training. It's helped me connect to parents, students, administrators, our librarian, and other teachers. Social Media like Twitter and Pinterest have a vibrant teacher community that if you haven't tapped into yet, I highly suggest you do.

One great thing about Twitter is that even those not on it can see your current posts in a Twitter feed--no "following" required (though it is nice when they do and "like" content). It's good if in general you take larger group photos, take photos in which students' faces are not close-ups, avoid using names if student's faces can be easily matched up, and especially with younger students consider taking photos from the back of their heads if engaged in interesting tasks or images of the work itself. Note: Our school requires students and parents to sign an image release. If your school does too, make sure to check with your administrator in case there are students who should not be in photographs. Anyway, here's mine:

Tweets by @LEroomI3

Keepers for Next Year

As this year wraps up, I'm thinking back to some tools/strategies I used this year that will be "must use" in my middle school classroom for next year. .

Boom Writer: 

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Reading the teacher blog Cult of Pedagogy, I was intrigued by a new writing tool called Boom Writer. BoomWriter is an online writing tool that allows students to enter writing pieces into an in-class competition for the whole class to see and vote. Teachers write a prompt for students to respond to in writing. Then, after the teacher approves the pieces (or asks students for revisions), the class can vote on who wrote it best. I used it to have the students practice using their vocabulary words. The other sixth grade teachers and I have been looking for ways to have students interact more with the meanings of their vocabulary words. This seemed like very good tool for that purpose. Students loved having an audience for their writing and the built in extras of having a little character to decorate appealed to the students (while giving me as a teacher a little time to read their work and approve/ask for revisions). Students had great informal discussions going on while writing about word meaning and loved reading each others' work.  Even normally reluctant writers were eager to try it again!

Socratic Seminars

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We had a great time with using Socratic Seminars this year. Mostly we used the classic inner circle/outer circle format with everyone having a role during the seminar.

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I also tried out a new "Socratic Seminar" style to see if gamification spin could help pull in those that were a bit more reluctant to join in the argument. It at least gave them a way to reflect on what was happening. What is Socratic Smackdown? Basically, the Socratic Smackdown is a modification on the classic Socratic Seminar. It has students focus on a set of argumentative strategies that they earn points for if they use them well in an academic argument. It was lots of fun but one of my classes lost focus a bit and had to be redirected. I'll be fine tuning before using it again. My slideshow I made to introduce the format to students is embedded in this post. The idea is from Institute of Play that has other resources that I will also be checking out in the future.

Schoology:

We used this online learning system, Schoology, extensively this year at my school. It's free to sign up and use. Here's just some positive uses for me and my classes so far:

Discussion Posts: I wanted student to reflect more on their learning, see what roles they played in collaborative projects, and be able to share out their work with the class easily. Schoology's discussion posts became an awesome place to accomplish all of these goals. I would use the discussion post format to describe the assignment for students so that they had a resource to go back to for expectations. Then, as we worked on projects or when the project was complete, one student in each team would post the project link. All in the group would follow-up by replying to their team post by answering 2 or 3 reflection questions. I used this Edutopia list for ideas of reflection questions. I also used it share out about endangered species topics while projects were in progress and followed up with a lesson on giving effective peer feedback on a recent endangered species project.

Schoology Groups: I created groups for Yearbook, Garden Club, Engineering Club, and also for my sixth grade partners and I to share resources. This became a nice place to collect useful resources such as fonts to use in yearbook and how to send designs to the 3D printer for engineering. My fellow teachers and I used it to share assignments created as well as quizzes for vocabulary (which we could each help proofread and revise for clarity). It was great!

Rubrics: These made it easier to grade and cut down on copying off all those little slips. Plus, parents and students could refer back to them to see (no, loosing the rubric paper before showing curious parents or partners who were absent when they were handed back)!

I'll leave it there for now, but as teachers know it is never ending! So many more tools to find and refine practices. . .