Digital Portfolios

Digital Portfolios

With Common Core Standards we need to prove the growth of our students.  Having a Digital Portfolio is a great way to do this.  This year is the 1st time I have had my students create a Digital Portfolio and I was a little nervous about them doing so.  I attended a few webinars vis SimpleK12 about the subject and learned a lot from other educators who have taken this route to showcase student progress.  I decided to use LiveBinders web tool to takle this new project.  I also used a Symbaloo board to organize their Digital Portfolios. 

My goal was to showcase the work my students worked on throughout the semester and then share it with the high school staff.  I kept telling my students that this is their portfolio and they can organize it any way they would like since it belongs to them.  I of course had an example for them to look at and some guidelines for them to follow.

We did learn that if you have a presentation in Prezi and you add it to your LiveBinder a preview will not appear within the LiveBinder, only the link to the presentation shows up.  This is ok, you can still click on the link to view the presentation.  

My classes are a semester long and I ended the semester with building the Digital Portfolios as our finial project.  I don't think the portfolios made as much impact with my students as I had hoped it would.  This semester I am going to start off with building our portfolios from the start.  


Tech Tip:

  • Build a LiveBinder before you have your students try to takle the project.
  • Have a few examples for your students to refer back to.
  • Use a Symbaloo board or other bookmarking tool to organize your students' portfolios.


Science Fair Project by Ethan

Science Fair Project by Ethan 

My son came home from school so excited about the project he wanted to do for the Science Fair.  After hearing a lot of "Please mom the rats won't escape their cages can I please do my project?".  It didn't help that he got everyone in the house behind him and encouraging him to do this project.  What swayed me into agreeing to have four rats in my house for a month was he wanted to make a website for his project.  I guess the boy has my number and I caved in.  

He created his website using the online tool Weebly.  He used an iPad to record his video clips of his tests and with a little help from his techie mom he uploaded  these clips to Schooltube.  Since Schooltube allows you to use an embed code it made it easy for him to embed his video clips to his Science Fair website on Weebly.


http://ratproject.weebly.com
He did make the required Science Fair Board and included a QR code on it that is linked to his Science Fair Project.

Endangered Animal Research & Presentation

Endangered Animal Research & Presentation 


Students learned to research an animal that is listed on the Endangered Species List.  Once they have found an animal they were required to use 3 Search Engines and 1 book to find information about their animal.  Then they were required to cite the websites and books they used for research using MLA style.  They used Bibme.org to help them cite their resources.  One major rule was not to cite Google as their resource.  I had to remind them Google is a Search Engine. 

The following was the requirements for their notes:
  • Use Bullets for your main points about your animal.  For example population, location, and etc...
  • Use Number bullets for your facts.  For example what they look like, what they eat, and etc...
  • You must have at least 10 facts about your animal and 5 sub-facts.
  • What was the reason for the decline in population.
  • How can we help?
  • You must have at least 4 web resources and 1 book.
  • You must have used at least 3 different search engines.
  • You must have at least 1 map.
  • You must have at least 5 images that pertain to your animal (not including the map).
  • You must cite your sources in MLA style.
  • You must cite where you located the pictures.  The website name and address.

Click here to see my notes for the Spotted Linsang.
You can use Prezi, Google Presentations, SlideRocket, or Zoho Show.
My Prezi - Spotted Linsang
My Google Presenation - Spotted Linsang
My SlideRocket - Spotted Linsang
My Zoho Show - Spotted Linsang

They were required to type up their notes using Google Docs. 

After they were finished with their notes they created a presentation using the information they researched.




Click here to view my students' presentations.