August 12, 2009

Creating Your Digital Self – How to tell your story of Deep Learning (Part 2)

past-present-future “An electronic portfolio has the potential to become a dynamic celebration of learning that documents a teacher’s professional development across his or her career.” (Helen Barret)
“Portfolios tell a story…put in anything that helps to tell that story.”(Pearl&Leon Paulson)
Portfolios are our way of telling OUR life-long success and inspiring stories that show our tie between our past and future. In fact, portfolios have been a ‘got to have one’ tool in the 21st century.
1. Ask & Answer

I guess the most difficult part while creating a portfolio is where to start. Here are my three questions that can help you to start thinking while you create your e-portfolio:

What have I collected up to now that tells the story of my past? (What did I study/What did I learn?)
What have I achieved that tells the story of my today? (What artifacts have I collected?/ What are my achievements?)
Where will I be going and where will I be telling my story in the future? (What are my plans for future?/Where do I want to see myself next year?/What are my short/long term plans?)

2. Collect
The second step can be to brainstorm what to include into your e-portfolio. Here are my suggestions:

Personal information (It can include your name,surname,marital status,where you were born etc., I guess it’s better not to display too much personal information on web as some people can use these information for other purposes)
Educational Background
Professional Development (The courses you have taken,conferences you have attended etc.)
Goals for future
Presentations,workshops,seminars you have done.
Projects
Recognition ,awards
Articles that you have written
Interests
Reflections (Your reflections on your personal development, interests, goals,your seminars and workshops, projects etc)
Pictures, slide shows and videos of you on the job.
Links to your websites,blogs.
Snapshots of your achievements.

3.Select

After collecting all your items that are evidences of what you’ve learned and achieved, you can select the best ones that show and demonstrate your competence. It can include the videos, slide shows or podcasts that you have created or the projects you have completed, your award widgets, your links to your blogs or other web pages …

4. Reflect

Reflection is the soul of a portfolio. You should think and comment on the items that you have selected to demonstrate your learning from those experiences, in a way reflecting and showing others why what you know, what you do and what you have achieved is important to you. (I use my blogs for reflection and blog about my experiences, achievements, courses I’ve taken or given, projects I’ve involved.)

5. Connect

Now, you can start thinking how and where to connect all the items (personal, professional, interests, work,community…) together and which web tools you are going to use to tie them together. Here are some of my suggestions where to connect :

More connectors to come on Part 3…

August 3, 2009

Creating Your Digital Self – What’s your story behind it ? (Part 1)

view_3 A portfolio tells a story .. It’s the story of knowing.. Knowing about things, knowing oneself, knowing an audience… Portfolios are your own stories of what you know, why you believe you know it and why others should be of the same opinion. (Pearl and Leon Paulson)

We are all familiar with the word ‘Portfolio’. It’s the purposeful collection of one’s work that exhibits the efforts, progress and achievements in one or more areas of the curriculum. (source link) or we can define portfolios as the tools that can document all aspects of one’s professional and personal growth as you progress through your career.

With growing technologies, Web 2.0 and the increase in the number of online teachers; portfolios have a new face today: Electronic portfolio, that is the collection of electronic evidence, evolution of thoughts, competence and reflection on one’s life long learning. It can be considered as a response to the shifts in learning, technology, teaching and the 21st century!

Here are some of the reasons why to have an e-portfolio:

It shows others what you have achieved up to now,
It makes the link between you and the organizations, what you can do and what they can expect from you,
It builds confidence and it’s a proof of what you can achieve,
It helps you to remember what you have done and what you will do in the future,
It helps you to create and develop new ideas and show the best package of your whole work,
It shows your personal and professional achievements in a concrete way,
It highlights your skills, shows your experience and demonstrates the result of one’s learning,
It supports the ability to collect, organise and reflect,
It enhances the technological skills,
It’s the best tool for the continuing professional development,
Last but not least it helps you to stand out of the crowd and you get the attention that you deserve!!

Here is the video that I’ve created two years ago that tells us why to have an e-portfolio,visually =)

While our students are all creating their portfolios, are we doing the same thing as well; as teachers? Are we documenting our professional and personal growth which is the evidence of our career where we are now, or the way which shows where we will be (want to be) in the future?

Do you have a portfolio that you keep record and the evidence of your educational background, explanations of achievements and your reflections of your profession?

I’m sure each one of us has a story behind our career and when we start creating our digital selves, this should be the first question to answer ‘What’s your story behind it?’

and here comes my story which is narrated by Ozge’s perspective: http://www.ozgekaraoglu.wikispaces.com