Exploration of Online Portfolios

I have spent this week exploring various educational online portfolios. At first, I had a hard time finding relevant portfolios for my particular area, but I tried various search terms to come up with some great examples. The best examples that I found were when I used the following search term: "education portfolio graduate examples" (not in quotation marks). The University of Missouri is the first result that you get and it has a handful of great examples.

I really enjoyed Connie Capaldo's portfolio. Not only was it thorough, containing standards, course descriptions and reflections, but the artifacts were linked by standards and by class. She also included a resume and her philosophy and her navigation and site appearance were excellent. I really enjoyed that she added some personal flair in her design, making hers stand out from the rest.

I also read about Googlios, in anticipation of creating our portfolios. I especially found the Getting Started section helpful in picturing the process and outcome for this project. (image from: http://sites.google.com/site/googlioproject/)

I have started my shell for my portfolio frankly because I'm really excited about it. Here's what I've got so far. I'm still figuring out how I want it to look design-wise. I want it to be unique but professional. This is a fine line to tread on. I'm sure John will guide us through this, though, so I'm not worried.

550 Final Post

I forgot to post last week :(


I'm sitting in my hotel room at the TIES conference in Minneapolis as I type this. I am attending this conference to keep abreast of 21st Century skills, how to help students develop them, and to add to my PLN. I am working towards shifting the lessons that were handed down to me at the K-5 level to 21st century skills. Right now they are somewhat aligned with the WI state Tech standards, but those are old and I feel as though they behind the times. They focus on students doing specific tasks rather than becoming critical thinkers and problem solvers, which is what we need for them to flourish as adults. I think that this shift will be difficult mainly because I'm not quite sure how to get the rest of our team on board. As we move into the second decade of the 21st century, it's imperative that we are teaching students in a way that is effective. Online education seems to be a promising way to engage students and meet their needs while giving them the skills they will need to be a productive member of our global society.

I made this tagxedo about 21 century skills, enjoy!