ePortfolios - their use

An electronic portfolio or ePortfolio is a collection of data that has been collected and organised to resemble a physical folder, but is online or electronic. The portfolio has documents, data diagrams, pictures, images, videos, multimedia information, blog entries and related website links relevant to the ePortfolio owner work.

ePortfolios are dynamic. They expand as the work done by the user increases. Some times, these folios can cover years and years of work. Such folios are excellent especially if the person needs proof of the work done by him. It is not bulky and can be accessed from any corner of the world. The user can provide or deny access to viewers depending on his privacy settings.

ePortfolios are gaining precedence in schools now since they improve the ICT skills of students. Also, they minimise wastage of paper resources since they can be maintained as online folders. Indeed, with the presence of the Ultranet, all teachers, parents and stake-holders have access to students’ information. They are an online data bank that provides information on the progress of students over the years.

ePortfolios are also used by teachers and other staff in schools as proof of work completed. Indeed, I have just worked on my own ePortfolio that covers the following areas:
-Introduction
-Educational Philosophy
-Curriculum Vitae
-Reflection on Practicum
-Curriculum Material
As stated earlier, ePortfolios are dynamic and will grow according to the work done by the user.

ePortfolios cover a wide range of domains from VELS. These are as follows:
-Personal Learning: Students seek and use teacher feedback to develop their content knowledge and understanding and reflect on how their prior knowledge has changed.
-English: Students produce, in print and electronic forms, a variety of texts for different purposes using structures and features of language appropriate to the purpose, audience and context of the writing. They begin to use simple figurative language and visual images.
-Communication: Students develop their skills in organising ideas and information logically and clearly to suit their purpose and the needs of their audience. For formal presentations they begin to select appropriate forms for sharing knowledge and influencing others.
-Design, Creativity and Technology: Students begin to record their progress using words and images.
-ICT: Students develop and maintain a digital bank of evidence that demonstrates their learning. This requires students evaluating, selecting and organising files that showcase their learning and that are up-to-date and structures in an orderly way. Students apply file management procedures that assist in securing their files and in allowing the easy retrieval of files by using naming conventions that is meaningful.
(http://www.vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vels/using.html#)

As teachers, we are expected to provide the following support to students while creating ePortfolios:
-technology for easy creation
-easy access to created ePortfolios for staff, parents, stake holders and students
-knowledge banks or data bases that enable students to understand what is expected of them
-clear cut instructions and assessment rubrics for ePortfolio creation

ePortfolios are ‘Proof of work done’ and should not be created for the sake of curriculum completion. It’s an on-going process that enables every one concerned to know the progress made by students.

Let's read using picture clues - Rebus Stories

We are aware of the important role played by literacy in improving the communication skills of our students. It is important that students learn to write, speak, read and listen effectively from Preparatory in school.
One way in which teachers can make ‘learning to communicate effectively’ easy is by using ‘Rebus Stories’. Rebus stories are stories that are narrated using pictures for specific words. These pictures are used through out the story to depict a particular word or character.
Rebus stories are fantastic for Kindergarten to Preparatory students. Indeed, they can be used by Preparatory students to write stories of their own. You can use ‘Rebus Stories’ even for the higher grades but remember to use challenging pictures with interesting story lines for the higher grades.
Rebus stories enable even students who are struggling with reading to ‘read’ the story since they recognise the pictures that are used for specific characters and words. You can introduce familiar stories in the beginning and then move on to more complex stories that will challenge the reading skills of students.
One way by which to make learning fun with ‘Rebus Stories’ is to help students create their own ‘Rebus Story’. Students can do this by following the procedure below:
1)Ask your students if they know what ‘Rebus Stories’ are: Start by asking students if they know what a ‘Rebus Story’ is. Create a concept map based on the information given by the students. Brain storm ideas on what ‘Rebus Stories’ are based on the concept map.
2)Read a ‘Rebus Story’: Choose an age appropriate story and read to the students. Ensure that they get to see the pictures used for the characters and words. Give students the chance to predict what the words represent.
3)Ask students to choose an appropriate story: Give students time to choose a story and create a story board based on the story line.
4)Ask students to choose specific pictures for specific words and characters: Ask students to choose the characters of words that they will be using pictures for. Based on the chosen characters and words, they can browse the web to determine appropriate pictures either through clip art or google pictures.
5)Ask students to create the ‘Rebus Story’: Once students have created the story line and chosen the pictures, they can write the story and introduce the pictures into the story line. Once this is done, they can print their story.
6)Ask students to share their ‘Rebus Story’: All students can share the story that they have created. Indeed, they can collect all the ‘Rebus Stories’ and create a booklet.
The advantage of using ‘Rebus Story’ as stated earlier is that all students can read the story inspite of the level of literacy. These stories help to increase the confidence of students. They improve the communication skills in terms of writing, reading and speaking. If you were to get the students to work in groups, then the listening skill also gets taken care of.

Games students play!!!

What’s the most common complaint that teachers have about their classes?

If you and I were to ask ourselves that question then the answer would be ‘BOREDOM’. Most often, students have blank looks on their face or are just not interested in classes. There are several external and internal factors influencing the interest level in a class. However, if students’ interests are flagging because they are doing ‘Black Line’ activity sheets or listening to the teacher talk, then it’s time to change.

ICT in classrooms follows a three-fold path and that is:
-ICT for visualising thinking
-ICT for creating
-ICT for communicating

Students are expected to work on all three when using ICT. However, it pains me to say that at my last practicum, I did not see ICT used for visualising thinking. Also, I felt that the NetBooks, NotePads, Computers and Laptops were not tapped for their maximum potential. Except for using MS Publisher to create posters and brochures or to access websites, I never saw students create designs or use tools such as database software.

I believe the lack of knowledge about S/W and H/W amongst teachers is to blame for the non-tapping of ICT resources. This’ further influenced by the fact that there are teachers who suffer from ‘Cyber-phobia’ – a fear of computers or ICT. But these are unjustifiable reasons for not learning. It is imperative that we are aware of the potential of computers since our students’ future depends on it.

There are several websites available for teaching topics such as Humanities, Arts, Mathematics, etc. Some of the websites are:
-www.buildyourwildself.com (Great for Preps – Grade 3 to learn about animals and their conservation)
-http://catchmentdetox.net.au/ (Applicable for Grade 5 – Grade 6 to learn about conservation of resources, especially since it is an on-going game that involves strategies, pooling of resources, financial analyses, etc)
-http://myths.e2bn.org (Apt for Grade 5 – Grade 6 to create stories on ‘myths and legends’. However, some of the graphics and stories are gory and am unsure whether all students would be unaffected by it)
-http://ziptales.com.au (Apt for Preps – Grade 4 to create stories ranging from fairy-tales to folk-lore, i.e. work on Arts, Literacy, ICT and Humanities. However, this is a site that requires subscription. Personally, I have never liked subscribing to websites since I am unsure of how effective they are in protecting my information.)
-https://fuse.education.vic.gov.au/primary/pages/Default.aspx (Apt for Grade 3 – Grade 6. This website is well laid out and is very user-friendly. Also, there are no unwanted advertisements or pop-ups since it is maintained by the DEECD. There’s a wide range of material for various domains such as Science, Arts, Literacy, Mathematics, etc.)

As you can see from the first picture on this blog, I have been playing around with the ‘www.buildyourwildself.com’ website. Though it was interesting to go through the various animals and play around with changing the features on my cyber-self, I have to say that it was not very entertaining. However, I believe the Prep – Grade 3 students will be more than glad to spend 15 – 20 minutes on this. The time could be changed depending on the level of learning and skill that the students are at.

I did try to work on the ‘www.catchmentdetox.net.au’ game but I have to say that I was quite inept at it. But I am sure that students in the concerned age group would find it not only interesting but also quite addictive. I felt that the game involves strategies and planning that will keep students occupied for ages. The best feature about this game is that it is educational and can be played at home or anywhere else other than only at school.

As said earlier, I am not very keen on the ‘www.ziptales.com.au’ or the ‘www.myths.e2bc.org’. The former as it involves signing onto their website and the latter because I found their graphics quite gory. Indeed, I would be more than glad to sign off both websites to the ‘Middle Years’ or ‘Secondary’ students.

A data bank of websites for easy learning is always good to have for reference’s sake. However, I would prefer it if as teachers we invested more in S/W and H/W that students can access to create their own websites or games relevant to the domain they’re working on. This way, they can improve their ICT skills and equip themselves for a better future.

There are various S/W such as Microsoft Photo Story 3, Windows Live Movie Maker, Corel Digital Studio 2003, iStopMotion, etc. The important thing is to discuss with people who are aware of such S/W and H/W so that one can make a calculated and educated decision with regards to investing in technology that will improve our students’ learning skills.

Till then, I guess I will have to work with what I have and ensure that I do my utmost to improve my students’ learning using those tools that I have access to.

Lights, Camera, ACTION!!!

Ever wondered how to keep students occupied? Or have you felt helpless even as your carefully prepared lessons disintegrated before your eyes as students were bored with the Power Point Presentation or ‘Black Line Masters’ that you had created? Ever looked at those teachers, who seem technically rooted, and felt jealous seeing their movie clips and interactive presentations?

If the answer to any of the above is ‘yes’, then it’s time to learn how to improve your presentation skills. We live in a world where every thing from food to even recreation is fast. People have no time for following the ‘tortoise style’ of doing things. Aesop’s fable of ‘slow and steady wins the race’ no longer applies since you and I will be left far behind.

There are tonnes of ways by which you can improve your presentation skills. The important thing to remember is, “why are you creating the material that you are working on?” Are you attempting to impress your students? Are you looking for a promotion? Or are you creating media-savvy learning material so that students are challenged and occupied?

I hope that you answered ‘yes’ to the last question because then you are on the right track to becoming an excellent educator like Jaime Escalante or Sir Ken Robinson. The important thing to remember while creating material is that it has to educate and generate interest amongst students. Immediately, students should want to research on the topic of learning further.

Learning material can be made interesting and one of them is to create movies or video clips. There's a range of software available to teachers nowadays. But as a teacher, it is imperative that the content is appropriate for the age group it is targeted at. Some of the websites that provide movie-creation services are:
-www.digitalfilms.com
-www.dfilm.com (now known as dvolver)
-www.toondoo.com
-www.abc.net/rollercoaster/rollermache
-www.xtranormal.com



All these websites are user-friendly. They require a valid e-mail ID and password so as to log onto the website. Once in, you can follow the instructions and create your own story board. You can add characters, speech bubbles, costumes, back drops, music, change camera angles and even move the characters around.

I used ‘www.digitalfilms.com’ to create a story on ‘Cyber Bullying’ and 'www.xtranormal.com’ to create a mock-interview between David Letterman and myself. I did use ‘www.dfilm.com’ to create an animated video clip on relationships.

There are certain issues that will crop up when using these websites and they are as follows:
-Inappropriate advertisements and animation characters
-Body image issues amongst students on seeing the characters in the videos or movies
-Not all age groups are interested in animation clips
-Chunky movements in certain websites that result in the animation looking antique
-Not many backdrops or features. This will result in stereotyped video clips

These websites make it easier to create content that students will be interested in. But, remember not all of the characters or advertisments in the websites are appropriate for students. Some of the advertisements as well as the content are adult-rated and cannot be viewed by school students. Indeed, I found some of the characters could result in ‘body image’ issues amongst students.

As stated, some of the animation seem out-dated like the huge servers that would fill entire floors in the 1970’s. Also, I found the lack of variety in features resulted in some of my presentations looking no different from the ones created earlier. So students felt that they were looking at the same thing over and over again.

Though I seem to be placing a spoke in the wheel of creativity, I still would like to say that such websites are very useful to create content that students would find interesting. I found that investing in Windows Live Movie Maker not only made it easier to create content for my classes but also made them look more professional.

If you are seriously contemplating a career in teaching, then I would suggest that you invest in software and hardware that will enable you to improve your mode and style of delivery of content. You will notice a marked improvement in your students’ standards of learning.