Welcome! Web-Based Portfolios

1. Welcome! Web-Based Portfolios • Please put a colored dot on your name tag: • Red = High School • Blue = Middle School • Green = Upper Elementary • Yellow = Lower Elementary • And help yourself to your favorite jelly belly.

2. Web-Based Portfolios: Power of Making Good Work Visible Patrick Dickson Michigan State University

3. Introduction • Welcome! • Thanks to international school teachers • HKIS, JIS, SAS, AES, ISB, SEATCO 1994 • Let’s learn something about who is here. • Can you save a Word file on your computer? • Can you publish a Web page to the world?

4. So Much to Talk About… • The Portfolio Concept: Food for Thought • Lifespan Developmental Perspective • For students you teach • For you, for your colleagues • Many interpretations of portfolio concept.. • Many purposes for portfolios, many forms. • My main point today…

5. Making Good Work Visible • The benefits to everyone of… • “Authentic” work…papers, poems, art… • created within a caring learning community • for an audience of significant others • shared with others on the Web • collected and preserved over time.

6. Stories and Observations • Wisconsin Undergraduates: CFS 520 • MSU Undergraduates: TE 150 • Think of the work you are most proud of • Do you still have a copy? • How many people have seen it? • “What do you have to show for your education besides a grade point average?” • Is the unintended consequence of our way of teaching writing that the students’ writing doesn’t really matter?

7. Beyond Gutenberg • We are the first generation of teachers • who can enable their students • to become published authors, poet, artists. • with a “significant” worldwide audience... • Contrast a school anthology with a few students represented in a few printed copies.

8. Resources Online: Take Awaysfrom Today’s Session • Go to: http://www.msu.edu/user/pdickson • Click on title of this presentation for: • Portfolio Examples • Readings • Tutorials • If you would like me to send updates: • Leave me your email address.

9. Portfolios: A Very Brief History • 1970s: Bay Area Writing Project • Early 1990s: “Portfolio Movement” • Not electronic, in folders, in classrooms • Apple II’s with Hypercard…hints of a possible future. • Late 1990s: Standards, “Testing Mania” in U.S. • From Portfolio Assessment to Portfolios as Assessment • Now: Portfolios Bushwacked by NCLB • Teachers under pressure to raise test scores.

10. Computers and Portfolios:From K-12 to Higher Education • A strange shift happened in last few years: • In 1990s, “ed tech” and “portfolios” referred to education in K-12. • In 2000s, portfolios and laptops surge as requirements in higher education; CMS like Blackboard soared. • Portfolios now required of preservice teachers, inservice teachers’ masters programs, other masters, doctoral programs. • Meet “comprehensive exam” requirement • Considered more authentic and valid. • NBPTS and COATT portfolios

11. Many Types of Portfolios • Teacher Portfolios • To get a job • To communicate with students, parents, • Classroom Portfolios • Student Portfolios • School Portfolios

12. Multiple Purposes: Only You Can Decide What Works for You • Reflective Portfolio • Assessment • Authentic Assessment • Alternative Assessment (confrontational) • Standardized Portfolios • Rubrics: Attempted to be as reliable as SAT. • High stakes tests

13. Lifespan Perspective • Teacher Portfolios • Preservice Teachers • Inservice Teachers • NBPTS Portfolio: “Board Certified” • Student Portfolios • K to 12th… developmental changes • Imagine Web when Today’s K’s reach 12th. • What year did you first… CEP 240 graph.

14. Sustainability, Scalability, Time, and Money • We must invent models of portfolios that do not require heroic amounts of time by teachers. • My bias: Grand schemes rarely work, such as: • “…every child will have an online portfolio across all grade levels …” • “…our software makes it easy to compile and assess portfolios…” • Keep it simple! Share the work!

15. Students Can Help • Call upon your students’ technical skills. • Connect with parents. • Encourage students to use computer at home. Netscape 4.78…great, free program. • Create web publishing center in your room. • Make students webmasters with special assignments…art, poetry, design.

16. Time is Precious! Keep It Simple! • Time is Our Only Inelastic Resource • Time to learn to do it once (make a page) • Time to make the second and third… • Does time decrease with practice? • Time the product is useful: ROI. • Time to revise and update pages. • Time to teach one student * number of students.

17. Return on Investment • Preserving good examples helps you teach • Don’t let good examples walk out the door • Many students haven’t seen what good is. • Building community by making work visible.

18. What’s Different in 2004? • The Web is revolutionary • Change is accelerating • Rate of change is accelerating • Change in next 10 years >=last 20 years. • We all must learn to learn …And learning will be increasingly via the Web • Beyond receiving to creating content.

19. Issues, Questions, Problems • Policies for web publishing. • Permission, first names, photos? • Security • For children and yourself. • Structured to unstructured • Rubrics and grading • Required or optional • Technical: Firewalls, software choices.

20. Thank You Very MuchKhap Khun Khap! • Please email me with your ideas, suggestions, favorite web resources. • I’ll be happy to talk to you about MSU’s graduate programs. • And keep advocating for the power of portfolios in your schools…by your personal example and your students’ work.