Instructify

BY GRETCHEN SCHAEFER

This article is also posted on LEARN NC.

Teachers have long used portfolios to highlight their education and teaching experience, show evidence of growth, and share examples of their own learning experiences in the classroom. A portfolio is a valuable tool when seeking a new position, for assessing professional growth in an existing position, or to keep a record of your teaching career. In a typical oral question-and-answer interview, you can explain how you taught a certain lesson or unit, but with a portfolio, you can show evidence of how and why the way you taught that lesson worked best for your class.

Your portfolio might even include a reflection that explains how you changed the instruction method or materials used, and how the lesson has evolved since the first time you taught it. Sharing student work as part of your portfolio can illustrate how the students responded to the lesson as well. It can also serve as a record of your professional development — in addition to keeping a current resume on file, certificates and awards can be added to a portfolio to show how you’ve continued your education beyond initial certification.

Traditionally, portfolios were often created using three-ring binders or scrapbooks to organize a collection of physical information. But the paper teaching portfolio usually exists only as a single copy, so it can’t be accessed by others without physically receiving it. An electronic portfolio, on the other hand, can be accessed by more than just one person at a time, which can be valuable when you are submitting resumes for several positions. It allows hiring committees time to review your work before meeting you in person, and it removes some of the worry that that single copy (with no backup) might be lost if handed to the wrong person. In addition to being accessible by multiple people, an electronic portfolio provides concrete proof that you have a grasp of how to use technology effectively — and how to incorporate it into your professional practice. (more…)

BY BILL FERRIS

You can use portfolios for everything from exhibiting student projects to creating a teaching portfolio. Back in my day, though, building a portfolio meant shelling out a few bucks for a three-ring binder and those plastic pageholders — and then I had to spend way more time than I budgeted for stuffing and organizing my work in the binder. Carbonmade takes the hassle out of the portfolio process by letting you or your students set up free, simple portfolios online.

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BY BILL FERRIS

Just because you don’t know web design doesn’t mean you can’t have a nice-looking website. Wix lets you create a Flash-based website from one of their many templates, or build a site from scratch. Here’s a sample site I made in about five minutes. Wix templates allow you to create sub-pages, upload photos, and incorporate animations into your design.

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My first electronic portfolio was done six years ago using Mozilla Composer and burned to a CD, and my student teaching advisor was thrilled to not have to wade through another four-inch-thick binder filled with plastic sleeves and teacher-themed paper.  Back then, the CD was my compromise for privacy, as setting up a password-protected website was a lot more complex than it is now. These days, I’m helping student teachers create their own electronic portfolios, and Google Sites is the go-to tool for us.

Security and privacy is still a concern, and always will be, thanks to FERPA. Google makes it easy to make your site private, to share it with select individuals, or to make it entirely public and open to the world. Changing the sharing settings is a click away. If you’re submitting resumes, include a link and a note explaining how the hiring committee can access your portfolio, and in an interview, be prepared to share it.

Since Sites is a Google product, it works seamlessly with Google Docs (to save space, if you’re approaching the 100mb limit, storing files like your teaching philosophy in Docs and embedding them won’t count against your server space), YouTube (Google Video is sunsetting this year, sadly), Google Calendar,  Picasa web albums…you get the picture.

One of the reasons we’ve gone with Google Sites is that the portfolio is never married to the university’s servers, and long after our students have graduated, they can keep updating and accessing their portfolio without worrying their alma mater will someday push them out to make way for new student portfolios. It’s ad-free, unlike many other free websites, and very simple to edit and maintain. If you want your own domain name, you can purchase it and have it redirect to your Google Sites page.

It’s not perfect, though. For instance, you can’t download the source files easily, although I’ve heard rumors it’ll eventually be possible. I prefer Vimeo for video hosting, and the only embeddable content would have to be stored on YouTube, and be publicly available. There are several pre-designed themes (including one for teachers, if you’re into that!), and you can change the colors for just about any part of your site, but you can’t install custom themes. The limitations make it fairly foolproof, both for creators and for readers. If you are really committed to other services that don’t mesh with Google Sites, consider the Site a portal to your entire online presence.

To get started, get yourself a Google account if you don’t yet have one (and if you do have one, make sure it’s under a username you’d feel confident sharing professionally). Helen Barrett has a great tutorial (built within Google Sites) to guide you in creating your portfolio. You’ll have to sign in to each Google feature the first time you use it (Docs, Sites, etc) but your Google account name will be the same throughout. And since Google also allows you to have multiple sites, once your portfolio lands you a job, set up a new site for your classroom, and keep on learning. -GRETCHEN SCHAEFER

Google Sites

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