Facts Design
Online Learning Portfolios
Summary
Students will conduct research into what makes a good online learning portfolio by sampling other portfolios on the Internet. To do this students will need to design a rubric for evaluating the samples they find and apply it. Based on their evaluations students will decide what they should logically include in their own portfolios.
I recently told my daughters, nine and seven years old, they would be exploring the idea of developing a learning portfolio on the Internet and that we would be breaking this project into chunks. My oldest daughter had already had a similar discussion with her school teacher who was concerned that she might loose touch with my daughter over the summer and wanted to keep abreast of her progress. They agreed that a blog or a learning portfolio might be a good idea. Back at home my daughters and I talked about what it means to have a portfolio and what pieces might make one up. We decided that for their purposes the portfolio project consists of three main pieces, an actual portfolio, a blog, and networking to get the word out to the right people after they have put their information online. Some preliminary subsets of these the girls agreed upon pertained to what one should put into a portfolio, where one could do so safely (kid-safe), who might need to look at their work, and how they can share their work with these people.
Grades
Elementary (3rd and 5th grade in the case of my daughters)
Subjects
General education, research, writing
Duration
Summer vacation
Foundations
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Literacy
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Symbols: Students will encounter symbols on others' online portfolios. both relating to the concept of a portfolio and those related to web page navigation. Unlike in as printed portfolio where readers flip from page to page in sequence online portfolios provide navigation that allows readers to browse sections as they wish, or even skip sections. In this project students will have to identify symbols used for navigation in a number of samples and will need to decide how they will use similar symbols to guide visitors to their portfolio.
Discourse: Students will not just be looking at how online portfolios are laid out, but will also be analyzing how individuals address their audience. They will need to choose a style they like and attempt to emulate it in their own work.
Cognitive Process: Students will be participating in activities that promote research and analysis of various online portfolios and will be encouraged to create a style of their own for their learning portfolios.
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Problem Solving
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Problem: In order to succeed in the business or academic world today one must know how to present what he or she knows to an employer, prospective college, etcetera. Students have been creating learning portfolios for quite some time, but more and more prospective employers and registrars check the Internet in addition to requesting written samples of student or employee work. The question is, then, how should one present oneself online?
Strategies: Students will create a rubric by which they will evaluate learning portfolios, find sample portfolios online, and decide what they should put into their own portfolios based on their research.
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Knowledge
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Disciplinary Structures: Research, Evaluation, Audience, Purpose, Editing
Disciplinary Processes: Conduct research, gather information, design an evaluation rubric
Disciplinary Discourse: Students will conduct research into what makes a good online learning portfolio by sampling other portfolios on the Internet. To do this students will need to design a rubric for evaluating the samples they find and apply it. Based on their evaluations students will decide what they should logically include in their own portfolios.
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Information
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Students will be tapping into one primary source of information, online portfolios, but should find very different treatments on the Internet with very diverse styles of presentation and choice of content.
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Community
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Collaboration: Students will be sharing the results of their research with each other and discussing how they can apply what they have learned to building their own portfolios.
Shared Experience: Students may also find learning portfolios for individuals with whom they have a lot in common.
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Activities
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Authentic Activities
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The building of a portfolio, resume, or curriculum vitae, is a very real world skill that many of us struggle with. Fortunately, schools are beginning to emphasize portfolios more and more and many children have a good grasp of what it means to have one by the time they complete the primary grades. This lesson emphasizes that portfolios are a long-term solution, rather than a semester long task, and encourages students to seek out learning portfolios on the web where they are intended for a real-world audience.
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Background Building Activities
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Students will use the Internet and appropriate search engines to seek out online learning portfolios.
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Students will learn how to build an evaluation rubric. This activity will encourage critical thinking and introduce methods of evaluation.
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Constructing Activities
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Students will construct an evaluation rubric that they can apply to the portfolios they choose to evaluate. They will later begin constructing their own plan for building an online learning portfolio based on what they establish to be best practices for doing so.
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Sharing Activities
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Students will share their research with each other, and later share their plans for using this information.
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Contents
Technology: The student uses appropriate Internet resources to find information. Students use technology assets to organize the findings of their research.
Organization: Students will organize their research efforts to systematically find and evaluate samples.
Research: Students conduct research on the design and use of online learning portfolios.
Planning: Students plan their research and conduct it in an orderly fashion.
Evaluation: Students use critical thinking to and make value judgments to devise a rubric for evaluating portfolios.
Tools
Internet
Word Processor
Samples of others' work
Systems of Assessment
The products of this unit will be assessed based on whether their application leads to a better understanding of online learning portfolios and what makes them useful or interesting. One of the purposes of this lesson is to motivate students to share their achievements and present them in a way that is useful and interesting to the casual viewer. Part of that motivation is in seeing what others have done and viewing those samples with a critical eye, much as a potential school or employer may view the students' portfolios.
Learning Environment
Homework (self paced): Students will conduct research and discuss their findings informally with the instructor and each other.
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