Extend, Enhance, and Facilitate - Digital Portfolios

ISTE.org has developed a section of their website devoted to the technology standards. Visitors can check out both the student-level standards and the teacher standards. Standards for administrators are also now posted. The NETS section is located at: http://cnets.iste.org/ The debate on the topic of portfolios is significant. The portfolio template we are posting here is the first draft of a simple design that can be easily adapted for different approaches. The NETS portfolio is a way for teachers to document where they are in terms of the technology standards. Just as our graduate course changes every semester because of the changing nature of technology, what a teacher might include the first time they produce this portfolio is highly likely to change dramatically as they develop more skills and spend more time reflecting on what is really happening in their classrooms because they are utilizing technology to extend, enhance, and facilitate learning. Also, society itself is changing. When we consider the section on social and ethical issues, we think we're going to see elements be discussed in a different way in the months to come. For example, for several years, ours students have heard us natter at them about anti-virus software and keeping virus signatures up-to-date. Now, we see that emerging as a national-level issue and the government is about to start calling on the citizens to see that as part of a civic responsibility so that groups with nefarious purposes don't use the computers of unsuspecting users to do damage to critical communication centers. The NETS Portfolio - 1st Draft Getting organized to do the portfolio is pretty much the same as getting organized to do any form of multimedia project. Traditionally, you would want to do a storyboard first to lay out what you're trying to communicate. This time, though, the NETS have done that for you. Referencing the standards and providing documentation that you are meeting the standards is the heart of the entire project. You can get as fancy as you want, but if you do not reference the standards and reflect upon where you are at this point in time and what you have accomplished with regard to the standards, then how will anyone know if you're meeting them? Organizing your files Establishing a file structure to organize the artifacts/elements you will use in your portfolio is a fundamental survival skill. It doesn't matter what you're going to be using to produce the final product, you are still going to have to organize the files. Probably one of the worst mistakes anyone can make is to avoid this step. Presume that something will go wrong. Hard drives can corrupt - files can corrupt. If you have to put something together quickly, how will you do it? Re-creating a project isn't that hard, nor is that time-consuming if you have a template ready to go and your content is safely stored in independent folders that you can quickly access. We've put together a simple graphic that suggests one way to organize your folders in preparation for undertaking any multimedia project - web-based or cd-rom. Check it out here. In terms of what should be in each folder, we've provided another graphic illustrating those points. That graphic is available at this site by clicking here. One critical point we need to make about saving files is that many individuals make the mistake of saving their graphic files as a Word document and then wonder why they can't use it for other purposes. Save graphics independent of any program. Keep the graphics in their proper file formats. A JPEG photo produced by a digital camera is just not going to work the same as a JPEG based in a Word document. Trust me. You'll only have to do this incorrectly once and you'll never do it again. For your daily dose of nattering on the importance of making back-up copies of your files, go to this page. I give myself the same lecture when I start to get in a hurry and decide I don't have time to make back-ups. People are right. You don't have to do back-ups. You might be one of those individuals in the world who have absolutely nothing better to do with their time then to build every single element from scratch. Yes - if you're one of those people, then go ahead - don't do back-ups. If you're like me and you'd like to be able to do something else with your time, then make the back-ups. The Portfolio Design The design of the portfolio resulted from taking an existing template in the Resources folder of eZediaMX and making very slight modifications. Currently, the portfolio exists as a single project. However, it would be equally possible to take each section of the NETS and develop each one as a single project and then link them from the table of contents frame. The following are some screen captures from the portfolio template. At the end of this page is the link to the downloadable zoi file. If you're unfamiliar with eZediaMX - a multimedia authoring program that can be used across age levels - primary to post-secondary - then go to the link at this site or to the eZediaMX home.
Figure 1: Here we see the opening frame of the digital portfolio of technology skills.
Figure 2: Each of the main subsections shown on the Table of Contents is already linked and ready to go. Notice the simple white square on the left. Teachers can put a picture in that area with the caption noted below.
Figure 3: Here we begin the transition to the discussion under each section. The template provides some limited information regarding what teachers might want to include in each section.
Figure 4: Each section also has a second frame in the template that suggests some type of examples one might include as evidence. Individuals might want to consider duplicating this frame to provide for more items or even splitting this section off and letting it become a separate eZediaMX file that can be linked to the main table of contents frames.



Download the NETS Portfolio file to be used in an eZediaMX authoring environment. Check out these templates for the NETS

Last edited: April 11th, 2004

E-mail: Jane