Last school year, my students created ePortfolios for the first time.  I had never done a project like this with a class before, but because of my interest in technology, I thought this was a wonderful project for us to do!  In the BC curriculum it states that students should “select images from their own portfolio for class presentation
and/or public display, and give reasons for this selection” and to “compare a developed artwork to their initial drafts and explain how their ideas have changed and developed,” in regards to Art.  Well, I believe it is important to be able to do this in all subject areas, not just art.  So I explained to my students that we were going to look through all of our work and choose the things we were most proud of; the projects that we learned the most from, and the assignments that really showed our learning and we were going to put those works onto a website where we could showcase them.  They were very excited to start and what I love about this project is that I did not have any samples to show them (as this was new for me) and so they really got to make their ePortfolios their own!  Again something that we all strive for in education, to have students take ownership of their learning!  This is also echoed by the Ministry of Education as they encourage us to help students build “key competencies like self-reliance, critical thinking, [and] inquiry".  We decided to build our portfolios using weebly because it is a very user friendly site and my students were familiar with it because our class website is a weebly site which I created.  The picture below will take you to one student's ePortfolio where he has kindly linked all of my students' ePortfolios.

They were a success!  The students loved creating their own websites and I loved seeing them reflect upon previous projects and assignments!  Many students even created extra pages where they discussed items of importance to them that were not a part of our learning over the year (such as a page devoted to Martin Luther King, Jr—one student's hero, and a dolphin information page).  They taught themselves how to add music to their websites (something I did not know how to do, but was thrilled about because they were teaching themselves and each other how to do something new!!  Another skill we want our students to have—self-sufficiency and the ability to learn on their own). 

If you haven't tried creating portfolios (electronic or otherwise), I highly suggest you give it a chance next year.  They are a wonderful way to allow students to be creative, express themselves and become more reflective of their learning and growth.  

One regret I have is that we did not start the ePortfolios earlier in the school year.  We only began in third term, and therefore we only had a few months left of school to document.  Next year, we will begin at the start of the year and we will continue all year long (and hopefully even into future grades, as my teaching partner, Hugh McDonald, show them to the rest of the staff at our school as well as the high school our students feed into.  Our vision being that students would begin these ePortfolios in Kindergarten and continue them right through high school.  

I also regret not giving the students time to peer-assess their portfolios.  While we were working on them, they did, of course, collaborate and help each other out at times, but they weren't given specific time to share.  Sharing with peers and giving feedback is, of course, a key part of any publishing process and in our rush to finish them before the end of the year, we overlooked that step.  Next year, we will move slower (and stop along the way to share) and I expect their ePortfolios to be even more amazing!

It has been suggested to me by many people on twitter that I use evernote next year as a way of keeping track of the students learning and then the website as a way of showcasing the best.  I am currently leaning towards that route for next year (as I can see the value of having the two types) and am going to spend a day with AnneMarie Middleton (fellow Surrey school teacher) working through how to make this work, before making up my mind. 

But I wonder…have you created ePortfolios with your students?  What format do you use?  What will you use next year? Why?  I would love to hear from you!

I am rediscovering my love for word clouds and thought I would share a few ways to use them in the classroom!  But first, a quick explanation: tagxedo.com is a word cloud creator.  You put in the words that you want to appear in the picture OR you enter the URL of a website.  The more times a word appears in a document, the bigger it will be in the word cloud.  Below is a word cloud I made using the URL for this blog.  The largest words are TECHNOLOGY, INTEGRATING, GENIUS HOUR, BLOGGING, LEARN AND LEARNER.  That is because those are the words that I use the most when I write my blog!

3 ways you can use word clouds with your students:

1.  In September I have them do an All About Me picture.  I tell them to type in their name 10 times (so it will be the largest) and then have them type in words that describe themselves.  This is a great ways to get to know your students, for them to get to know each other and also gives you something to decorate the room with at the start of the year.  Last year, I made word clouds with all of the grades 5s and 6s at my school and we decorated the whole computer lab.  In my example below I used my name, interests, hobbies etc.

2.  You can use them to create title pages.  I had them put all of the words that they thought had to do with science and then we printed them and put them at the beginning of our Science Duotangs.  They looked so great!  And it also got them thinking about what science really is.  I made this example using wikipedia's definition of science.

3.  Students can use them to make visual representations of their poetry.  They would type up their poems and could then add to their poetry booklets OR save the jpeg of their cloud and put on their ePortfolios, blogs, etc.

There are so many other ways to use this cool web 2.0 tool (character study, mother's day cards...the list goes on and on...) If you haven't played around with word clouds yet, I suggest you do...a perfect rainy day activity for the summer break & we get lots of those here in the Lower Mainland ;)

The new school year starts on September 4th, and the week after that my new student teacher from SFU, Patrick (aka @runtboy) will begin his Long Practicum with me and my 6/7 class.  But thanks to the magic of Twitter, Patrick and I have been able to connect regularly since we were matched up. 

I had a really great conversation with Patrick the other day and wanted to share it with you all.  We started talking about our summer classes since he has PDP classes this summer and I am working on my Grad Diploma this summer.  Here is an excerpt:

We were discussing two different types of assignments: the first being a traditional essay/paper style assignment and the second being a hands-on project such as building a bird house.  Patrick was talking about how excited he was to build his bird house and this reminded me of our students! Most of them are also much more motivated by hands on projects than the traditional written worksheet/essay! Patrick and I had a great discussion about learning and we definitely see eye-to eye on this, and I am so excited to see what he comes up with for September (and in some cases to be learning right alongside with my students, as Patrick is a very creative person and is sure to be trying things I have never even heard about).

This is such a good time of year for us all to be reminded that we are just like the students that we teach.  Things we find more interesting and more meaningful to our learning are the same types of activities that will resonate with our students.  Now is the time to think about our pedagogy, as we are all (hopefully) reflecting on the past year and thinking about how to improve our practice for the upcoming school year! 

I know that I am going to use some of my time off to read books about motivation (Drive by Dan Pink), teaching non fiction (NonFiction Matters by Stephanie Harvey on advice from @mrsdkrebs) and whatever I can get my hands on regarding project and passion based learning.  I plan on integrating
What will you be adding/changing to the way you teach next year?

I started this blog weeks ago, and then I got busy…  I find this happens to me a lot and so my new goal for the next school year is to blog more regularly.  I have even put it as a weekly reminder on my phone.  Why? Because I think blogging (sharing with others, joining the conversation about education, reflecting on my practice, etc) is a really important part of who I am as a teacher and my professional growth.  So I pledge to do more of it over the summer and for the next school year. 

Side note: If you don’t have a professional blog yet, I highly recommend you start one.  It really is a wonderful way to reflect upon your teaching!

So, how does this tie into the blog I started earlier?  It does…I started writing about how I was lucky enough to have been invited to a professional development day called “Movers and Shakers” a little while back.  The guest speaker was George Couros and at one point during the day, he asked us a really great question:

“How do we foster innovation in our schools?”

He gave us a few minutes to chat at our table groups about this, and so I started asking everyone at my table, “Well, what is the most innovative/best thing you did in your classroom this year?”  I asked this because I believe that that is how we can foster and spread innovation of best teaching practice; share!    

This is nothing new, really.  We all know the benefit of and like to take a few minutes to chat in the hallway with our colleagues and share, but what has made my past year so amazing is that I no longer just share with people at my school, because I am on twitter.  Now, the world is my hallway!  It has made me a much better teacher!  I am trying things that I would not have even heard of before, if it weren’t for twitter. 

Which brings me to my list of the best things I did this year (inspired by George Couros' question & what this blog is really supposed to be about):

1. Genius Hour (click here to read more about that)  Passion Based Learning has changed how I look at education and is LOVED by all of my students.

2. Blogging with my students (click here to read more about that) and also starting and maintaining my own blog.

3. Joining twitter, building my PLN and meeting amazing educators who inspire me everyday.

So, chances are if you are reading this than you are probably already on twitter (I am assuming that is how you found this) but if you aren’t you have to sign up.  And then sign up 2 other teachers at your school.  Share the learning…because it really is a wonderful place for us all to encourage each other to be more innovative and share best teaching practice. 

So, that is what I leave you with—a mission—to get two new people on twitter, help them get set up and following some great educators!

#sherpapower, right George?