ITUG-DE Minutes
October 15, 2001

TOPIC: Electronic Portfolios

Attendees

Nancy Carnavale
Judith Conway
Susan Cornett
Amy Dwyer
Wayne Hartschuh
Anne Hilton

Helen Hylenski
Mary Kalid
Wendy Modzelewski
Joyce Nerlinger
Pat Sine
Denise Tuck



Meeting was called to order at 5:20 PM.
Attendees introduced themselves.


General Business

  • The annual discussion was held regarding the ITUG Facilitator. Wendy Modzelewski was voted in as facilitator.
  • When ITUG was formed, it was suggested that meetings be held on a specific date during the month in order to rotate the days on which the meeting was held. This was adopted to accommodate those members who were taking a college course on a specific day of the week. If the 12th fell on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, then the meeting was moved to the following Monday. This created a preponderance of Monday meetings. It was suggested that the schedule be changed for the 2001-2002 school year to alleviate the preponderance of Monday Meetings. The following schedule was adopted.
    • Monday, November 12
    • Wednesday, December 12
    • Monday, January 14
    • Tuesday, February 12
    • Wednesday, March 13
    • April - no meeting; members are encouraged to attend the Delaware Instructional Technology Conference, April 11-12, 2002. Preconference activities will begin on April 10, 2002.
    • Thursday, May 9
    • June - no meeting upon member request
  • Topics - a brief discussion was held with regard to possible topics for future meetings. Suggestions were video imaging, student web pages (including topics such as who is doing them, why they are doing them, and what they are using them for), and the Thinkquest competition. As time ran short, and the presenters had arrived, it was decided that this discussion would be tabled and posted to the list for further discussion.

Major Topic: Electronic Portfolios

The group was joined by Nancy Carnavale and Anne Hilton from the Cape Henlopen School District. Nancy has a class of 44 students and implements a student portfolio of best work. This is the second year she will be doing this. Their presentation included the following information:

What is a Portfolio?

"A portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the student's efforts, progress, and achievements. The collection must include student participation in selecting contents, the criteria for selection, the criteria for judging merit, and evidence of student self-reflection."

Northwest Evaluation Association

Why do it?

Nancy and Anne's Initial Reasons:

  • Response to DSTP
  • Permanent collection of student work
  • Way to save multimedia projects
  • Allows for larger audience for student work
Why do it again?
  • Proud students and parents
  • Requires students to self assess
  • Increases student motivation
  • Demands highelevel thinking skills.
  • Incorporates Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences
  • Technology expertise soars
  • Ongoing yearlong project
What you need?

Technology:

  • CD Burner - built into the computers
  • Writable CDs (rewritables are not critical)
  • Scanner
  • Software

And...

  • Time
  • A partner
  • Student work
  • A plan (Nancy stressed that it was critical to have all the planning done before beginning this project)
Bare Necessities

Each Portfolio must have...

  • Players for all programs (most are available on the web; if the CD is to be both Windows and MAC compatible, you need players for both)
  • Work reflective of student's achievement
  • All linked presentations (Nancy created an "outline template" for all students to follow. It was the student's responsibility to link their individual work to the template.)
Learn from their mistakes
  • Internal CD Burners are easier to work with (eliminating the transfer of work to the computer that had the CD burner.
  • Begin making your template early
  • Download players early (It was later suggested that by saving files as html would eliminate the need to download and burn players onto the CD as well.
  • Lock one copy of your template, just in case!
  • Practice burning CD's on rewritable CDs first
  • Don't worry about running out of room (Nancy's analogy was that if Microsoft Office can fit on one CD, certainly a student portfolio could!)
What they have added

This is the second year for an implementation of electronic portfolios. They have added:

  • Work is now organized by Gardner's Intelligences (last year it was organized by curriculum area)
  • Increased student control
  • More self-assessment
  • Photos
  • Evaluation
To Do Lists

For the teacher:

  • Plan and make template
  • Take photos
  • Share template with students
  • Scan students' written work (Nancy has trained students to do this)
  • Download players and practice burning CDs
  • Obtain and digitize evaluations
    • Report Cards
    • DSTP results
  • Make CD covers
  • Burn Portfolios
  • Share Portfolios

For the students:

  • "Fill in" the portfolio
  • Select work to be included in the portfolio
  • Create links to multi-media presentations
  • Copy and paste writingsw into template
  • Student group creates a memory book (that will be burned onto everyone's CD).
  • Choose and add work when completed
  • Complete final self evaluation
Still Interested?

Some valuable resources:

Next Meeting will be held on Monday, November 12, 2001. The topic will be the Computer Skills Growth Chart. This is a cooperative project developed by a number of school districts and can be used to guide you in determining the grade-level appropriate technology integration.

Meeting adjourned at 7:40 PM.

 



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