Interactive Digital Portfolios Across The Curriculum
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As I talk to others about ideas that I learned about at the 2016 TCEA and FETC conferences that I recently attended, people always smile when I mention the , Mark Nickelson and Kristoffer Smith. Aside from a great organizational name, they did an excellent job in expanding the application of Weebly in the classroom.
As two media technology teachers, they use Weebly as a platform for students to set up Interactive Digital Portfolios to display their student work. This is a great idea that can be applied across the curriculum.
Why IDPs Across the Curriculum?
Possibly the most powerful applications of IDPs that the 2 Bald Dudes presented on is that students are able to apply to colleges based on their work in high school, and many have been able to get jobs based on a well-presented Weebly IDP. Wow! What a powerful application of what is learned in the classroom.
But, all education should have practical applications, or else it becomes an issue of compliance. Educators should think of what a real life demonstration of learning could be for whatever the students are learning about.
The refined demonstrations of learning over the course of a year can be put on a website to function as an IDP. A demonstrated application of learning in a World Languages classroom can be a videoed conversation that the student has with a fluent speaker of that language.
In a Social Studies classroom, students can make a researched-based short video of public perceptions of the major societal themes studied in class. Also, just as the 2 Bald Dudes talked about their students taking their IDPs with them to the next level of education and work, students can keep the same IDP through the progression of the same subject during their school career.
A middle school student may start an IDP in Technology Applications and Robotics courses. In high school, that same student may continue with the same IDP in Programming and Computer Science courses as a way to demonstrate the growth of their knowledge over the long term.
