3 - eportfolios Using Publisher

WEEK 3 Creating ePortfolios

(figure 1 - Using Microsoft Publisher to create an ePortfolio)

Eportfolios are a great electronic way for teachers in particular to organise, assess, interpret and evaluate information or data. A teacher may have quite old but relevant information such as old school reports or results and old lesson plans which can easily be scanned and uploaded on to the site. These portfolios allow users to upload information into one area and organise it under specific headings like a wiki or a blog. Teachers can then reflect and self assess themselves and their development over time.

In some schools teachers give students a portfolio on a cd or usb showing their time from Grade Prep to year 6 featuring old photos, special work they completed and any student achievements.

During our tutorial we used Microsoft Publisher to create an ePortfolio for ourselves. We selected a template in Publisher that we preferred and used trial and error to learn how to use the program by entering required headings and images. After entering our own headings, as a group we discussed which headings would be most appropriate to include in our portfolios to digitally promote ourselves as future teachers or for the future to keep a record of our teaching experiences. My ePortfolio headings included;

• My philosophies


• My resume


• Referees


• Photographs


• Practicum & Fieldwork


• Sample Lesson Plans

I certainly will be using this program to alter my existing curriculum vitae by transferring all the information into Publisher and creating an ePortfolio. I will also scan my degree and add a page for achievements. This is a fantastic and easy way of showing how you have developed over time and how you have collected, organised, showed evidence of and evaluated your life experiences. Unlike a hard copy which may contain many pages to get through, specific areas of your portfolio may be viewed with a simple click of a button on the relevant page.

I have seen many examples of teachers eportfolios on http://www.teachertube.com/ (accessed March 16 2009) and believe they are an excellent avenue for displaying how we have developed as a teacher, from our years of practicum to time in our own classrooms. Many important documents and images can easily be scanned and uploaded such as photos of our classrooms, student work, any behaviour managment ideas that worked well, and any awards received. The eportfolio can be easily updated too once category/subject pages have been created.

Uploading our portfolios onto a usb or cd, is an excellent idea when going for a job interview as employers can see we are using the latest technology and can access our information from a visually attractive file with ease. In some cases, an employer may even lose the hard copy or spill coffee on it so at least there is a backup.

My homework is to practise using Microsoft Publisher I may even purchase 'Publisher for Dummies!'

1- Learning Through Visuals - Inspiration 8

(Figure 1 - shows a 'mind map' created using Inspiration 8 showing children the many types of animals in our world)

Inspiration 8

The focus of our first week in ICT was how we deliver information to children and how they analyse, interpret, organise and remember information. The best way to deliver information to children is through ‘visual imagery’ such as images from clipart, photographs and simple graphs/tables. During our workshop we were introduced to a wonderful program - ‘Inspiration 8’ which effectively allows us to do deliver important information in a creative and visual manner.

Inspiration 8 makes it easy for students and teachers to;

• Create projects and/or lessons that are easy to understand as there are many templates to choose from and many training videos that show you common features and uses of the program.
• Hyperlink to URLs
• Add text, images and multimedia files from other sources to Inspiration projects.
• Organise ideas
• Be creative in teaching any subject
• Choose ‘safe’ images as it contains over 1,000 images suitable for children. http://www.softwaretime.com.au/ accessed March 5 2009 and search Inspiration 8.

I personally loved the 'mind maps' feature of this program as it is a great interactive way of brainstorming class ideas quickly and effectively. It encourages users to group ideas into branches or sub areas by creating an actual branch by the click of a button. It was extremely 'user friendly' and gone are the days of jotting done lots of words on the board and accidentally rubbing them out with your arm or trying to work out what you have written!!! Children and adults can easily understand the diagram.

A mind map could easily be created during a Science lesson for example 'Biology' and sorting out living things and non-living things. You could begin the brainstorming process with a picture of the earth and then one branch to the heading 'living things' and another to 'non-living things and the teacher can ask each student in the class for an example and enter each suggestion as text or an image. The teacher could then create another branch for living things i.e. vegetable or animal etc. Children can understand the relationships as they are visually represented in the mind map via the branches. (see figure 1)

Our first Workshop and Lecture for ICT were quite informative. They both educated me on some of the new technologies used in schools and informed me about how ICT is integrated into the curriculum and classroom in today's schools. Classrooms sure have changed since I was in Prep in 1984. I am looking forward to learning much, much more in ICT and I look forward to using the technology learned this semester in my classroom.