Saturday, August 31, 2013

Google Site Portfolios.....Our 5th Graders Have A New Place To Share Their Learning, Creating, and Voice

When school started a few weeks ago, our 4th and 5th graders also started their Related Arts Student Portfolio Blogs.  We are using KidBlog for the platform which they are posting to in art, music, and the library (You can read about their student portfolio blogs here).

Another goal for this year that our two 5th grade teachers Kate Goodwin and Aubrey Stafford, along with our colleague Bart Jones who is the elementary PE teacher and myself, is for all of the students to have a digital portfolio.  This is a pilot within our elementary and a goal for all of our students K-12 next year at Van Meter.

Each student will share their learning, creating, and voice within their digital portfolio.
We decided to use Google Sites for their portfolios.  They each have an iPad with them throughout the day and access to laptops in the classroom and library.

The 5th graders started their Google Site in the library last week.  I walked them through the steps and each one created their own.  We love working together in front of the screen.....they can follow along with me very easily.  Also, working together as a group they also become the teachers, helping and teaching their classmates.
Once their Google Site was created they had fun personalizing it by changing the theme, color, fonts, and adding a picture of themselves on the home page.

I love seeing them use PhotoBooth on the MacBooks and PicMonkey online to create the perfect picture to represent themselves!
By the end of the time in the library, every one of the 5th graders had a place that was just for them.

They also had created a page for their Related Arts Portfolio Blog....we will add these next week.
 
I want these portfolios to be all them.....Truly letting their passions, voice, and talents shine through.

Through their portfolio work we will see our students produce and publish work that they are proud of, work that they will want to share with others.  These will follow them through their secondary years.  It will be really inspiring and important to see how they are develop into young people ready to change the world.

And a new place to share their learning, creating, and voice.
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousAugust 31, 2013 at 8:41 PM

    Hi,
    I love using Google sites for our student portfolios! It's a great experience for kids to create their own site and decide what to add and include. We have been and are still debating about whether they should be public or not. I wonder what you have decided with your colleagues?
    Last year our students sites were not public, and the kidblogs that my class did were. My students were MUCH more interested in blogging then adding to their portfolio. For some kids their blogs became a mix of posts about interests and portfolio type pieces that shared their work.

    If your student portfolios will be public, I would love to share them with my colleagues to see how it can be done.

    Katy

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  2. UnknownOctober 8, 2013 at 6:15 AM

    Very informative and well written post! Quite interesting and nice topic chosen for the post.

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