The Proposal

For the final project in ETAD 470 we had the choice between doing a web quest or an e-portfolio.  I have chosen to do an e-portfolio.

Why have you chosen to complete an e-portfolio?

While I had thought about making a web quest, it really seems more useful to me to make an e-portfolio.  Several of the blogs I was already reading before this class were already set up as an e-portfolio and I had been thinking about/tinkering with making a similar idea.  While the idea of using Dreamweaver to create the website is a sound idea and I have experience with it from an art class I took, since I don’t have the full program on my network at home I am going to set it up on Blogger for now.  Down the road once I am able to purchase Dreamweaver or a new Adobe suite to upgrade my Photoshop as well then I can create the portfolio via Dreamweaver and enhance things from there.

What professional uses does an e-portfolio have for you?

By creating an e-portfolio I feel it gives me the ability to get my information out to potential employers electronically and easily.  It gives me a space where I can reflect upon my role as a teacher and the ideas I have for that.  I like the idea of having my information nice and neat in one area and it gives me the ability to have more examples and samples of my work available for potential employers without having to bring boxes of it with me to interviews.  My physical portfolio can become a more streamlined version, highlighting what I feel are the best pieces of work from the e-portfolio.

What content do you plan to include?

I will embed any documents using a site called Scribd.  Here viewers and future employers can see a preview of my documents and then if they wish to print off a hard copy or download the document all they have to do is hit full screen or download and the document is there easier to read and ready to be printed.

What graphic design considerations have you taken into account for the look of the e-portfolio.

As for the graphic design look I will be sticking with my current look of my blog for now.  I took a lot of time in selecting this design from the template and am happy with it.  In the future I would possibly modify this with my own images. I want to keep a fairly basic and user friendly feel to this since not everyone coming to it will be of the same technological mind set.

What concerns do you have about the process?  How do you plan to address these concerns?

My main concern with creating this e-portfolio is the same concern I have with my love of technology and staying current with it; how do I find/make the time to keep it up to date and keep myself current with how busy my life is.  I am currently finding my life to be very busy and my time to projects ratios to be very unbalanced.  I am looking new ways to doing things and possibly breaking up my calendar into ways that I really am not fond of doing; for example making my work time more specific – certain days are for certain projects.  The down side with that is that you can’t always predict or force the creative juices and drive so if on said day I am supposed to work on photography or poetry but don’t feel the creative flow I can’t force that otherwise the work will not be my best.  In all reality just a minor bump that will require adjusting all the time as things and situations change and evolve.  My only other concern is if I want to include my photo on the site.  I am leaning towards yes since it makes sense to have it available, but have not made up my mind completely just yet.

Tell me...who are you?

                 One aspect to teaching that I feel can sometimes scare people a lot is how much of a public figure you become as a teacher.  Everyone will want to know everything they can about you and within rights I agree.  I want to know as much about my kids teachers as I can, especially when someone new joins the staff.  After all this is a pretty big responsibility they have, working with the children and future of our planet.  This plays into so many aspects of the classes we have been taking but I honestly feel there has not really been any concrete informed information about the idea of digital citizenship presented to us.  Some profs will tell you to change everything about you on the internet so people can’t find you on there while some more level headed ideas prevail with a pretty simple but striking line – think about what you post and who really needs to see it.

                       I love some advice I got while just getting started in the College of Education - while many of my peers were changing their names on their facebooks and hiding themselves online a friend and established teacher and school administrator said to me, "Why try and hide who you are in any parts of your life?  It seems like a rather dishonest action for someone who is in charge of teaching the future of our world.  If it is not something to share with everyone why share with anyone to begin with."  Yes the internet and all that entails can be a fun place to be connected with friends from everywhere but at the same time this is just another extension of who you are and is who you really are something that needs to be hidden away?  If so is this really the profession you should be trusted to be in?  So to you, my readers, I ask…who are you?

 

Who I am

I am

            Who I am

                        and

                                    Who I am

                                                I am

I’ll never tell you

            sorry

for being who I am

            because

that is who I am

                        nothing less

                        always more

Just as you are

            who you are

and they are

            who they are

We are all the same,

            as different as the

                        colours of the rainbow           

Like lightning...

Well this is a bit embarrassing.  It is Friday morning and I have not yet posted a new blog post.  I will not hide behind my life and its many roles – who am I today?  A student; a teacher; a husband; a father; an artist; a poet; a friend; a comic and toy geek, the list really can go on and on.  It is not that I have not had anything to say but much rather had too much to say.  I have started a new post numerous times only to get diverted by something more pressing and by the time I get back to it something else has tickled part of my brain.

One of the things I have been doing at some moments of downtime is watching various TED Talk videos, and finding that they do exactly what they are intended to do – inspire.  In this video from Simon Sinek the idea of inspiration for me is focused into a single phrase:

            “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

What a great line and very true on so many levels!  While organizing my thoughts around this I came across a new blog post from George Couros, also talking about the same video and focusing on the “Why” concept.  In his post one of the lines that caught my attention was:

            “…if we do not clearly articulate “why” we are doing what we are doing, the “what” and the “how” are lost.”

Another great idea that covers so many facets of not only teaching but truly life in general; if we don’t know why we are doing something are we really going to gain and retain anything from it?  This led me to think about a link I found through Shelley Wright’s twitter which caught my eye and then again I was directed to it the very next morning in class.  Not only was it awe-inspiring to see what Shelly was doing in her classroom with technology but the fact that she was nationally recognized for it is amazing and very well deserved.  The first thing Heather said to me when showing me this news in class was:

            “This is your future.”

Wow what a statement right there.  Then she follows that up with telling me that not only is Shelley an amazing teacher, which I have gleaned since starting to follow her blog and her twitter, but that she is also a current graduate student.  This is something that has been eating away at my mind ever since it was pitched to me, not once but twice in fact, by two different teachers suggesting I should pursue a Masters Degree in different areas both of which interest me greatly.  Honestly I never considered myself Masters Degree material and really am ignorant of the process of being one but have wrongly assumed that to do it I would not be able to be a teacher at the same time.  Obviously that is not the case and now the idea has really taken root in my head and I am going to have to find the time to get all the answers I need to figure out if this is something that I can truly do.

So what this post really boils down to in my mind is inspiration.  Inspiration is the fuel, the spark and the explosion to make things happen and the best part is it can come from literally anywhere and everywhere.  As a student I am inspired by my teachers and how they bring new ideas to class as well as my classmates and what they share.  As a parent I am inspired by my kids and how they see the world and are growing, learning and evolving.  As a teacher I am inspired by how students learn and the look in their eyes when connections are made or inspiration hit them.  As a photographer and poet I am inspired by literally anything I see around me from simple frost patterns on concrete to clouds covering the sun to a random series of words overheard in others conversations.  Without inspiration change can’t happen and the ideas can’t grow, life does not move without inspiration.  So I ask you:

            What inspires you today?

Technophilia

the digital natives

        are restless

you're about to

become bytes of

                    roadkill as their

speed of life

roars over you

every bit of them

data streamed across the

               cosmos

plugged into the

whole wide world

                from behind doors

closed to the natural world

      the evolution of

the future

is handcuffed

           with technology

will it

                       save

the world or

                       enslave it?

  I wrote this poem after watching a video about the changing face of students and how can we as teachers keep up with them and technology to ensure that we are engaging them in the classrooms.

These are the videos that inspired my writing:

The Blackboard

Photo from - Contemporary Jewish Museum - http://www.flickr.com/photos/contemporaryjewishmuseum/4442944577/

The above quote is a pretty good summary of why I chose to get into education.  I love and always have loved learning and want to help foster that feeling in my own children and future students.  This is also why my teaching area is primary elementary, specifically pre-kindergarten to grade 3.  Most students in these grades still enjoy learning and being at school and I want to be a teacher that helps nurture that concept and helps it grow and thrive.

This blog is going to be my space for all things teacher and educational related that I come across. A place to share ideas, questions, resources, links and anything else I want to ramble on about in this field.