I am delighted to join you this week to share my ideas on how to use a variety of technology tools to facilitate online learning. I am an experienced Blackboard user, but I am excited about other tools to supplement and enhance online learning: blogs, e-portfolios, and digital storytelling.
- A blog (abbreviation for "web log") is an online journal, organized in reverse chronological order, the most recent entry on top. Blogs were the "big thing" at NECC last summer and are very popular with adolescents. I started my own Blogger blog last spring and you could review my online blog which focuses on Electronic Portfolios for Learning. I have a web page that has some of my favorite links on using blogs and wikis in education.
There are a variety of blogging tools available; Blogger is the most popular, and it is free. I store my own blog on my website to avoid the ads that you probably see at the top of this page. Blogs differ from threaded discussions, since they are primarily meant for individuals to quickly publish their own thoughts online, but there can also be group blogs, as Jayne has established here. The author of a blog entry usually allows comments on that entry, which can facilitate conversation about the ideas expressed. Another feature of a blog is the ability to add links to other websites, as I have included in this entry.
- An electronic portfolio is a purposeful and reflective collection of a learner's work that exhibits efforts, progress and achievement over time, published in an electronic container (most often on CD-ROM or the WWW). My website has already been a reference for this class and provides many resources for a graduate course that I recently designed on electronic portfolios in education. There are many purposes for developing portfolios: learning, assessment, marketing or employment are the three most popular reasons to develop a portfolio. I consider my blog to be my learning portfolio.
There are a variety of tools to create electronic portfolios: common desktop tools (i.e., Office, Acrobat, HyperStudio, Director, eZedia) and many systems, services and strategies that can be used to create online portfolios. In my blog you can follow my current evaluation study that follows my exploration through free, open source, and commercial systems available to publish portfolios online.
- Digital Storytelling is the modern expression of the ancient art of storytelling. Digital stories derive their power by weaving images, music, narrative and voice together, thereby giving deep dimension and vivid color to characters, situations, experiences, and insights.
- Digital Storytelling Association
Digital stories can be created with a variety of tools, but most often with digital video editing programs (i.e., iMovie, MovieMaker2, Photostory). I have also developed a web page with some of my favorite links on digital storytelling. I believe digital stories can be powerful tools for reflection on experience to support deep learning, and can be very effective artifacts in an electronic portfolio. I have another web page that provides some examples of digital stories. You might also look at Coming Full Circle, a video letter to a former teacher created by a graduate student at Montclair State University, that outlines the many factors that influenced his decision to enter teaching.
Here are the activities that I would like to facilitate this week. After accepting Jayne's invitation to join this blog, read what has been written so far, starting at the end, since blogs are organized in reverse chronological order. Follow some of the links I have shared above. Then, add your own entry, sharing your own experience with any of these tools. Also, add comments to other participants' entries, using a similar strategy as you would in a threaded discussion. If you want to, set up your own Blogger blog and share the link with the other participants; or if you already have a blog or an online portfolio, or a digital story, share those links with us. Above all, have fun!
