Lifelong Learning 2.0

At the beginning of the year, the teachers at my school were asked to create a portfolio of artifacts that we worked on during our year of professional development activities.  Recently I began pulling together the audio and image files, screenshots of my blog and networks, and various notes into a Google doc. I enjoyed reflecting upon the process of learning, contributing, and collaborating this year. I gained a lot from the professional development training, online workshops and educational social networks that I participated in this year. I have so much more to learn, but am thankful for a network of people to learn from. The portfolio assignment forced me to be reflective on my own lifelong learning.

Keeping an electronic portfolio is a great way to organize artifacts, professional growth, and teaching reflections, but it is also a great tool for students. I remember using (paper) portfolios in the classroom, gathering work for conferences, open house, and end-of-the-year memorabilia. Now that I work with homeschooling students, I have been thinking of a way to get them set up virtually with electronic portfolios.  I want them to keep track of their educational achievement, projects, and community service activities. They can use the tool to keep track of their own goals, presentations, and artifacts to reflect on their own learning. I’m looking for a creative, interesting, and organized digital portfolio option.

It’s no surprise that college recruiters have embraced Web 2.0. I’ve been reading about how colleges are using blogs, social networking, YouTube and Facebook to find prospective students. Jon Corippo, who spoke at CUE, recently told me about Zinch. It is a mixture of Monster.com and Facebook for high school students heading off to college. It was started by three undergrads who wanted to create a tool to alleviate frustration for students involved in the process of looking for colleges. Students create a profile to “showcase” themselves to colleges. There is a portfolio feature that they can upload video and audio content, as well as pdf files. Colleges seek students out from the site and communicate using their tools. Students can also send messages to schools they are interested in, inviting them to check out their profile.

I’ve started sharing Zinch with my high school students this past week. We talked about ways they can highlight their work and prepare a portfolio for college. A few of them were interested in Zinch and saw the benefits of using a social networking tool for this purpose.  I would love to hear suggestions from anyone that has been helping their high school students create digital portfolios. What tools did you use?