Step 2: Build ePortfolios as a Repository
Unit 1 | Week 3 | ePortfolio Digital Track
Goals: Students build a basic blog shell to post their content in, have a place to put their About Me.
Now that your students are building their fancy new About Mes, they will need a place to put them. It’s time for them to launch the baby-versions of the websites they’ll be working in all semester!
You’ll be connecting students with the Web Toolkit, and walking them through creating their own site.
Remember, at this stage in the semester, students sites will be highly primitive. Don’t worry about getting anything beautiful or professional at this point: our goal is simply functional sites!
Preparing for Step 2:
❏ Confirm your platform of choice: If you don’t have strong opinions about website platforms, FWP strongly recommends you and your students use Weebly. If you strongly prefer another platform, talk to your small group instructor about your preference. It's important that everyone in your class is using the same platform.
❏ The Web Toolkit: Post the student-resources from the Web Toolkit on your course page.
❏ Creating accounts: Walk students through the process of creating a free account.
❏ Setting up: Walk students through the process of setting up their sites and blogs. At this point, they only need to be basically functional. If you're not comfortable doing this yourself, you can have students to go through the tutorial, and help facilitate any troubleshooting.
Examples of Step 2 in action:
Leo (Audio Track): Leo has never made a website, but he gives his students the Web Toolkit and tutorials, and for the most part they figure it out together! When two students have a problem where their menus disappear, Leo offers bonus points to whoever can figure out how to solve the problem.
Students turn in their “About Me” projects to their new sites. In the end, the student introductions didn’t come out very well: there was a lot of background noise, and student’s readings were clunky and sounded scripted. But, students had a lot of fun making those stitched-recordings, and some included them on their sites without being prompted, and it seems to add a cool element!
Maria (Video Track): Maria has also never made a professional website but gives their students the Web Toolkit and tutorials. During one class period, Maria shows students how to add content to their websites/blogs and it’s messy, but they figure it out together.
Students turn in their “About Me” projects to their new sites. In the end, the student introductions seemed more informal than Maria expected and while that’s ok for the first assignment, Maria makes a note to come back to this during the Remix unit.
Tips and Tools:
Setting up your site tutorial: This is a really helpful guide to assist your students.
Don’t forget about privacy!: You’ll want to make sure students who aren’t comfortable sharing their work privately have control over their site permissions. (See the tutorial for details on this).
(Recommended) Put students into groups (If you haven’t already!): Students will have an easier time figuring out new digital tools with people to turn to. Putting students into small groups (4-5) can help them, and reduce your workload.
You might also consider asking groups to select roles (like a leader who schedules meetings, a notetaker, etc.) and make one of these roles tech-help. By nominating one savvyhead student, you will save yourself a lot of questions! Offer groups a chance to earn bonus points when they report each other for being helpful.
You can even have students introduce themselves to each other, with their new About Mes!
Back to Step 1.
Next to Step 3.