My ePortfolio Experiment Begins

Well, I’ve been back in class for eight whole days now (five of those with the children) and it’s been a busy time! I’m with a Primary 6 stage class and one of my goals in coming back to class was to try to set up an ePortfolio for each child. I’d been playing around with the idea whilst on secondment and couldn’t wait to try out the concept ‘for real’ and this post is hopefully going to help me to learn from what’s happened so far  …… it’s been a rocky ride at times 🙂

During my secondment, I had the opportunity to work with a small group of children for a few afternoons and I helped them set up an ePortfolio (of sorts). Jaimey’s can be seen here . I decided on wikis over blogs, because I liked the idea that the children could put menus in the sidebar and have things neatly compartmentalised. I’d used wikis in the past with children, but mainly to allow them with a place to experiment with writing stories . I’d also previously provided children in my classes with individual blogs but wasn’t convinced that they were the best means available for the purpose – I’ve actually moved my thinking on and now see a place for both, but I’ll save that another post 🙂

So – what about my attempts so far in helping my class to build their ePortfolios?  I began by introducing them to our class blog . Because it’s been on the go for about four years now, I was able to locate lots of examples of the benefits of class blogging – and I also told them about what happened when I gave children in previous classes their own individual online spaces and explained that I hoped to eventually give them their own blog , too. I’d spent some time during the summer setting these up via GLOW  (I’d originally planned to use primaryblogger  – a fantastic support for schools! – but then decided, for various reasons, to give the GLOW ones a try). I’d planned on giving everyone in the class a GLOW login anyway, so I decided to set their blogs up at the same time.

Here’s my step-by-step explanation – there are probably better/quicker ways?:

  •  log in as pupil and go to ‘My Glow’
  • add the ‘Glow Blog’ web part
  • click on ‘Advanced Settings’  then ‘Go to Site Administration’
  • Go to ‘Manage  Users’ then ‘Add Users’
  • Add own Glow username to the ‘choose users’ box and click on ‘administrator’ role
  • When email is received, click on the link, create the blog and set the permissions, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After that, I am now a member (administrator)  of every child’s blog and have customised them as I would have done with any other blog ……

Hey Presto!

 

 

 

 

 

 

More to follow ………  🙂

7 thoughts on “My ePortfolio Experiment Begins

  1. Hello Margaret – sounds like you have hit the ground running! Can’t wait to see what you do next. I haven’t had much success with wikis and have just given a group their own blogs to see how they get on.
    Interesting times ahead 🙂
    KimP

    • What did you try with the wikis, Kim?

      I’ll look out for links to individual blogs on the AllStars blog. I also plan to give out the blogs a few at a time.

      I’m having a nightmare of a start to things, though, as our class computer is defunct 🙁

      • Inhale …… exhale……inhale …….. exhale regarding your class computer! 🙁

        I’ve only used wikis as a place to put students work on a topic – haven’t found them particularly friendly when putting work in them – lots of messing around with font sizes, spacings, etc. Too frustrating and time consuming i’m afraid. Perhaps I should try a different wiki as I’ve only used wikispaces – but i thinks it’s best (for me) to leave them for a while.

        One of my reading groups are just starting their own blogs – lots of excitement and dressing them up – not much substance as yet ;-]

        • The inhaling and exhaling worked – and it’s now fixed ….. thank goodness!!!!

          I know what you mean by wikispaces – although, for some reason, the children in previous classes have really liked them, and the seemed to complement their blogs. it’s not possible to embed html codes in Glow blogs (yet?) so we might use wikispaces for some of that and link to them from the individual blogs ….I’ll have a long think about this 🙂

          Thank you so much for all the comments you’ve been leaving on the Glow Blogs – Andrew is over the moon!! I’m looking forward to reading and commenting on yours when they’re up and running. I’ve a feeling the two classes will enjoy getting to know each other, too 🙂

  2. Thanks Margaret, it’s very helpful to hear how exactly you’re doing these things. I’d have defaulted to creating the blog first, then adding the users – was there a reason why you didn’t do it that way?

    On another subject completely, you might want to consider adding WordPress “Subscribe to comments” plugin here – it encourages commenters because they can be emailed of any follow-up.
    http://txfx.net/wordpress-plugins/subscribe-to-comments/

    • Do you mean creating each student’s blog in a group in your own Glow area?

      I think I did it my way so that they had the option of accessing their blogs through their personal MY GLOW area (but I really didn’t know how to start the process off, so there probably are other ways I wasn’t aware of!)

      I just followed your plugin link, but I’m getting “WordPress Plugins Directory currently… unplugged. Back up soon.” I’ll try again later.

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