The Basics | Personalizing the Digital Portfolio | The How To's of Saving | Templates | Sample Activities | Extensions

"House to Home" | Collection | Selection | Reflection

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To start off with:

• Each student will create a folder on the desktop with their name on it. They will be taught how to save all of their work into their folder giving each document the appropriate name (something recognizable to them and the parents).
• The date will automatically appear next to the file that is uploaded.
• The date of the student's work should always appear in the document itself next to the name of the child.

Letter to the parents should:

• Explain what a digital portfolio is
• Explain how they will be implicated
• A survey should be conducted to establish how many students have computers at home and how many computers have Internet access.

A digital portfolio taps in to Multiple intelligences as well as the different Learning Styles.

• Reflections can be done pictorially in a paint program or scanned in OR they can be done in KidPix with a combination of typed reflection and images
• Reflections can be recorded in either KidPix or using SoundRecorder (Mac)/Sound Recorder (PC)
• Reflections can be video taped (iMovie)

Each student will make an iMovie in which they will tell about themselves. See from "House to Home"

• Who they are
• Their likes, dislikes
• Hobbies
• Favourite things
• What their goals are in school…

Each student will fill in the Template - All About Me

Saving for the intent to upload documents onto the Internet:

• All student work that is to go into the digital portfolio has to be saved in a manner that is cross platform and does not require specific software to download it.
  
  Some general rules:
• When naming a document :
  • Never leave spaces when naming a document/file
  • Always have the appropriate extension (E.g. .gif, .mov, .wav, .ppt)
  • Use a document/file name that identifies what the document is about (e.g. centers.gif)
  • Make sure that the students always include the date within their documents
  • All students save their work into their folder not anyone else's
  
  

  Remember, you are saving for the purpose of uploading the documents on to the Internet which means that they should be easily identifiable for parents logging into the students' portfolio online.

Other ideas:

• Have a short form system. For example: R stands for "reflections". The short forms can be posted on the computer so that when a students is doing a reflection in KidPix on a particular activity the file can be named, "R_activity.gif"
• The short form sheet can be sent home to parents so they know how to read files names when they go into their child's online portfolio.

TEMPLATES

Templates are an excellent idea when using KidPix for activities that would usually require students to fill out stencils. For instance, for Reflections, activities such as, All About Me…, etc. The main advantage of a template is that when the student saves the work into their folder, the file name is automatically what the template file name was. This saves the students the trouble of having to name their document. All they have to do is hit, "Save".

Templates created for student use:

• Any templates created using KidPix (E.g. Internet project template) should be saved as, "Save a picture"
• The template can be saved to the Desktop and students can double click on the template to add their responses.

For uploading on to the Internet:

• Once the students have completed their responses using the template they must save it as, "Export a picture" (gif format)
• Students have to locate their folder.
• Since the template will provide the file name the students only have to hit, "Save".

Templates created for teachers:

• When creating a template to be uploaded to the Internet, re-save the template as , "Export a picture" (gif format)

Always keep a separate folder for all of your templates. Place the copy of the template on the Desktop for the students to use!

Slideshows using KidPix:

• Students have to save all of their documents created in KidPix as, "Save a Picture"
• They can then go into the SlideShow portion of KidPix and import their drawings
• Students have to save their slideshow as, "Save as QuickTime" in order to get the .mov extension that will allow for them to upload the slideshow on to the Internet

Journal Writing:

• On Journal Writing days make sure that you have access to multiple computers (preferable laptops) as this is an activity that takes students in Cycle 1 a lot of time.
• It would be very difficult to get through a whole class electronically in one session

  Have a rotation going.

  Not all students have to do their journals electronically every week For example: If you have 5 laptops then have 5 students do their journal electronically one week. The following week 5 other students can do their journals electronically and so on…

Description of an activity such as Process Reflection:

• Students can explain the process of an activity by recording it, interview fashion, using SoundRecorder or SimpleSound
• The recording can be recorded as either a Movie (.mov) or a sound wave (.wav)
• This activity can also be done on a rotational basis as described above

  Process reflection activity - Students:

  • Explain the process
  • Reflect on their mistakes
  • Reflect on risks taken
  • Reflect on how it can be improved
  • Reflect on why they had to do the activity in question
  • Reflect on what they learned and how