Harriet's Day 12

After reading 10 Steps to a Perfect Presentation I found that quashing my nerves, making a great first impression and end with a bang are areas that I need to work on. Speaking in public seems to be people's worst nightmare. I know very few people who are not nervous about this. I have read that actors and actress suffer from stage freight, interviews and public speaking.

The Power of Body Language had some good ideas for me as I never know what to do with my hands other than talk with them, I can't talk without my hands. Be natural, sincere, relax, enthusiastic and have fun! Ok!!

Failsafe Tips When You Forget or Get Flustered, I really needed to read this article! Use mnemonics, Fiddle with fodder, code your visuals to cue you, adn use a key anecdote as a springboard. These tips were very helpful.

When Presenting to Young Audiences make your talk come alive, speak from your heart, use audience participation, be genuine, keep it simple and don't become one of them.

The tips I learned from the article How to Begin a Presentation were numerous. Engage your audience and get to the point directly, use visuals to take attention away from you the speaker, Create interest with your information, Be passionate about your topic. Be quick, be clear and be gone!!!

Day 11 Electronic Portfolios

Wow, way to go Arizona! I was thrilled to see that Arizona was listed as one of tha states as partners for the New Standards Project. The New Standards Project employs new standards of assessments such as portfolios. This is exciting for teachers and students.

The Adobe Portable Document Format is the ideal container for electronic portfolio reflections connected to digital artifacts. This is good to know when purchasing software.

The article Using Adobe Acrobar for Electronic Porfolio Development lists the advantages and disadvatages of using electronic portfolios. There are more advantages than disadvantages. The types of portfolios were listed in the article as well as research links, stages of portfolio development, elements of a portfolio, utilizing portfolios for assessments, and characteristics of an effective portfolio.

I plan on sharing this information with my administrators and colleagues at school. I hope the Arizona Department of Education promotes electronic portfolios throughout our state so that districts will start implementing this immediately.

Day 10 Harriet's Comments on Digital Portfolios

Digital portfolios portray a richer picture of the students learning profile than using a manilla file folder, as I use at school. I am going to become much more progressive starting this year!

Kudos to Kentucky, Vermont and New Hampshire for using digital portfolios to change the culture of their schools, great way to implement progress and school reform as well as using other means of assessing the progress of our wonderful students other than those federal and state mandated assessments, YUCK!

I am very inspired by the electronic display of student assessments by the wonderful teachers Susan Silverman and Marci Turner (first year teacher!). Great ideas, loved it! I want to share these websites with the staff at my school.

A very important point made in Barretts article was that the stakeholders, the parents, teachers, students, administrators and the general public, need to use collaborative decision making to make the use of digital portfolios for assessing students possible.

Day9 Electronic Portfolios

There is a wealth of infomation on how to develop and use electronic portfolios. I like the way Dr. Barrett said that an electronic portfolio is a "living history of of lifelong learning," and that it is a purposeful collection of work.

Student portfolios, which I have used for many years, are used to document what a student knows, what they are able to do, student outcomes and assessments as well as credible evidence for parents to see what their child has achieved throughout the school year. I find that this is also helpful in showing parents that their child may have a problem learning. The evidence is right there in the child's porfolio. I take the portfolio to the family study team meeting so we can look at the students work.

For older students an electronic portfolion can be a vehicle for enhancing student awareness of learning strategies and help them take ownership in their work and motivate them to learn.

Some ideas to help students get started on creating digital portfolios they can practice blogging, develop simple websites, or use content management systems which there are several online.

This is all great information to share at staff meetings with your colleagues.

Harriet's Blog on Electronic Portfolio's

Wow! Electronic portfolio's! I have been keeping portfolio's on my students for many years and I love them. Now we can have professional portfolios, e portfolios and electronic teaching portfolios. I think this is great! Portfolios are great for assessment as well as self-assessment, reflection, constructing meaning, demonstrating knowledge, personal and professional growth and goal setting. Having electronic portfolios would also involve using technological skills, this is very progressive and awesome! This is a great way for teachers to document practices, and pass on these practices to others, especially when mentoring new teachers, collaborating with colleagues or if you are involved in a professsional learning community.

Harriet's Prep for Presentations

To prepare yourself for presentations you should know your audience and have a well prepared and informative script. You should tell your story with interest to inspire your audience and speak naturally, with confidence while you speak to them not at them. Also, practice your presentation by "singing" it to yourself outloud, yes, sing your script! Remember that the audience does not want to see you fail, they want to learn.

All of the articles mentioned being well prepared and know your audience. The audience wants to learn from your presentation. Be accurate with the information you are presenting.

I was very interested in the article about final thoughts, planning a great conclusion. The author said to pause before your conclusion to re-energize. That's a great idea as you should stay for awhile afterwards to answer questions about your presentation. Your answers should also be brief. These are some presentation tips I have never heard before. Great ideas.

I have been a presenter for teacher and parent workshops and I find that the audience wants to hear your experiences, your stories from your classroom. They want to hear about the kids you teach. These stories really open up their eyes and hearts and they get to know who you are. These stories get their attention, it hooks your audience. I always start and sometimes end with a story.

Day6 Using Multimedia Peripherals

Wow! 1001 Educational Uses for a Digital Camera! Great ideas I have never used or heard of! Our school has a digital camera that teachers can use as well as a camcorder. I have borrowed them in the past, before I bought my digital camera. At the beginning of each year I always take photos of my student so they can all learn each other names by looking at the photos. I also take pictures of the students working and following the classroom rules. I take their pictures during learning labs and they love to see the pictures of each other dressed up in dramatic play. I will certainly take advantage of this website to use the digital camera for learning activities in the content areas.

I learned that I should take pictures veritcally so I can view the world from a different perspective as well as locking the focus to get a better picture.

I bought a scanner two years ago, it came with my laptop, it is attached to my printer. I just used it for the first time last week. I wish I had read this article as it has much better instructions than the book that came with the scanner.

After reading these articles I feel less technologically impaired. I look forward to using all of these materials in a more professional way and I will use them more often.