Digital Portfolio

For my digital portfolio, I chose to use Evernote.  This is a web 2.0 tool that allows you to store and organize notes and files in an online server that can be accessed by any computer with a web browser and internet connection. It also has tools that allow you to share your notes through Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, email or external links. This access can be used by me to better connect to my learners.  If a student missed a class or lesson, I can give them access to the work in the way that is most convienent to both of us.  I organized my notes into notebooks for the different classes I teach as well as a digital access notebook to keep files and information on new programs or projects for my 21st century learners.  Notes can also be made public through Evernote, which I have not begun to use yet, but I foresee myself using public notes to give feedback to students working on long term or group projects.  In the fourth quarter the consumer math class have a long term project where they live out a mock life by "getting" a job, apartment, car and managing their finances over 6 weeks. I plan on using Evernote to help document their progress for each week and give the students access to it so they can improve their work.
This new way of organizing and storing information couldn't have come at a better time.  Prior to this year I had used the same jump drive to carry all my personally created lessons and papers around with me.  This year one of my students kicked that jump drive while it was in the computer and broke the housing. Luckily I was still able to back up my files and then transfer them to a new jump drive. That one took damage also and the one I was most recently using is now no longer working in any computer. While my most recent documents seem to be irretrievable without professional help, at least the rest of my lessons are now on server!
There is also an associated application called Skitch which enables the user to capture screenshots and stores the photos in Evernote.  So far I have mostly used it to public images to save them for use later. However, I plan to use this to help create instructions to help students learn how to perform actions in certain programs. Skitch is much easier to use than the laborious process I used before (take screenshot, paste in paint, select the area I was concerned with, copy, and paste into  the document I was creating) to take students through a step by step process of using a program.

While working with Evernote, I often found that for certain aspects of digital citizenship, I just found that I wanted to link a certain site so that I could easily revisit it.  I had joined Pinterest quite some time ago, but my Education board was fairly emaciated and not fully used.  As part of this course I began following other educators and as a result, my education board now includes many more pins, often to sites that have platforms for creating digital media.  These resources are now easily found and all in one location. I want to incorporate the use of more of  the digital media in my classroom, especially in Geometry, which easily lends itself to visual presentation.  I may add more boards that have a more specific focus as the number of pins increases.
As I have tested out programs that we have used in class I have found a generally positive response from the students and want to continue to use these sites to build meaningful lessons for my students with web 2.0 technology.  This will help prepare them for jobs and a life outside of the classroom and hopefully will foster discussion oabout appropriate uses of technology so that they become more conscientious digital citizens.