E-portfolio

I chose to use Mahara for my portfolio.  One of the main reasons for choosing this was it was something different and I had never used it.  Another is that I only need it for this one class.  

When I first chose Mahara I watched the online video with explanations while I was going through the site.  I found that it was relatively easy to use.  One thing I do not like about Mahara is that it is not customizable.  I am a very creative person and I would love to change the background, header and font.  As I am just using this for a journal, I decided to stay with Mahara.

I have used Wordpress to build webpages and really enjoyed the capabilities that it offered.  I like the widgets, the customization, and it is fairly easy to use as well. I mainly used it to create and update our school website but now they have changed to a new system.

Edmodo tends to be a popular site in my school division for creating student e-portfolios. This provides students a place to show off their work, let parents and family see what they are working on, and to show how much they have grown since the beginning of the year.  One way that students stay engaged in e-portolios is with the use of technology.

I definitely see value in keeping and maintaining an e-porfolio.  It would be valuable to maintain if you were looking for a job because employers have an easy way to look and see what you have accomplished, your thoughts and opinions, and any work that you would like to highlight.  At the same like many good ideas it is time consuming.

One quote that I found interesting was: "Using technology in the classroom should change the way that instruction occurs if we are to move away from teacher-directed instructional methods to student-directed methods." (http://www.cjlt.ca/index.php/cjlt/article/view/92/86) Although I believe this to be true... the technology needs to be reliable and the teacher needs to be willing to adjust and change.

After using Mahara a little longer, I found that I did not like the way that the images were stored and I was not as familiar with it as I would like to be.  Blogger allows me to directly insert images and videos in my post.  So I switched to Blogger.