I would like to first welcome everyone to come and see my new blog and soon to be comprehensive digital portfolio. I am principal of a K-6 school and K-12 Outreach located in Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada. I love my job and appreciate all of the staff, students, and parents that I work with.
As we are moving in both the area of successful technology integration, along with embedding critical thinking into everyday practice, I have decided to try and lead by example by creating a digital portfolio through WordPress, similar to my brother Dr. Alec Couros, amongst many other successful educational practitioners. The vision is that students and staff would be able to learn from my own practice, with both the success and failures, to develop their own portfolios.
As I start on this journey, I am looking at what different things I would include in my own portfolio to show my growth as a professional. I have included pages based upon the Alberta Principal Quality Standard and will build upon those in the near future, but what would people suggest that a principal also include in their own portfolio? I have talked to students in the University of Regina Education program about branding their name and creating a positive online presence, so this is just another way that I think could help to build upon this endeavour.
I know that I do not have much information included on my portfolio and have thrown out the bare bones version to the world, but a famous quote that I stole from the movie, “Coming to America”, which was used from Nietzsche:
“He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.”
I guess today I am learning to stand.
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Good luck, George, in this new endeavor. I recently began a blog (2 actually, for PhD courses) and an online portfolio. Your brother was part of the inspiration too! As a former school Principal, I look forward to reading more.
Wow that was quick for a comment! You have officially become the first one to comment. My brother says hi as he is sitting with me guiding me on how to build upon this portfolio.
I think a digital portfolio is a great idea for all educators to have. It's a neat way to record the various accomplishments, struggles and everyday occurrences in an extremely complex job that can vary greatly from one person to another.
I've been working on a digital portfolio too. I've included my value statement, my resume and links to my blog, my flickr pages and all the presentations I've made at conferences, district pro-d, days, etc. My next task is to include visual imagery. For example, I teach art and photography in a small town and every year I put on a one-night only art show for the community celebrating student success throughout the year. This year I'm going to take photos during the installation and during the big night and include those in my digital portfolio. I think sharing photos which highlight special aspects of one's practice is important.
Congratulations on leading by example!
I really appreciate the suggestions about what to add to the page. I know that every portfolio is a little different (as it should be to highlight the individual), but I definitely need some starting points to work with. Luckily my brother took some pictures of me presenting yesterday which will definitely help!
Thanks for the comment!
Hi…I like the way you're linking things to standards. My ePortfolio is based on the more traditional CV approach but I could have used my professional standards or competencies (I am a midwife) to base my work on…great idea…thanks for setting me off thinking.
http://sarahstewart-eportfolio.wikispaces.com/
As I get assessed based upon the Principal Quality Standards in Alberta, this gives me a really good way to reflect on my practice and what I am doing that meets these goals. I am glad that I could get you thinking about how it could apply to your own portfolio
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Thanks so much. This tutorial was so easy to follow and really helpful. I on-shared with my plurk community. You are fabulous…!