ePortfolio Experimentation

20 hours of practice

Through this process of creating an ePortfolio I have spent hours of learning. Creating an ePortfolio hasn’t been easy. I have struggled to get to know the platform of wordpress. In some instances, I spent four to five hours at a time trying to learn how to create something in my ePortfolio. Earlier this week I saw a great video that could be useful for anyone that is trying to learn something new.

The video lays out Josh Kaufman’s ideas of how to be successful and learn new concepts. Here are the 5 steps to learning something new.

Establish what your goal is.
Deconstruct the skill.
Research
Remove barriers to practice.
Commit to 20 hours of practice.

Let’s take a look at each one of these steps in my process for creating an ePortfolio. Step one is establish what your goal is. My goal for my ePortfolio was to create something that would be functional for my educational journey through Lamar University. I also wanted it to be useful in my career as an Instructional Coach. I wanted my ePortfolio to be functional as well as eye appealing.

The second strategy is to deconstruct the skill. What skills are need for a successful ePortfolio? One skill needed is a basic functionality of your platform. I started out first by using google sites. I was familiar with this platform but didn’t care for the overall look that it was giving me. Another skill need is reflective practices. A portfolio should be reflective of who you are.

Research is the next step in the process. This is where I started my transition with my portfolio. I went looking for new ideas for my ePortfolio. I started looking into wordpress. My research started by following the tutorials, but then to watching youtube for helpful hints and tricks. When I have come across issues and problems youtube has been my saving grace.

Removing barriers to practice is probably on of the hardest things for me. When looking to practice I have found that my safe place is my office at school. Here I can remove my barriers. By removing barriers I have been able to have better quality practice time and learning. Removing items like family noises, T.V., and other distractions have been beneficial to my portfolio creation.

Committing to 20 hours of practice. This has been very beneficial to me feeling more comfortable with the wordpress platform. As I spend more and more time with this platform, I grow more efficient with my creation. With any goal you must set aside time to practice. It doesn’t have to be great practice but practice. Practicing can lead to to better understanding and better performance.

I know that as I continue to build and practice my skills with wordpress that my ePortfolio will manifest into something that I can be proud of. So for anyone that is trying to learn a new skill, all you need is 20 hours.

Embedding in WordPress

Embedding a video or presentation should be easy right. Well for me it has been a major struggle today. I was working on embedding a google slide into my wordpress site today. Needless to say I was getting extremely frustrated. I went to youtube looking for answers. After watching four videos, I was no closer to accomplishing my goal of embedding a google slide. At this point the frustration level is very high. As I was about to give up and take a break. I stumbled across something. It seemed like every video I watched had a different view than I did. But I finally came across the right area. This is at the 30 minute mark.

Finally, I was able to embed a google slide. That led me to being able to embed a video from youtube. Like I did in this blog. The feeling that I had was one of accomplishment. I may have thrown my hands up in the air and yelled “FINALLY”. It felt amazing and that led me to think about how my students feel. How often do my students feel the way that I was feeling? How often do they run into road blocks just like I did. How many of my students give up before ever feeling that sense of accomplishment? I’m not going to lie that I was about at that point of breaking down. The feeling though was what made it all worth it. I want my students to have that same feeling.

Student to Teacher Relationships

As I met and talked with Dr. Harapnuik my professor. I really got that sense of teacher to student relationship. I started to think about how easy and comfortable he made me feel in just a short conversation. How important is that relationship? With school just around the corner. Students will be coming into the classrooms with new aspirations and anxieties. As soon as students start to come in the building you have an opportunity to start making those connections. Students will be in the classroom with teachers for 180 days. That means 1260 hours over the course of a school year. Needless to say that relationship is very important.

Students that have strong relationships with their teachers create several benefits. Teachers tend to see higher student academic engagement, attendance, grades, fewer disruptions, and lower school dropouts (Sparks, 2019). I think that we can agree that we want all of these things. Teaching the content isn’t the only thing that you need to be good at. One might say that building relationships is more important than knowing the content. Any new teacher coming into my district, I would stress the importance of relationships. Get to know your students. What are their likes and dislikes? What activities are they involved in? This investment from you will payback ten fold. So take the time in the first week or two to get to know your students. Start to build those relationships.

Resources

Sparks, S. D. (2019, March 13). Why Teacher-Student Relationships Matter. Retrieved August 3, 2019, from https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/03/13/why-teacher-student-relationships-matter.html