Digital Portfolios need projects. Here's a way for teaches to collect information and keep up with lifelong learning while collecting and curating materials and ideas for students to evaluate. Voice and Choice! (bravo to John Spencer for this duo)

 List of resources for parents, teachers and students

How to use this list

The twitter and blogs are for “getting new ideas” and doing “lifelong learning” and 

The PROJECTS section is for students. Let students explore and look at these posts

The Digital Portfolios (DPs) section is a list of links to remarkable portfolios.  Some are by students, others by teachers. There should be a clearinghouse or warehouse of links and actual downloads of DPs so that future generations can look at high quality.  These websites and blogs have content that define standards of high and medium quality.

Websites

www.ConnectedPrincipals.com   they have a good summary of Dan Pink’s book, Drive (about what motivates us and how to motivate each other without money)

SethGodin.com  His blog features short pieces.  His website includes links to free ebooks.  Making a bad powerpoint is helpful for improving our presentations.

https://seths.blog/2007/01/really_bad_powe/

The typical person speaks 10 or 12 sentences a minute.

The atomic method requires you to create a slide for each sentence. For a five minute talk, that's 50 slides.

Each slide must have either a single word, a single image or a single idea.

Make all 50 slides. Force yourself to break each concept into the smallest possible atom. If it's not worthy of a slide, don't say it.

Don’t kill the dreams of students.  Tough to read.  He shows what’s holding kids back and provides hope for what each of us can do to undo some of the damage.

https://sethgodinwrites.medium.com/stop-stealing-dreams-4116c7dbff7b 

https://seths.blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/stop-stealing-dreams6print.pdf 

Book list  https://www.thisisbroken.co.uk/ 

“IT’S NOT AN ACCIDENT THAT SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE READ MORE BOOKS.”

Seth Godin is a marketing guy, a bestselling author, entrepreneur, agent of change, thought-leader and daily blogger. The books he has written consistently change the landscape of marketing and business. He believes that books remain the tool of choice for changing the discussion and for impacting the way people think – and he loves to recommend books to his fans. His popular, but irregular, reading list blog posts share an insight into his thinking, and his book recommendations are always superb.

This site is a complete list of Seth Godin’s book recommendations.

Mark Cuben’s Maverick blog has a remarkable post from 20212.  Don’t follow your passion.  Follow your effort.  Worth a read to undo the myth of”follow your passion” that Steve Jobs supported. 

Let me make this as clear as possible

1. When you work hard at something you become good at it.

2. When you become good at doing something, you will enjoy it more.

3. When you enjoy doing something, there is a very good chance you will become passionate or more passionate about it

4. When you are good at something, passionate and work even harder to excel and be the best at it, good things happen.

Don’t follow your passions, follow your effort. It will lead you to your passions and to success, however you define it.

 Click here:  https://blogmaverick.com/2012/03/18/dont-follow-your-passion-follow-your-effort/

Danpink.com  His ebook The Flip manifesto supports the theme mentioned by Cuban. 

Mastery.org  The effort to develop a better high school transcript.  This was founded by Scott Looney, a person who might be worth following on Twitter.

Clearly there are more websites, but this short list gets you going.-- as with any category on this list, if you have a recommendation of something remarkable on the Internet, send it to mynewmethods@gmail.com (curator)

Twitter 

These images will help you connect with people who are on the leading edge 

Videos to expand our minds

Mastery.org

www.TINYURL.com/nogradesvideo:  Focus on Grades? How about a focus on skills?  What if we earned “badges?  In boy Scouts, does it matter if we learned how to tie knots and demonstrated a level of competence, ability capability and “mastery”? Sure. Does it matter WHEN we show we can do it? No.  If we made two tries or got it on the first attempt, does it matter?  At the end of the year we have 4 badges.

www.TINYURL.com/nogradesScott  worth a look at the document. Not a video but you can make the slides move. Scott Looney’s presentation in 2017 to a New York association of independent schools.  His quotes of Alfie Kohn expose some of the foundation of his school’s focus on skills.  His organization, Mastery.org, has obtained agreements from more than 60 colleges to accept a “spidergram” instead of or in addition to a high school transcript.  The spider diagram shows the strengths of the student and “tells their story” better than GA of 3.4 or 4.0 and SAT or 1050 or 1600. (2400 with the essay).

www.TINYURL.com/nogradesscott

Earth from Space HD nova.  Worth a look. Look for the “salt fall” (like a waterfall) around Minute 43.   www.TINYURL.com/EarthFromSpaceHD 

Projects

Ben Staley’s project about his family’s journey from Europe.  https://sites.google.com/a/hightechhigh.org/bsdp/projects/family-history-project

www.TINYURL.com/benstaleyproject  Built on Google Sites.

High Tech High in California   www.hightechhigh.org  Click on “Student projects”

https://www.hightechhigh.org/hth/projects/ Student work from the Main campus

https://www.hightechhigh.org/student-work/student-projects/  student work from other schools in the HTH system.

National History Day.  Wander around this site. Get some ideas. Many of these projects should be downloaded and archived for the next 200 years. www.nhd.org 

See “The man who saved the world.” Stunning. Convincing argument by Luke Chang and Danny Yu, two teenagers from Shanghai. www.TINYURL.com/sunnhd   http://61538490.weebly.com/ 

Matt Blazek’s list of projects  www.TINYURL.com/blazekprojects  His explanation and tour of the site www.tinyurl.com/mattblazek

Dennis Yuzenas has a program called “Four of 17” where students select four projects after evaluating 17 possible assignments. Good practice for selecting laundry soap or cars. Learn more at www.WhatDoYaKnow.com   +1 (561) 358-6884  TEXT please.  Or djyuzenas@gmail.com (preferred).

High tech high examples of projects https://www.hightechhigh.org/student-work/student-projects/

Digital Portfolios

www.TINYURL.com/ExampleDP  Ben Staley’s “everything including the kitchen sink” approach is remarkable.  What an effort. His project on his family’s journey from Europe is worth a look.  

Abel Thon’s DP was built on Weebly. www.TINYURL.com/abelsite  His essay has some errors.  Who cares? He had average scores and GPA, but four colleges offered him scholarships based on this DP.

New Tech High in California 

See their examples of portfolios at www.newtechhigh.org/portfolio 

High tech high DPs by teachers https://www.hightechhigh.org/hth/staff-directory/  

Go to their staff directory to see digital portfolios and websites of the teachers.  Humorous, filled with helpful downloadable documents (see Dan Aguirre’s site)

http://mraguirresdp.weebly.com/  

His list of “how to” documents should be in teacher-training workbooks.

http://mraguirresdp.weebly.com/how-to.html

Amilio Aviles https://amilio.weebly.com/ a science teacher with a knack for social media and interesting content. 

Focus on Skills

Did you catch the reference to a “new high school transcript”?  This information is repeated here in case you didn’t take time to click on these links:

Mastery.org

www.TINYURL.com/nogradesvideo:  Focus on Grades? How about a focus on skills? 

www.TINYURL.com/nogradesScott  worth a look at the document. Not a video but you can make the slides move. Scott Looney’s presentation in 2017 to a New York association of independent schools. 

How to find projects or internships for students to include and display in their Free Websites by ASKing THIS QUESTION: "How can my students help you with your business?"

Go to HUNDR.ED to see this project

Teachers are called "advisors" at the Met in the Big Picture Learning system.   Advisors look for mentors and opportunities for students to learn (a) through their interests (b) out in the city/out of the school.

Here's how a teacher in California (newtechhigh.org) explains in a blogpost

Go to HUNDR.ED to see this project

We often make the mistake, as educators, of going to community and industry partners with our hands out.  We ask, "What can industry do for my students? How can industry help"  It wasn't until I was talking with a team member at an Adobe field trip that I realized that I tend to swap that request around.
My first question, whenever I meet anyone in industry is, "How can my students help you with your business?"  
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL BLOGPOST

Go to HUNDR.ED to see this project

Teachers will do well if they learn from New Tech High.   Parents can go here, too, and download the documents that are displayed at HUNDR.ED (the site for sharing innovation). 

Lisa Gottfried and the New Tech High effort to put portfolios in practice deserve a Nobel Prize for education

Schools would do well to copy New Tech High.   GO HERE   I read tony Wagner's book about MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED where he discusses the Mastery.org transcript of skills (not g.p.a.) and he discusses digital portfolios.

NEW TECH HIGH put portfolios into action and they SHARE THEIR products.  You can actually see a student's portfolio.   GO TO THE PAGE ON HUNDR.ED    if you have a HUNDR.ED account, you are an outlier.
====================


Here's what I wrote to Lisa Gottfried.

Ms. Gottfried

I've just finished reading parts of Tony Wagner's book most Likely to Succeed and I like the parts about portfolios.  I found your school in Clarke and DiMartino's book about personalizing the high school experence.... and when I searched "portfolios new tech high" I was stunned to see the traiing materials that your school uses.  

a)  Are these materials available for any teacher or school to use (with appropriate attribution)?

b)  I'm putting together a free ebook to promote portfolios in my school district.   Can I post images of your Google Drive and suggest that teachers can download the documents?

I'm interested in the cost and time of training teachers and students to use your system.   Do you have some estimates of the time and cost?   Can you pass to your school director this request?

THANK YOU

============

To _____________________

School Director

RE:  The cost of training students in your school to use portfolios to display their work

Hello -- I’m a grad student.  I’m studying how schools introduce and encourage the use of digital portfolios.  

My dissertation includes a discussion of the cost of bringing an active portfolio system to a school. I am interested in the following areas:

1.  What do eportfolios look like at your school? (Can you show me some screenshots)?   I want to show my students what other students are doing.

2.  How long does it take usually to train students to use the system?

3. Who does the training?  (teachers or a non-teacher?)

4. How do the trainers get trained?

5.  How many "artifacts" (essays, photos and videos of projects, etc.) do student portfolios usually contain?

6.  What rubrics do you use to guide students?

7.  How did portfolios get started at your school?  Did the school board come up with the idea?

8. Is having a digital portfolio a requirement to graduate?

Thank you for your time.

========================
Here is her reply

Steve,

I'm super excited that the resources we've created might help you implement a useful blog portfolio program across your district! There are a variety of places you can get resources that are open-source and can help you build what you need for your teachers. 

There is a toolkit you can find at hundred.org, as we were featured at a top 100 Global innovator for our program: https://hundred.org/en/innovations/new-technology-high-school-blog-portfolio

You can also find my graduate work and supporting research which fed into our blog portfolio program and continues to be deepened by other staff members, also focusing on portfolio for their Master's work. You can start here: http://www.learninginnovationlab.com/gottfried-home.html

As for trainings, I'm going to include Aaron Eisberg in on this email reply. He heads up our Center for Excellence, which is a top notch training facility that is fully embedded on our campus and can definitely help you with your training needs.  I have given many talks to folks around the world who come for training about PBL and the portfolio process.

I would ask that if you do move to implement, that you report your successes and your implementation through the hundred.org site, as they keep track of when innovations are adopted across the globe and across the country.  We've got someone in FL who is implementing this innovation as well as someone in India, so far, (that we know of) and we'd like to know when others are also adopting the toolkit or trying to use the innovation.

You can contact Aaron to find out more about training and how we can support you!  We'd have to get permission from teachers and students before including their websites in your ebook and I would guess that Aaron would be the best person to talk with about that.

Hope that helps!

Sincerely, 

Lisa Gottfried

======================================

to the readers of this blog:

Do what Lisa did -- put your materials online and let others build on your progress.

Look at an example of an ePortfolio by Maureen Pratt Devlin,

Go to TINYURL.com/TeacherEPortfolio

Maureen Devlin has created a digital portfolio that could become a standard for teachers to emulate.    

See her blog Teach Children Well   teachWellNow.blogspot.com   

Here is an example of using Google Slides

She sets an example for her students to follow:  She blogs and reflects on her work.
Then she shares her ideas with an audience. 



Maureen is clearly an outlier in the sense that Tony Wagner is an outlier
See OUTLIERS for Better Schools at TINYURL.com/OutliersSchools

Letter to PRINCIPALS and DIRECTORS of schools about the "Free Website Project" for students to show their school work

This is the site that the student created.
You can visit the site at
TINYURL.com/AbelSite

this is the student in California who
created a free website and
put his school work on the site

Please pass this letter to superintendents and principals

Hello

I have a free program that school districts can use.

This is the poster that
the Free Website Projects
uses to make the use of
Free Websites more popular

It's called the Free Website Project

Here is the blog (with additional articles)

www.FreeWebsiteProject.blogspot.com

here is the free ebook

www.Tinyurl.com/sunDP5

here is the free step by step guide

http://tinyurl.com/fwp11steps

free materials

http://tinyurl.com/FWPfreematerials

TinyURL.com/FWPstart

The summary page

PRINCIPAL:

You can get these free materials - free professional development for teachers at TINYURL.com/ABCfreeWorkshop

=======================================

>>> TinyURL.com/FWPstart <<<  this page

[ 1 ] Ben Staley’s website TinyURL.com/exampledp

[ 2 ] Abel Thon’s website Tiny.cc/AbelSite

[ 3 ] The website of a teacher at High Tech High

TinyURL.com/

The list of websites created by High Tech High students

TinyURL.com/HTHdps

Perhaps those three sites will touch you.

Then you might go to the next three links:

[ 4 ] The video tour of High Tech High by Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates

[ 5 ] The short video of “Digital Portfolios for Guidance Counselors”  (a short presentation of 24 slides)

Direct link to this video http://tinyurl.com/suncounselors 

[ 6 ] Perhaps you would like to learn how to make a free website using Google Sites

TinyURL.com/sunDP5   <<< Free EBOOK with instructions about how to make a free website

I'm offering this "free website project" modeled on the HIGH TECH HIGH approach to make Digital Portfolios in California.  Call +1 54) 646 8246 to get free over-the-phone tips.

Start by going to TINYURL.com/FWPStart