Portfolio +4 presented at showcase

Apple, Inc. sponsored an event today for faculty from various colleges of education to learn about Teachers College's digital portfolio and one-to-one laptop initiatives. Joe Ault and I, were invited to present our Portfolio +4 digital white paper at the student and faculty showcase. We have been working on a digital white paper which examines the current model of portfolio creation for teacher education majors at Ball State. In this digital white paper, Joe Ault and I, look at what improvements need to be made to the current model. This project is in no way complete. It is in fact, starting to pick up steam which is very exciting.

As students in the teacher education program, Joe and I are required to produce and maintain a web-based digital portfolio throughout our preservice educator program. We both understand the reasons and rationale behind the portfolio. Most undergraduate students, however, do not. What Joe and I are looking to do is make the process of portfolio creation and maintenance a smoother and easier one. This is why we are evaluating two different applications to possibly be implemented in the teacher education program. iWeb (Apple, Inc.) and RapidWeaver (RealMac Software) are both excellent applications for quickly producing media-rich and great-looking websites with virtually no knowledge of web coding languages.

During the showcase today, we were able to share our findings and recommendations with Apple employees as well as other teacher educator faculty from various colleges of education. Being able to talk one on one with Apple representatives was a great experience. They heard first hand what we were advocating and why we believe it is important. All the people that listened to our presentation were very supportive and impressed with what we were trying to accomplish. It is also encouraging to know that others outside the Ball State University Teachers College support the ideas we are focusing on.