The thought of having to apply for a job in the current market has cost me more than a few hours of sleep to say the least. I often ponder how exactly I could make my résumé be more attractive to my future employer and really accentuate my strongest attributes. But what are my strongest attributes?! I have never taught in an American high school. I have zero college credits in the subject I will most likely be asked to teach.....
The list of shortcomings could go on and on, but I have had a number of other experiences in my life which could make me a more interesting candidate than even someone with a few years of teaching under his/her belt. Mainly, I am talking about the five years I spent teaching English in Japan. This offered me tremendous freedom to experiment with my teaching, engage in training seminars, study other cultures, develop foreign language skills, and much much more. On paper, however, these extremely significant events of my life are most likely to be glanced over in a few seconds. No matter how well I written, a few sentence could never sum up the importance that time.
Therefore I was excited at the idea of creating my own web-based portfolio. I have never made a webpage so the Weebly site was a welcomed first start. With this platform I could upload videos of my classes in Japan or create more elaborate presentations of the teacher training I have partaken.
Secondly, once I become a teacher I can use my webpage portfolio to keep track of additional developments in my career and as a resource for my students. My webpage could have videos from class, links to important supplementary documents, examples of assignments, etc. The possibilities are truly endless.
The limitations of the Weebly site, however, were apparent after exercising just a few functions. Placement of photos, silly errors, and the like make me really want to learn html, css, and java coding. I have been told that someone with even limited knowledge of computers can pickup basic html coding in a day or two. From this point, I could really fine tune the webpage and make it most functional and attractive. Until I can find time between readings for class to learn the three most important computer languages, I guess Weebly will suffice ;)
Jack Attack! I too think that the Weebly would be great to use in a classroom. Maybe in addition to students, parents could also use it to see what type of teacher their child has - I know mine would have loved to know by whom I was being taught before they met the teacher at Parent Teacher conferences.
ReplyDeleteDo you see any value in having the students create a Weebly account?
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ReplyDeleteJack, although this might seem apparent (or rather transparent), I had not thought about posting videos of my teaching on the weebly site. For some reason when I think portfolio I think paper, which is not necessarily true.
ReplyDeleteI think it might also be interesting to post videos of other teachers, historians, or other experts on the site as a resource for your students, particularly as a supplemental source to the subject you are teaching. Perhaps you have a colleague from Japan who can provide additional context for Japanese history?
In response to Lauren's query, you might allow each student to have their own weebly page. This could be a place where they keep their own portfolio of school work. It can also be a place of expression. The students can show what they have learned, upload documents, pictures, video, etc., but also present the information in a way that makes sense to them and that is pleasing to their own tastes.
A little knowledge of HTML and CSS does go a long way, althouigh sometimes, we're so busy with teaching stuff that we just go with the template as is. Try looking at P2PU, COdery, CodeAcademy, or Mozilla Thimble for tutorials on HTML/CSS.
ReplyDeleteI know it seems crazy, but one thing administrators perceive as a strength of young teachers (besides, of course, past experience as you have had in Japan) is TECHNOLOGY fluency. A web portfolio reinforces that expertise for you, even if a template made it. :)
I agree with you on the usefulness of Weebly. I mean, I wasn't a huge fan of everyone hating on Weebly. Obviously it is useful or has incredible usefulness potential, otherwise why would they be teaching us about it? I find myself really wanting to be motivated to learn these things, because my current knowledge of anything technology is zero. However, I would feel so proud of a complete Weebly account if I put a bunch of time into it. I think that is the hard part -- finding the time to put all of that effort into it. But once the effort is put in, I think it is worth it.
ReplyDeleteEspecially for someone like you who has had so much unique experience in Japan, this would be a great website to showcase that, according to my understanding. And it is like you said, with the current job market being as terrifying as it is (especially for teachers) why not showcase your information in all of these fabulously creative ways? There is no way it can harm is in my opinion. It is just about putting the right amount of effort into these websites and finding the motivation to put hard work into them as well. I also think, as you said, if I had more information on html and website codes in general, I would have made more progress on this thing already, but I know that sitting down to edit my Weebly involves me learning a lot about website interfaces etc before I can make serious progress. One day, when I have a lot more time on my hands, I will have to sit down and just learn before I work on my Weebly.
It is a great idea to creating your own web-based portfolio! This will be very useful to us later in our teaching career after all. It is a good start to get to learn and use more tech in ur teaching as well! It doesn't matter if u just start with simple stuff on the webpage and then work ur way up. How is the education in Japan? Do they get to use high tech practices in class these days as well?
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