Online Portfolios and other ruminations...

Blogs as online portfolios... Hm... I like it.
I like the authenticity and I like the availability and I like the opportunities for reflection and sharing.
But how to do it authentically while maintaining privacy?
I thought dialogue journals online... but quickly dropped that because I would hate to put something so private into an online setting.
But perhaps the secondary one... the "buddy journals" could be online... Hm... Then they comment online and do so in their own time. Here's the question: how can I be sure they're not just using an online translator? I want it to be authentic... and it won't be if they use the translator... yet the anxiety for some to put it online might force them to translate. Hm.
Needs more rumination.

So I'm working on my opener for the weekly "In der Deutschklasse" podcast! I think it's going pretty well... I'm going to shorten it up a bit. It took me a while to figure out what to podcast about, but I think this "weekly letter home" template will be a great jumping off place.

Back to the virtual grindstone (as, of course, I continue "sharpening my axe"!) ;0

Quotes from Bob Sprankle

From his keynote speech at a teacher conference in Maine...

“Why are they engaged?
I believe that now they have purpose to their work…
There is so much we do in school that’s for that moment, or maybe for that task, or for… who knows what purpose… and maybe the students don’t know… and it’s gone.
And this stuff is gold and we don’t want to lose it!”

"A blog or a podcast is an excellent portfolio."

A quote from George Lucas (through Bob Sprankle) "How do we get schools to mirror real life? We're doing things for unknown reasons as a kid."

Schools as a no-reality zone.

A concise review of Thomas Friedman's book The World is Flat "In short: the world is flat, everybody can compete on a level playing field. Asia and India are gonna eat your kids lunch and we gotta prepare our kids at a higher level so that they can compete."

And our kids are not even near ready.