I’ve chosen a course that at this stage in the semester will be enhanced with engagement through an eportfolio platform. Early Childhood Education N363 provides opportunities for students to extend academic reading and writing skills. The course covers academic genres, textual structures and writing functions with an emphasis on syntactical and lexical functions, summarizing and paraphrasing. It explores the effective planning and organization of reading, synthesizing and summarizing of research articles leading to the writing a critical review using appropriate academic functions. The second goal focuses on vocabulary using the detailed reading approach, which supports an understanding of the writer’s purpose, genre stages, writing flow and voices in academic writing. Additional goals introduce and explore tutorial speaking and presentation skills. This course aligns with Education course N367 and N353.
Course outcomes include
1. Demonstrate the collaborative planning and facilitation of a class tutorial using an academic text as a springboard for discussion
2. Demonstrate the ability to plan and manage own learning effectively.
3. Demonstrate a firm understanding of the role of effective communication in both Arabic/English in the ECE settings as related to special needs of the students and identify SMART, IEP goals that meet the child’s specific needs
This project focuses on the introduction and use of PBWORKS as a course platform tool for student portfolio work on their critical review writing. This task comes at a new stage in the course and is a great opportunity to use a customized portfolio.
It will use the PBWORKS platform as a workspace for students, a discussion forum about the critical review and a repository for their academic research articles. This will allow interactive feedback or correspondence and progressive tracking as they independently write their reviews. I think that portfolios can be an effective way for students to work collaboratively, demonstrate independent tasks and record their writing and ideas as evidence of learning. It is also a chance for me to use and explore the use of programs such as VOKI to deliver content, share or update information.
E-portfolios are great for students. Voki is fun but you may find that it doesn't allow you enough time for instructions, unless they are very short.
ReplyDeleteLook forward to reading more about your project!
Having used discussion forums in the past I have found them beneficial for all parties concerned. Having a community of writers seems to deepen the experience and the level of critical thinking.
ReplyDeleteI am going to have a look at PBWORKS and VOKI. You have got me interested! Good luck with your project.
Hi Jules,
ReplyDeleteI assume you are using the free educational version of PBWorks. How is that working out? Do you think that the Classroom Edition would be a good value at $99 a year?
Cheers,
Dean
Hi Jules,
ReplyDeleteThis sounds very interesting and, as I am involved in eportfolios as part of EDUC 499, I would be very interested in hearing how you and your students find this tool, as I am casting around for something suitable. Please let us know how it goes.
Regards
Neil