I have been absent from this blog due to the fact that I am doing my eportfolio via a wiki. I like the ease and look of the wiki. It is organized as well as easy to create different course sections. I finished my reflections for the week and thought I would add them to the blog for further documentation. Enjoy!

I think the website we created as a group was a great project. I think if we were in person, the project would have been even more enhanced with great ideas. The distance made things a little more "slower" than I'm used too. Our group members each contributed to this website beautifully which led to a great outcome and product. If this were to take place in a classroom setting, I feel the collaboration would be more easily understood and members of the group would be able to express where they wanted their piece to go more fluently. Being this is on an online class, the project went as well as expected. It was a great way to show a reflection of information in a cohesive way.

A portfolio is a collection of student work that demonstrates achievement of improvement (Stiggens, R.J., 1994). This is clearly demonstrated in the work that my group did. We showed the reader the different aspects of technology in the classroom. This was our demonstration of what we learned or gained from the assignment. To achieve a well thought out plan, we created a Google doc that allowed us to discuss and toss ideas around so that we would  all be on the same page. Since this was a live working document, it was helpful to our members who were in a long distance situation. The downfall was, that with everyone having lives out side of the course, getting answers to questions or everyone checking at the same time, was difficult.

The way I assessed my performance was through feedback from the group I was in. I did not want to be the weak link in the assignment so I went ahead and did a little more in the section I was responsible for. I wanted to make sure that the work I was doing would be reflective of the other members hard work. In the future, when doing a group website assignment, I will suggest us using a Google doc to get the work done as well. We had a member that assigned everyone a job and date to do it by. I think this was a great idea to keep all members on track. It suggested us finishing with our sections even earlier than required to make sure we could look over our finished work to fine tune.

My background knowledge helped me in the design of the wiki.  I use a wiki with my team at school to upload lessons and ideas too. This allowed me to be able to help with getting our team's pages set up on the side and to easily move within in our chosen route of display. In addition to my wiki prior experience, I had previously come across a great website prior to this class that had the information I was needing to display. This allowed me to reference this website and use the information learned in this group work.

In a first grade classroom, I think that a wiki would be useful in reflecting group work. The wiki would need to be set up by the teacher to save on time with a larger class size. Students could then edit the pages already designed with information that have learned or gained from the unit. Each group could be responsible, much like our individual pages, for information to share with the class. The finished product would be the class groups teaching the class on the content. This would take the place of the teacher just standing at the front of the class giving the information. At the same time, use of the wiki and how it works could also be taught. The technology would just be an avenue of reflection and displaying knowledge gained. This piece would support reflection and show student growth (Barrett, H.C., PHD, 2005).

References

Barett, H.C., PHD (2005) "Researching Electronic Portfolios: Learning, Engagement, Collaboration, Through Technology (Retrieved August 15, 2013 from https://luonline.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-921363-dt-content-rid-6183487_1/courses/EDLD_5366_ENA_2013_60_AP2/Assets/Researching%20Eportfolios%20and%20Learner%20Engagement.pdf"

Stiggens, R. J. (1994) Student centered classroom assessment. New York, Merrill