Website Building

Wix/ Google Sites e-Portfolio

“We do not learn from experience; we learn from reflecting on experience.” (Dewey, n.d)

  As I sit and reflect on the short journey of completing this website, I am flooded with thoughts of my initial excitement to engage in such an activity, then a bit of frustration when I realized how much of a commitment it required and again, enthusiasm when I switched from Wix to Google Sites instead. 

Using the website for my e-portfolio presented me with the advantage of organizing my work in a user-friendly and appropriately digital manner with all the information literally at the fingertips. Though the site is complete, its contents are not as yet as it will document my journey throughout the duration of the Technology-Enhanced English Language Learning. Therefore, as the course continues, my progress will be recorded formatively and so too will the aesthetics of the website. This e-portfolio completely eliminates the need for the bulky hardcopies of written work thus transitioning and integration into the world of technological academia. 

Having gained valuable knowledge of how to create a website for e-portfolios grants me the insights necessary for implementing such a strategy in my teaching practice. Upon this realization, a conscious decision has been made to do better. This decision however, quickly morphed into my biggest challenges, which were including the comments section on the page as well as the selection of appealing visuals such as colours and fonts for a user-friendly interface. Thankfully, with much scaffolding from my peers and professor, I was able to attain ideas that transferred and generated appropriate features for the fluid infusion of technology and paper for the birth of e-portfolios. 

Inherently, e-portfolios offer the added avenues for refining writing skills and encouraging reflective practice so that students can make meaningful connections to the materials and concepts that they are taught. Furthermore, e-portfolios provide the unique opportunities for teachers and students to collaborate. As a direct consequence, confidence regarding digital literacy skills is significantly enhanced.  

As an educator with newly acquired digital literacy skills, specifically related to e-portfolios, it is my hope to implement this in my classroom to teach young children the writing process. In the past, we have always had several papers stuck in folders for this concept. Comprehension of the numerous benefits of e-portfolios will now pave the new path that I did not know I needed for essay writing during Language Arts lessons. 

Inevitably, challenges will present themselves, as do everything. Such foreseeable challenges include technological issues and staff support for ensuring that all students are taught the skills needed to navigate the websites effectively.  With due diligence, I will plan proactively to mitigate these challenges from the outset.

Finally, as I again make reference to Dewey’s (n.d) quote, this experience has indeed granted me deep some insights. Moving forward, my personal connection to this task will serve as the basis for facilitating meaningful language learning in my classroom via the use of e-portfolios as we immerse in education’s technology pool. 

Reference

Dewey, J. (n.d.). If we learn from reflecting on experience. The Learner’s Way. Retrieved 

from https://thelearnersway.net/ideas/2019/11/24/if-we-learn-from-reflecting-on-experience