How to create a digital portfolio in pieces

"Portfolios" is less about "setting aside hours to document projects" and more about "moment to moment awareness" of history happening in front of us.
The student who is excited about making a poster today might not be in that same mood or might have "moved on" to another passion or interest.   Grab the recording today.  
"Steve, why do you take so many photos?"
"Do you video everything?"
When I'm around students, I want to get them to TALK about their drawings and projects.
I want to get PHOTOS of the drawsing and projects.
If they forget the project at home or the project is stolen or misplaced, we have the dgital reminders.

What about privacy of the student?
ANSWER:  I take videos of the object, not the student.  The student stands behind the camera and points to parts of the project.  When the video is uploaded, I ask, "Can i put your name, Prosler?"  and the student gives premission or "please don't!" and then I write "A student at SUN ED descrives his evolution project" in the title for the video on Youtube.
Here are some of the steps (in my preferred order of handling the items).
Step 1:  capture the items
I use my phone to record Video and take photos

Step 2:  
Save videos to Youtube
Uploading the videos to Youtube allows me to then erase the videos quickly.   (I never know when the next kid will want some videos recorded, and I am often hunting for space on the memory chip).

Step 3:  
Save photos to Google Photo
Thank goodness for unlimied storage.  Uploading to Facebook and other photo storing locations makes sense, too.

Step 4:  
Post the items to Blogger (for an easy way to quickly display photos)

Step 5:
Send links from my phone Install the links from the youtube video and spread them.  Students often feel special when their efforts are available for others to see, comment on, and share.




Other places to display photos
Facebook (in a Facebook page related to projects)
A status update on Facebook to invite students and others to click on the newly uploaded video and the blogpost.
Instagram to invite people to look at the youtube video.
Twitter  update to drive people to look at the youtube video

Days or weeks later I can add the link for the Youtube video to the Digital Portfolio of the student.  I can find that link by hunting through the emails of my primary teaching gmail account.  Here are four links that eventually combined to be part of the blog post for this student's work.



Although I don't have a dedicated portfolio website for this person, at some point in the future it's easy to add a link from the blog psot to the student's newly created website.  If I never get around to making the website, I can still have the work and project availalbe for later use.

Every action is part of the backup system.  I don't care if it takes ten seconds or a minute, the action has to lead to a stronger portfolio system.


Start from scratch:  22 minutes to make a student website