Marian and I gave our presentation on electronic portfolios yesterday at the annual "opening day" meeting of the composition faculty. As usual, the meeting was running late due to much chitty chatting, so the time we had to present was more limited. At the break before the presentation, people fled from the room, having made an appearance, and we were left with a much reduced audience, most or all of whom are already putting their student portfolios on line one way or another. It was more than disappointing that the very people for whom we designed the presentation were not there. Anyway, it went well enough. As usual, I learned a few more tricks from Marian whose preparation is always so thorough. Overall, I would give the presentation a C, or maybe less, because we failed to reach our target audience. I am going to mention the dispiriting effect of come-late-leave-early audiences to my students (and teachers, when we meet again), and the importance of commitment to an undertaking. Attitude is significant in all matters.
On the brighter side, Neal informed us of a lovely development. We have 10 band new macs laptops to use in our classes! They have cameras, and we can make movies to upload on Youtube! I don't know how to do this, but I am going to learn (with the help of my students). I have plenty of ideas for assignments related to argument, and we have a nice section on images as arguments in our text (From Critical Thinking to Argument, Barnet & Bedau).
Right now I have to focus on using a Wiki, since that is one of the first assignments Marian and I are giving. There is a nice little intro to Wikis on Commoncraft.com that I am going to use to introduce them to my students.
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