Why an ePortfolio?

I was preparing for our community garage sale and going through some boxes, and stumbled upon my previous portfolios. One from college and one from my early teaching days that I kept up with to take to interviews. It was full of my work, my philosophy, current lesson, photos, etc. Obviously, I have not kept up with this practice. I have dabbled in blogs, had some posts published in small publications, had a classroom communication hub website, active social medias-but have never tied those ideas together in my professional world.

I had never really thought of using it as an investment in myself to connect to other practitioners and finding and sharing my voice in that way. I never thought of pulling together all the pieces, my notes, my reflections, videos, thoughts, readings, social media posts, blogs, etc. and making that shift from the “dumping ground” to carefully curated content. I haven’t really thought of taking the time to organize and share the work that I have done in that manner. I knew I wanted to share things with others, but hadn’t thought of “how”.

The literature and thoughts conveyed is that not only is this a useful tool, but it also becomes part of who you are, what your work is, what your passion is, what your ideas are, and it becomes the central place to show “…the connective thread between who you were and who you want to become” . Take a peek at this video...

As stated in the video, the point is just to start and make it your own as you go, one step at a time. The pieces will fall into place. The look will fall into place. Overtime, it will organically and authentically become part of professional practice, just like reading up on current research and trends, attend conferences, and connecting with others for conversations. I am enjoying reigniting this process.