Diary of a Digital Learning Coach

I have loved seeing our learners personalize and add to their digital portfolios over the last few weeks.  As Open House approaches, what better way to share our growth than through our Bulb sites?   My teammate, Megan Kozar , recently shared tips for sharing learner work: 1. Make sure the portfolio collection is visible to "Public" App Instructions ClassLink Instructions 2. Make sure artifacts are Published and there are not any blank pages floating around in the portfolio. 3.  Display the portfolio through Safari  or  create QR codes  Open the Safari App Navigate to bulbapp.com/___________ (student ID, abc####) DO NOT have students log-in to their Bulb Account (If they are logged-in, have them log-out so their portfolio can be viewed by a guest) What is your favorite thing learners have shared so far in Bulb?  Practice locating their work from the steps above and link it to me in the comments!

As we truck along into January, many of you now have set up learner portfolios and are ready to proceed to the fun part - teaching learners how to self select and reflect on the learning artifacts that go into Bulb.   The DLCs have been working hard to build and gather resources to help you.  One of my go-to spots to expand my learning and find helpful resources in general about digital portfolios and Bulb is the site below.  (Bookmark it, Dano!) We will continue to add to it as the year goes on. http://tinyurl.com/cisdbulb For today, let's take a look at just a couple of strategies to help promote self selection and reflection by unpacking what they can do for you and your classroom! 1.  Offer Reflection Stems to Spark Thinking Why?  Because reflection is something that most of us have to practice.  Stems  trigger ideas that can be expanded.  Why not post some of these  in your classroom or let learners scan a QR code...

Lately I've been exploring different ways to share projects from different apps into our digital portfolios.  This week, please enjoy this work in progress playlist of videos discussing different ways to add artifacts to Bulb.   Sharing to Bulb Playlist Do you have ideas for more videos?  Leave me a comment with what you need so my team and I can add to the playlist! Subscribe to the  Coppell DLC channel  for more digital learning videos!

Usually at this time in December, the only bulbs I am thinking about are the ones I am putting on my Christmas tree.  This year, however, it is year 1 of our digital portfolio initiative through the tool called Bulb and visions of digital reflections have replaced the sugar plums dancing in my head. As we have gotten started with our portfolios,  my team and I have learned a couple of things worth sharing.  Think of these tips as the trim on your portfolio “tree” aka simple tips for you and your class to help make your portfolios “sparkle”! 1. Cook up some creative images for your Bulb  As our learners personalize their portfolios, consider letting them get creative with the images they create.  Why not have them create an avatar of themself using the drawing and shape tools in Keynote? Exported as an image, drawings can easily be added to their profile picture, providing an extra layer of safety and uniqueness. Creating an avatar in Keyn...

This week, I facilitated a refresher training on Bulb, the platform my district is in the process of implementing for digital portfolios.  It was great to have time with my campus to reactivate what we know and work toward the next steps.   The thing about initiatives is that while they are exciting and move us forward, they can also bring up challenges to our need for certainty. For me, this means breaking things down and taking one next right step. Sometimes it is starting with a micro-step, as slow steps are still steps. Sometimes my next right step is asking for help. Sometimes it is researching and learning, other times it is taking a few minutes to breathe by putting it to the side.   No matter where you are with implementing digital portfolios, your DLC is on your side.  We want to help you regardless of what your next right step is.  Here are a few ideas: tinyurl.com/gotbulb 1.  Take a few minutes to ...

Several years ago, I was lucky enough to coach one of our district's first elementary schools to pilot 1:1 in 4th and 5th grade. I've been thinking of that small group of educators a lot lately now that our district has gone 1:1 in all grades. As we learned together that year, we dreamed of an aligned way that learners could show their growth by self selecting items and reflecting digitally on them - a digital portfolio that could travel with them along their educational path beyond elementary school. That time has come.  After much thought and consideration, a focus group of our CISD educators worked together to adopt our districtwide portfolio tool, Bulb.  To help get you started, the DLCs have created a guide with resources that will help you introduce Bulb to your classroom using our district template.   Getting Started with Bulb Portfolios in CISD I  am excited to support you and your team on this journey.  Let me know if you'd like to set...