A Personal Request: Atid Day School Innovation Challenge

Today's the final day to vote for my entry in the "Atid Day School Innovation Challenge". As you'll see, my idea is to create a high school siddur project that encourages students to build their own poetic siddur translations over the four years of high school.

About the contest/voting process:

• winning decisions are split between votes and judges' decisions 
• the top 8 finalists are declared winners in this contest
• you must register to vote for my entry, but registration takes a moment
• all voters are eligible for a cash prize 

My entry can be found here: http://atidchallenge.strutta.com/entry/8103772

Finally, if you've already voted, please feel free to forward this message and/or share on social media with others!

Thanks very much for your support.

Portfolio Writing on the iPad!

With the end of the semester approaching, I'm busy researching e-portfolio options. How will I convert my typical paper assessments, in the form of reflective or creative portfolios, into dynamic e-portfolios?

I've come across "WeLearnedIt", a fascinating app. It is both accessible and full of wonderful options for presentation. I imagine that it will also offer an entirely new component to my classroom culture, I think, in which students will organize a multi-media creative project, for example, submit their work electronically, receive feedback (perhaps video feedback via the app--so cool).

In the particular project that I have in mind, students have to pick four poems in four poetic forms, and then organize in a creative form around the poem their own original resonant photography, creative emulations, and critical analyses into a colorful form. This app looks just right. Perhaps they might include sounds, music, or video.

Here's a great video on using WeLearnedIt for portfolio projects.

Another thought: I've asked students to report via video presentations on their independent reading assignments. Initially I thought that they might use the iPad as a recording device, but perhaps for future such assignments they might use this app to embed their videos

Next Steps: download the app, roll out the poetry portfolio project, and then attempt a trial-run with my freshmen classes.