Portfolio


👩🏼‍🏫 Vocational teacher for printing technology, graphic design and religion. 👩🏼‍🎨👩🏼‍💻 Freelance Graphic Designer. 👩🏼‍💼 Speaker.


👩🏼‍🏫 Berufsschullehrerin für Drucktechnik, Mediengestaltung und ev. Religion. 👩🏼‍🎨👩🏼‍💻 Freie Grafikerin. 👩🏼‍💼 Referentin.

My goal:

Reflecting on the competences i already have, uncover on which competences i still have to work. Both for me personally as well as in the usage at school for my students.

Module 1 – Introduction to Digital Competences for Educators

Module 2 – Teaching and Learning with Digital Resources

Module 3 – Facilitating and Assessing Learners’ Digital Competencies


Module 1 – Introduction to Digital Competences for Educators

Get To Know Me

I’m Elena, I live & work in Lower Saxony in Germany. I teach at a vocational school, my subjects there are printing technology, graphic design and religion. This means, most of my students are between 15 and 25, sometimes 35… I‘m with my students for 3 years if they are in the Dual Education System (doing an apprenticeship) and often just 1 year if they are in any other forms of education we have at our school. 

As media was and is part of my own apprenticeship, my studies and my current subjects, it’s a natural interest of mine. I even wrote my master thesis about „the influence of new media on religious education“. 

Im excited to meet all of you – I love meeting people from around the world, that’s why I also love traveling and I even worked as an au-pair in Sweden in my early 20s. I hope to connect with you and maybe there are even possibilities for future collaborations! (My school‘s in the Erasmus Programme, maybe your‘s as well?)

I also attached a picture as so man of you did. It shows me and i created it as part of my work for the relilab, which is a network with focus on digital religious education and we also offer workshops via zoom… i feel that this pic fits the course as it‘s a symbol of me being in the network that the internet / digitalization is!

Task 1
e-Portfolio

I set up this page on my personal website where I will collect all the stuff regarding this and the following courses.
Please don’t pay too much attention to the rest of my site, its in desperate need of a revamp. But I haven’t found the time yet… Said missing time is also the reason I setup the portfolio on my site. I would love to try other e-portfolios, but this was the easiest and quickest in my current situation. 

Task 2

While it wasn’t THE main focus of the article the Passagepreises questioning the Staus Quo spoke to me the most. It’s something im working on and am also challenged with. My situation at my school is quite good regarding these things. I and some other of my colleagues made a course about cooperative and open learning (COOL) in Austria, our administration want to implement this (think: Dalton Plan) more into the school. Also our district is thinking about a new building or at least renovation of our school which also led to some discussion of how we see our school, our methods, our teaching styles, … 
For me its clear that I don‘t want instruction and classical seating in the classroom. I want students that can choose freely between different rooms/spaces and seating options and that they are the ones leading Goethe’s are learning. I don‘t want to be the main focus in class. The students and their projects should be the focus – for everyone involved. 

Task 3


The first thing where I realised I have potential to do much more for and with my students was the “Self-regulated learning”. 

With most of the other competences I marked the B2-, sometimes B1-level for myself, but using e-portfolios, blogs or something similar for my students is something I don’t really do so far. 

The secons competence I need to get better in is “Assessment strategies”. But, here will be a problem as digital assessment are not always allowed… So I will defnitely think about this one but it’s not my main focus in the near future, because I would need to discuss it with other people in my school. 

But using portfolios or sth. similar is an option that I can just do in my lessons! So that’s definitely my main goal for the near future!

Reading the framework also made me realize that I may be using to little interactive elements… While I use a lot of digital tools and encourage my students to work digital, I don’t feel like it’s that much interactive and not everything fits together well… So that’s probably a second goal for myself!


Oh, I also did this test from europass: https://europa.eu/europass/digitalskills
This one said I’m on level 6 for all subjects but the datasecurity, where I got a level 5. So I should probably work on that as well…

Task 4

Regarding the question, if both concepts could be applied: We feel as if school usually starts as Community of Inquiry with the teacher prompting a question, presenting a problem or sth. similar. After that the whole class (as a community!) hopefully makes the shift to a Community of Prcatice as they are intrigued to work on said question or problem. 

Task 5

4C vs. Connectivism

I see both theories as crucial in our current time. While connectivism is more of a framework that sets the individual in the middle, the 4C’s are the competences this individual needs to have. The 4C are competences that interlock with each other while connectivism is more open to more and more connections while leaving the person in its middle. 

Connectivism is important as it visualizes how our world today works: Everyone of us is involved in network(s) and of course is everyone of us as well as our students using these networks. But to navigate succesful through these networks we’re involeved in we need the 4C. 

Especially if you look at the example from the last video: Bob was, besides other things, using facebook, a social network, as well as comments under an article. Both are known to not be free of mistakes / fake news and so on. So he definitely needs some Critical Thinking to check which statements he should trust and which not. 

Of course one would also definitely need the skill / competence of Communication as we’re never alone in our learning and our networks. We can only learn from each other and with each other if we’re communicating well. 

Proceeding from this (learning and/or working with and from each other) the next natural thing is Collaboration and probably also Creativity and Innovation as this naturally occurs if people are working together. 

I think that we, as teachers, should and need to boost the 4C in our students and we can do so by using a lot of group work and recoursing to the networks our students alsready have as well as initiating a new network in our class (the class as a network). 

Task 6

My additions to the glossary:


Title: 
classroomscreen (https://www.classroomscreen.com)

Scenario/purpose/Teaching aim: background in class, to visualize mehods / time / and more

Application/Tool: no need for registration, you just launch it and can visualize current important things for you class

Own experience & recommandations: I love it, cause it’s so easy to set up. I visualize time (until a certain task has to be finished), the current time = clock, how loud my students are allowed to talk right now, I show pictures or take simple notes… It’s so quick and easy!

Title: Miro 
(https://miro.com/app/)

Scenario/purpose/Teaching aim: A digital whiteboard

Application/Tool: It’s possible to create diagrams, make flowcharts or just use it as a board for post-it-notes.

Own experience & recommandations: I use it as alternative for the chalk-blackboard I still have in school. It makes it really easy to create overviews (over whole topics!) and I can easily print individual parts afterwards for my students or send them digitally. There’s an education-account which gives you full access without spending any money. 
It is possible to work collaborative on this, due to the German data privacy rules I don’t do that in school, but have done so in other contextes and it’s working real smooth!
Task 7
Task 8

(Quiz, finished with 100%.)

Task 9: Diversity

Regarding social differences I deliberately choose to ignore some of them, while others are important for my work in school.

I stuck with the Gardenswartz & Rowe model, although I’m not really satisfied with it. But I also couldn’t find another one that I liked better. For me it#s obviuos to ignore differences in terms of seuxual orientation or religion. They are not relevant to what I’m teaching (even not in the subject religion!). 

The one difference I DO focus on is language. I have a lot of students who have a different mother tongue than German. But I don’t give these students extra tasks (some get additional language courses though), but I include task regarding technical terms and terminology into my lessons for everyone. By doing so the students get a chance to help each other and work together. 

Now, after re-reading I think I don’t really ignore other social differences. That’s the wrong word. I do see them and acknowledge them – and the different problems that are a result of them (e.g. racism…). But I don’t see the need to incorporate them into my teaching. I accept everyone the way they are coming and they are all welcome. 

Task 10: Social Presence


I’m looking onto the social presence in online communities from two perspectives:

  1. I’m a teacher so I create(d) online teaching. Although we’re now back full time in school, the pandemic definitely was a point where also I learned a lot.
  2. I’m part of different online communities in which I’m engaged. 

I realize that I’m better integrated into communities and am more present if I’m connected to the other peoples. This means I need a personal relationship (maybe friendship, but not always this deep) and time to engage aboout private/personal topics and more that just the professional tasks.

But being in a network means to engage in it. The more I am giving into it, the more I get out of it! I understand that it’s sometimes easier to just consume and I’m definitely guilty of it myself, but if I’m honest that’s not the main goal of acommunity. A community or network can only grow with people, who are willing to help it grow. 

During our phases of distance teaching in the last two years I always made room for this and sent the students in smaller breakout rooms so that they could maintain their friendships even during class. 

Task 11:E-Tivities

I teach at a vocational school in Germany, I’m teaching students in the dual system which are learning graphic-design or print technology.
Get to Know Each Other!1.Title:
Make an introduction-video2.Purpose/Task summary:
Once you completed this task you will have made a video about yourself. By doing this you will probably have learned a few new skills in different appsfor video editing. 
You will also work with pur learning platform for the first time. 
Also afterwards you’ll be able to watch all the other videos and get to know your new classmates!3.Task:
Film an introduction video about yourself! 
There are no rules here! You can film yourself, but you don’t have to if you’re not feeling comfortable. There are also no rules reagding the length and topics: Share what you’re comfortable with. (Minimum: Your name and the company you’re working at!) Upload your video to our learning platform IServ, into the folder of our class. Watch the other videos & enjoy!4. Schedule, expectations & feedback:
You have 10 days for creating & uploading your video!

I teach at a vocational school in Germany, I’m teaching students in the dual system which are learning graphic-design or print technology.

Petroleum-Distillation1.Title: 
Learn about petroleum distillation as important part of the plastic manufacturing!2.Purpose/Task summary:
Once you completed this task you will have an overview about the chemical proccesses reagrding plastic. These are important to know befor we continue our exchange about plastic as a printing substrate!
3.Task:
There are different tasks, involving texts, diagrams and more. Please work through these.
You can choose in which order you do this (there is a suggested one though) and you can also choose if you want the material in a printed version or in a digital version. 
The tasks also include once again to create a colloborative glossar about technical terms. 

The second part consists of creating your own tasks and similar for an upcomg exam!4.Schedule, expectations & feedback:
You have 6x 90mins / 3 weeks for all the tasks.
Title:
History of Script / Font
2.Purpose/Task summary:
Once you completed this task you will have an overview of the evolution of script and you have acccess to a collobarative glossar with all neccessary technical terms in typography. 
3.Task:
Watch the documentary. You can rewatch it as many times as you need to. While watching: Sort the script-examples in the correct order. Check with the sample solution afterwards. Take two out of all the new technical terms (from the documentary and the information text) and add them to the glossar – including a description of course!
4. Schedule, expectations & feedback:
You have 90mins for the task plus the time for watching the documentary which you should be doing at home ( = flipped classroom).
Final Assignment
  • What did you learn within this course? 
  • Could you tick the boxes of all your goals for this course?
  • Did you gain digital competences?
  • Can you implement some of your new competences within your professional context? If you use some of them within your work area already, can you imagine what impact it will have on your environment (colleagues, students or even society)? 
  • Which topic do you still want to work on? Do you have any further goals?

Module 2 – Teaching and Learning with Digital Resources

Module 3 – Facilitating and Assessing Learners’ Digital Competencies

Portfolio to be