DIY.org

By Katrina Schwartz

Refrigerators and fireplace mantles might still be covered with children’s projects, but more and more, those projects are finding a home online.

That’s just one of the purposes for the launch of DIY.org, a site that allows kids to upload photos of their projects and share it with their friends, family, and the public.

Here’s how it work: Parents help their children set up a profile that’s linked to the parent’s email, which gives parents access to a dashboard showing everything that’s been posted on the account. To protect kids’ privacy, kids choose an animal character and a nickname (the prompt clearly says “Please don’t use your real name!”) to identify themselves on the site. After that, it’s easy to click on the big upload button, choose a photo, give it a title and create a digital art portfolio. Parents, grandparents, friends or anyone else can then search for their portfolio by nickname and give the project stickers to show support.

That’s just the beginning. The next iterations of the site will include ways for kids to create DIY videos and upload them for public view, allowing them to share projects and learn from each other. Though there’s no public gallery yet, the site will eventually open up the community to public view — with parental permission of course, according to Zach Klein, the CEO and one of the four co-founders of the San Francisco-based company. Klein is perhaps best known for starting Vimeo, a project he thinks relates to DIY.

“The boldest thing we’ve done is give kids a public facing page,” he said. “It’s obscured, but still, the fact that kids have a URL is bold.” But he thinks it’s time for parents to get comfortable with that idea, and help their kids enter the online world in a safe way.

The creators also wanted the comment system to be 100% positive, which is why the only way to comment on a piece of art is to give it one of four stickers: Awesome, Beautiful, Favorite, and Genius.

Right now, DIY is a free service. Klein said they also have a premium feature in development, available to users who who pay a monthly subscriber fee, which they hope to release in the early summer. Klein says much of the service will remain free, however, because he sees children as an “under-served” virtual population.

“I want to help convince kids and their parents that creativity is as fundamental to their growth as a person as anything else that they are taught,” Klein said.

Flickr: Stratic

By Jennifer Roland

As digital portfolios become more commonly used for students to showcase their work and projects, more companies are offering their services in this realm. One of the newest onto the scene is CollegeOnTrack, which joins Zinch and College Bound — as well as the tried-and-true personal blog — in the world of online portfolio tools.

Zinch, which is free for students, is designed like a social networking tool. Educational portfolio researcher, author and consultant Helen Barrett believes the lines are blurring between social networking tools and digital portfolios. In fact, she says, social networking sites help prepare students for the technical work involved in creating and maintaining a strong digital portfolio. (Educator Lisa Nielsen goes so far as to recommend using Facebook Timeline to showcase student achievement.)

With the digital portfolio sites, students can compile the list of colleges they want to apply to, upload their work for college admissions officers to see, and apply for scholarships. They can connect with admissions officers at participating schools so their application will be more than just a name and a set of scores when it arrives in the admissions office.

College Bound Designs actually creates digital portfolios for students to submit as part of their application package. They offer a range of packages ranging from $500 to $1800, with a special focus on portfolios for artists and athletes. The packages can be targeted for specific schools.

CollegeOnTrack’s service focuses more on the process and less on the finished works than the other two companies, with a journal that allows students to reflect on their learning process in addition to the presentation of finished works that show the breadth of a student’s growth as a learner throughout high school. It also allows parents and counselors, when invited by the student, to help students refine their portfolios and track their process in selecting and applying for colleges.

Although not all components of the CollegeOnTrack portfolio will be published for college admissions officers to view, it can help students as they gather required documentation and prepare to write their essays. The tool looks more like a blog than like a social network, with tag clouds, archive listings and other blog-like navigational elements. The team is in the process of adding the ability to apply to colleges directly within the system; if it happens, the digital portfolio would be included in the submitted application. The annual subscription cost is $60, but the company offers volume pricing for counselors and school systems.

Colleges seem to be moving toward a more robust system for assessing students’ ability to succeed and to fit in. Digital portfolios provide students a way to track what they’ve learned over time, compile their grades and scores and publish their completed projects. And they provide a sense of a student’s identity, one behind the transcript, when submitting their applications.

“Traditionally,” says Philip Roybal, vice president of marketing for College On Track, “the way colleges have worked is they have looked at transcripts and standardized tests and tried to figure out who would make a good college citizen.” But test scores don’t convey the whole picture or serve as a bulletproof predictor of college success. The National Center for Fair and Open Testing lists more than 850 schools that do not require SAT scores for entrance into bachelor’s programs, although some of those include technical institutes and art schools that have a more limited educational focus. These numbers match with what Roybal observed as the company prepared its database of schools. Of the 2,000 colleges included in their database, he says, 950 have started to de-emphasize test scores.

HOW PARENTS CAN HELP

As students progress through their educational careers and prepare for college or work, parents can provide guidance to help students capture relevant information and showcase their best work.

“Parents are the first portfolio keepers,” Barrett says. “That family scrapbook or that digital album of photos is a portfolio.” Once kids go to school, parents keep their portfolio tradition alive by saving artwork, school assignments, and all of the other mementos of their child’s schooling.

Parents can involve their kids, even at a very young age, to help them not only pick their favorite works but also to assess and reflect on their learning. The reflection component, much more than the presentation element of digital portfolios, is where Barrett believes they reach their full power.

As students get older, they may need a more formal digital portfolio tool. Some school systems encourage students to use blogs to post their reflections of what they’re studying, drafts of work for feedback, and finished pieces. Barrett has seen students as young as eight years old effectively using digital portfolios, although they are much more common in high schools. For example, in East Haven Schools in Connecticut, some teachers who use iPads for assessments have students send them screenshots of scores they earn on education apps, which they store in students’ electronic portfolios, according to a recent article in Education Week.

In the meantime, Lisa Nielsen, who works for the New York City Department of Education teaching teachers how to use technology in innovative ways, has come up with a list of ways for teachers who aren’t bound by school rules to take advantage of Facebook’s new Timeline feature.

By Lisa Nielsen

Timeline provides an easy way to rediscover the things you shared, and collect all your best moments in a single place. It is a tremendous resource for any school admission counselor or human resource executive interested in seeing if a candidate is a good match. It’s the job of today’s innovative educator to ensure their students know how to create an online image that will lead to the school or job of their dreams.

Five Ideas for Getting Your Students Started with Facebook Timeline

1. Know your brand. Everything you post online says something about you. Ensure that is a message you want to convey.
2. Fix mistakes. Sometimes something is shared that does not represent our best selves to the world. If this happens, Timeline will let you hide the story, post, or picture shared by you or someone else.
3. Celebrate what you are proud of. Was there something that occurred that you are especially proud of and really represents the image you want to convey? If so, Timeline lets you feature it and star your favorites to double its size.
4. Imagine yourself as a historical figure. We know that social media is a tool necessary for success in many fields. For instance, if our students choose to run for office, they’ll need social media savvy and a respectable digital footprint. It is reasonable in fact that any student today could become a historical figure in the future. Ask your students to think about themselves as future historical figures and contemplate what their timeline says about the young version of who they are to become.
5. Tell your story. Have your students think deliberately about their Timeline from the perspective of an autobiography that would be attractive to those considering them as candidates for college and career. Have them actually write an autobiography selling themselves by pointing out important milestones on their timeline that would make them desirable to those considering them for employment or acceptance into their program. You could extend this activity by having students write the biography of a classmate to see how they are perceived by others.
6. Fill in the blanks. As students think critically about their image, they may realize that important parts of their story aren’t included on their Timeline. No problem. They can go back to when they happened and add them.