Welcome to my Teaching Portfolio

I hate re-inventing the wheel.

And I loathe wasting time.

Every since I had a children my "time-sensor-feelers" have been on high alert and anything taking time away from my them (be it work commitments, exercise, food preparation, older family care or even the odd pedicure) better darn well be worth it!  I have become incredibly intentional in the tasks I take on and this portfolio is no exception.

I constructed this digital portfolio for a number of reasons.

1) Most of my resources are digital so copying and pasting links and uploading digital docs and photos from my digital devices was fairly simple and not too time-consuming.

2) I wanted it to be fluid. Dynamic. Open to the possibility of change, modification, and comments from others.  Keeping digital documents current are far easier than editing hard copies. (For me anyway!)

3) Try as I might to copy a teaching portfolio from the internet that matched my level of experience and subject matter, I couldn't.
There weren't any.
I realize that this is a highly specific body of knowledge but if there wasn't one on there, well, I was going to be the first!
And hopefully offer some insight to someone else, possibly saving them a few hours of their day, with the hours I put in on this.

4) My superiors require that I hand in some sort of portfolio for a permanent contract, but hopefully it's not just them that benefits.  In fact, I dearly hope it is not just them viewing this since most of them are no longer in classrooms on a daily basis and most of this is really good stuff on what goes on in my classroom.  

5) Lastly, digital formatting allows me to show how my brain works.  That is, with hyperlinks.  Very few of these pages stand alone and for good reason I believe.  Deep, rich learning taps into multiple levels of understanding.  Therefore, meaningful teaching must be integrated, interconnected.  You may find that reading through this is a bit of a jaunt "down the rabbit's hole" but hopefully you find your way "home" and navigate with ease.  There are links to all kinds of sources and I hope that translates into a model of how I believe a classroom should work - using a variety of resources, tools, knowledge and skills to achieve meaningful learning.

Please view this portfolio as a journey and know there are things that I need to improve and have learned from both in the content of this blog and in the construction of blogs in general. 

Since I am also required to hand in a Faith Portfolio as well I will include a cross-reference to that site here.

Feel free to visit more Teacher/Mommy musings at www.havingmycakeblog.blogspot.ca

Enjoy the ride!