About+WBPs

 Dear Parent of Participating Student:

During the //2010-2011// school year your child's class will be participating in a new pilot program called **//Web Based Portfolios//** (WBP) at Lanier Middle School. The mission of this program is to provide students with a platform where //**technology-based work can be stored**// to demonstrate what has been learned through artifacts (which will be the student's actual work) that they will link to their own website/blog. As a pilot program, not every teacher on your student's schedule will be participating, but they will be able to save and link artifacts from those classes to their WBP. This initiative will also provide opportunities during the year for your child to share with you, classmates and other teachers the concepts they have learned in an open forum called a //Showcase//. This showcase will allow students to highlight specific artifacts of which they are particularly proud of as well as those that required the most reflection.

In order for your student to participate, you will need to sign and return a Media Release Form. By signing this form you are giving permission to allow your student to publish work to the world wide web. The LMS staff will continue to make every effort to protect each students' privacy by using a user ID that only the student and the student's teacher will be able to identify. It will be very important that you partner with us in helping to monitor the activities of your child student while he/she is online and working with the portfolios. Knowing your child's student's account ID and password will be a necessity in order to keep a transparent window between school use and home use. This will be provided for you during the first weeks of the school year.

While creating the web based portfolio, students will be learning about what it means to be a good Digital Citizen and the importance of leaving a positive Digital Footprint. The portfolio will also serve to develop and enhance 21st century skills such as problem solving and creative thinking, collaboration, creativity, and the effective use of written and oral communication. In order to reach these desired outcomes, student artifacts will take many forms such as, but not limited to, audio and video podcasts, photo scrapbooks, digital storytelling, and collaborative projects with students at other schools around the world.

In some cases, your student child may also need an email account in order to take advantage of all aspects of document sharing and communication for different types of projects that may take place throughout the school year. Again, for transparency purposes we invite you to know the login and password for the email account. If your studentchild is under the age of 13, you as the parent will need to create this account as Google's Terms of Service require account creators to be above the age of 13.

//Required Components for Web Based Portfolio Project- Set up by student and teacher//
 * //Account for Website, Blog or other platform//
 * //G-Mail Account- for school related communication only//


 * //Media Release Form- signed and on file with teacher//

The goal of this program is to begin a process by which your student child can learn how to create a portfolio that will be available throughout his/her scholastic career. By having such an asset, students will be better prepared to show and display knowledge as we ll as to develop their communication skills. This program and the potential it holds for your all students student is very exciting. If you have any questions, please contact me at Ansley_Bennett@gwinnett.k12.ga.us. I look forward to working with you and your child to make this a great year.

Sincerely,

Ansley Bennett