How To Make Your Digital Teaching Portfolio For Free- A Complete Guide
It is 2022 and the era of digitalization. When the professionals all over the world have been maintaining digital portfolios, then why should teachers stay behind? If you are a teacher and you don’t have an online teaching portfolio yet then you should do it ASAP. In this article I will tell you what a professional digital teaching portfolio is; why do you need a digital teaching portfolio; what to include in a digital teaching portfolio; what are the best digital portfolio platforms for teachers; and how to create a digital teaching portfolio for free using one simple tool. Here’s a complete step-by-step guide for teachers to how to make a digital portfolio for free.
1. What is a professional digital teaching portfolio?
A portfolio is a resume that contains all your professional teaching, educational and work-related details. It is basically a comprehensive explanation of what you have done and what you are capable of, as a teacher. The conventional teaching portfolios enlisted only the educational and professional details along with the teaching skills possessed. Gone are the days when teachers used to carry such paper documents with them for interviews and job fairs. Now these details are creatively comprised in a digital format, like on a website. Digital teaching portfolios can be easily accessed and shared anytime and anywhere.
2. Why do you need a digital teaching portfolio?
Imagine one single place where you can mention all your past and present teaching experience and personal details. Not just that, your digital teaching portfolio will have the details of the teaching and classroom resources produced by you throughout your career, student projects monitored, worksheets created, papers and articles published in journals, both offline and online, and research papers written by you. It will also have the testominals by the school Principal, co-teachers, parents and students.
Think of a beautifully organized, comprehensive and effective resume that you contains your teaching videos, links to your teaching blogs and pictures. You need a digital teaching portfolio of this kind to apply for a teaching job.
One more advantage of a digital teaching portfolio is that you can update and edit it anytime and through any device.
3. What to include in a digital teaching portfolio?
A perfect digital portfolio for teachers must include the following:
- Your personal details and a short bio.
- Your education and past teaching experience.
- Your learning philosophy.
- Recommendations.
- A sneak peak into your classroom and teaching style.
- Your contact number and email address.
- Clickable links to your teaching blogs, educational/teaching YouTube channel(if applicable), links to your social media handles or pages(if you have a dedicated space on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn that showcases your teaching).
- Links to any published blogs/articles or others, in document form.
- Any other information that makes you stand apart as a teacher.
Does all this sound too overwhelming and technical to you? Don’t worry!
Here’s a step-by-step guide to make it easy-peasy for you. Stay tuned and scroll down to the next section⬇
4. What are the best digital portfolio platforms for teachers?
Portfolio designing once used to be a cumbersome task. Not anymore!
The web is flooded with portfolio designing websites where you can design your own digital teaching portfolio.
Here is a list of the best digital portfolio platforms for teachers.
Check out these amazing teaching portfolio examples by Paul Gordon Brown, Gretchen C. Seibel, and Leisa Neilsen, that will inspire you to create your own digital teaching portfolio NOW!
You can also create one like these on WordPress or your own website. However, I wouldn’t suggest that.
Why?
Because I found Bulb which is a simple and easy tool to create my digital teaching portfolio and it’s completely free for educators.
5. How To Make Your Digital Teaching Portfolio On Bulb- A Complete Guide
👉🏻 Step 1
Visit Bulb Digital Portfolio website and sign in as an educator. It is free with the basic features and limited storage. But, that is enough to start with.
👉🏻 Step 2
Edit the Homepage elements like your name, profile photo, and cover image. Add a short, catchy and creative bio.
👉🏻 Step 3
Update your email id and contact information. Also add your ‘About Me’ information, teaching experience and education background.
👉🏻 Step 4
Add all the details of your social profiles. Remember to link all your LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter accounts. Also, add the link to your teaching website/blog, if you have any. If you don’t, well, you are living in the era of social media. Even teachers are pretty active on it. Only link these accounts if you post educational content on them or if you have a dedicated teaching space on them. Otherwise they will not add any value to your resume.
👉🏻 Step 5
Now add your teaching experience in detail by clicking the ‘Experience’ tab. Bulb offers you to update all your school details, location, start and end date to the particular job. You can also write about the skills, roles and responsibilities assigned to you in your previous and present school/college.
👉🏻 Step 6
Under the ‘Education’ tab, mention the name of your school, degrees earned etc.
👉🏻 Step 7
When you click the ‘Portfolio’ tab, you can write information about your teaching experience, your teaching philosophy and so on. You can also write articles that will be saved in the cloud on Bulb. People can comment and like your post too. You can also share these portfolio pages.
👉🏻 Step 8
Under the ‘Activity’ tab, you can add your publications and interactions with parents, students, teachers and educationists.
👉🏻 Step 9
Visit the ‘Asset Library’ on the top right corner and add images, videos, audios, files, and any documents related to your teaching. You can basically digitally showcase your teaching and classroom.
👉🏻 Step 10
Finally, click the ‘Share Resume’ tab under your short bio on the homepage. It will create a unique shareable link to your digital teaching portfolio.
And there! You have created your own professional digital teaching portfolio for free in 10 simple and easy steps.
Final Takeaway
I know this sounds a lot of work. But trust me, it is not. As a thorough professional in your field, you must have an online presence too. Schools, parents, students and recruiters these days Google a teachers’ name. Hence, it is crucial that you have an online presence. A good and effective digital portfolio is the best way that you can show your online presence to the school in your next teaching job interview. Go on and make your digital teaching portflio for free with this step-by-step guide.
👉 Thanks for making my words part of your day! Leave a comment below to share your experience or write me an email at manikapant18@gmail.com if you have any questions.
