I chose to include my Trail of Tears Lesson Plan because it is the item I am the most proud of producing this semester. I think it is a very strong example of my creativity and skill in producing lessons that help students engage in "authentic" learning about important historical topics. I also think this document demonstrates my new-found ability to incorporate the use of educational technologies into creative, interactive lesson plans. Creating a rubric for this lesson also helped me develop my knowledge of how to create effective assessments which measure learning in important and relevant ways.

    I chose to include my discussion of the best and worst experiences I've had with assessment because I found this conversation to be one of the most interesting, thought-provoking, and valuable discussions we had as a group throughout the term. I really enjoyed hearing about people's experiences with good and bad assessments, and reading their feedback about mine as well. I gathered some very useful, creative ideas about how to design effective, engaging assessments from the experiences my classmates related. I also gained a much clearer sense about why asssessment is important, and how to make it a reinforcing and meaningful part of a learning experience.

    I chose to include the "Web for Research" wiki page I helped author because I thought it was my strongest contribution to our class wiki throughout the course. I also think that using the web for research is my favorite use of educational technologies, and I am confident I will incorporate web-based research into my feature lesson plans.

    Thematically, my ePortfolio reflects my desire to teach students in creative, authentic, and engaging ways whenever possible, as well as my desire to give students the option to demonstrate their knowledge in a variety of ways. It also reflects my growing comfortability and competence in using educational technologies effectively, a competency which I hope will continue to grow as I develop and improve as an educator.