Eight Grader explains his middle school social studies Portfolio using my maps.

9/27/2019

Short interview with 8th grader about his MyMap that is discussed below.

Two years in the making (6th and 7th grade) Portfolio of learning. Click and view.

The first post on Teachersfortomorrow.net about mapping out the curriculum was posted way back in 2014. I used ZEEMAPS to do it. However, by 2015 I had moved on to My Maps. What started out as a visual of some key ideas from my class has grown over the last few years into something much bigger. Two years ago, JC Lenk jumped on the MyMaps wagon and we started to build more detailed and layers maps to show both 6th and 7th grade content (hispost is found here) to build a true digital portfolio's of history over the two years.

By the end of 2017, we were onto something much more interesting. My maps is easy to use and kids love it. My goal today is to highlight the Portfolio part of the my map. I will include links at the bottom to tutorials JC and I have made to help you get started, but I want to show how this map is really a digital portfolio. So here we go....

The map above and linked here, was made by a current eighth grader (interviewed above). I made a copy in June of last year, so it will not show any additions he may have done since.

His my map is made up of eight layers: Three from sixth grade and five from seventh grade. You turn layers on by clicking the box. The second image shows the Gov. & Religion box from 6th grade opened. He has 18 locations on this layer of his my map.

Each layer has unique things related to the concept name of the layers. So this map has many items on it about each content standards we address.

Each item is a summary of what the individual student learned. We request that they explain 3-5 key ideas they learned and then link the idea to artifacts they have used to learn from or created. For example, in 6th grade he learned about ancient Mesopotamia. He linked it to the slideshow here created. View it here.

Without opening and showing all the examples, I am going to provide links to different example of items he embed on his My Map in 7th grade. Each link you see below is hidden inside his my map.

Student created Blog: This is his homepage.
Sutori to build his understanding of ideas: Reformation and Impact of Islamic World (about 6 more on his map)
Google Arts and Culture gallery: On Renaissance art work (Also a Sutori on major art work)
We video (The Peasant Revolt)
Magna Carta done in Smore
Classroom padlet on Middle Ages Life.
Whole class shared google doc on Islam in Middle Ages.
Pairs work in google sites on Medieval weapons.
Thinglink in 360 on Cathedrals of Middle Ages (he has 4 - 360's he created and added to his My Map).
Sutori on Catholic Church with build in quiz
His reflection on using my maps (first attempt at screen capture)

I could go on, but you get the idea. He is really building a true portfolio of his work that shows his growth and development over multiple years.