What does the Common Application for colleges look like? Where can a student enter the link to his website and Digital Portfolio?

 I wanted to see what teenagers look at when they are asked to complete the Common Application to apply to colleges.  What does the page look like where students can submit a link to their digital portfolio?  Where do High Tech High students enter their website's address?

Here is the "additional information" that I submitted

I want you to know about a remarkable person who left behind a free ebook when he died.  I met him in 2009 and I spent time with him over the following 7 years.  He died in 2017.  Before he died, I interviewed him and asked him to comment on quotations that I found about education.  His commentaries form a free ebook that anyone can download.   TinyURL.com/FischlerEbook.  You can get his training posters at TINYURL.com/FischlerPosters.  I hope you will look at the website TinyURL.com/CPPPSite and TINYURL.com/SunABE. 

I believe in helping other students create fabulous digital portfolios like the ones that students make at High Tech High school.  You can learn more at
TinyURL.com/LarryHTH and
TinyURL.com/BillgatesOprahHth
TinyURL.com/FreeforFamily1   Thank you for reading this far.  

Clearly the Common Application offers students ample space to provide a list of websites, links to folders and additional essays and blogs and links to YouTube videos.  I had heard that there was only a single link that could be added, but this page in the Application allows a student to write an additional essay... and provide links to a digital portfolio.

This is what the Common Application offered in 2016:
a single line for any "online materials"
The updated form allows up to 650 words ... ample for giving
a list of website addresses.

The option to provide a link to a student's portfolio is there. 

TEACHERS
Work with your colleagues to create opportunities for your students to work on ONE BIG PROJECT.  (that's what students get to do in Finland.  Search "end of subjects finland schools bbc")  One project gets credit for grades in several subjects... and that project can be displayed with pride in each student's digital portfolio (free website)

Could subjects soon be a thing of the past in Finland? - BBC News

www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39889523

May 29, 2017 - Finland has long been renowned for the quality of its education and always scores highly in international league tables. Now it is rethinking how it teaches in the digital age - seeking to place skills, as much as subjects, at the heart of what it does. But not everyone is happy, and there are fears it could bring ...

Why Finland is changing its top-ranking education system - BBC News

www.bbc.com/.../education.../why-finland-is-changing-its-top-ranking-education-syst...

Finland is rethinking how it teaches in the digital age - and is seeking to place skills, as much assubjects, at the heart of what it does.

School COUNSELORS
Download the free ebook and learn how the digital portfolio process has helped students get full scholarships.  TINYURL.com/sundp5

PARENTS
How often do you get a chance to see what your child is facing?  Yes, the teenager is a remarkably complex and mysterious creature.  And secretive (many of them).  At least now you can see a portion of what they will face and you can push your kid to at least put some videos on a free website... Google gives everyone 15 gigabytes of free real estate in the land of the Internet.   Why not put two or three photos up and write about "why more people should see this photo"?

STUDENTS
You want to stand out, right?   Learn about free websites and put your best stuff forward.  You are unique.  Show us what you have done and what you plan to do with what you have learned.  Get some ideas from Ben Staley and Abel Thon, students at High Tech High Schools.

Click here to see Abel's site

DIRECTORS OF SCHOOLS
Imagine if the world (taxpayers, future students and future parents of future students who are deciding whether or not to enroll in your school) could see the work of your students.   Imagine if others could judge your school by the work of your current students (and past students if they leave behind a digital portfolio).   "Judge our school by what our students accomplish after they leave us" is how Abraham S. Fischler described this process.  (Fischler stated this idea when asked to provide evidence about why his university's innovative approach to providing instruction could work.... His university rented space in a hotel once a month and brought a professor to the city where the 20 or 25 principals could meet to work one weekend per month for three years to earn a doctorate in education leadership.  It was the first distance education model that included face to face instruction.  Hear more about it at tinyURL.com/HistoryofNova)



Students are more than their transcript.   Let them show what they can do with what they have learned (Tony Wagner's point).



The single most important thing you could do tomorrow for little to no money is have every student establish a digital portfolio where they collect their best work as evidence of their skills. Where they’re working with their teachers and other adults to present their best work, to iterate their best work, so that they actually have real progress they can show. 

Tony Wagner
Search:  tony wagner pathbrite every student needs digital portfolio

If you want to see the rest of the Common Application, some screenshots are shown below.

Are you ready to create your own free website?   CLICK HERE 
TINYuRL.com/FWPstart

What goes through the mind of a student who ceates a portfolio? Some thoughts from a High Tech High student

In 2014 I wrote to Ben Staley and asked "how do you put together your portfolio?"   His reply is part of a book called "Show Your Work"   TINYURL.com/ShowYourWork


In 2018, I contacted Ben to find out if he still makes a portfolio.  Here is his reply:

Hello!

Unfortunately I’ve been super busy and hadn’t had a use for a Digital Portfolio. I moved everything over to Weebly a while back when I was applying for jobs, but now that I am employed and attending school I haven’t had the time or need. That is also why I let my fancy URL expire. Now it’s just BenStaley.weebly.com. As soon as I start applying to jobs I will probably update it as an extension of my resume but this is as “long term” as it’s going to get right now :-)

Best,

Ben

I wrote the following:

Hello Ben,

Thank you for taking time to write back.  How stable is your weebly page?  IS it guaranteed to be around 10 years from now? 

1.  I like the idea that you kept the practice of DP going, even if you made only summary notes for some courses.   It's more than I made of my college courses.

2.  what is it that you like about Weebly?   I want to give my students a "user's" opinion.

3.  Is it okay to share your portfolio on Weebly with my students?  I am putting together an expanded explanation of "what a DP looks like" and I want to use your HTH and your weebly versions as examples. 

4. If you know of any other HTH students who would like to have their DPs looked at by kids in Florida, please put me in contact with those students.    

5.  GRADUATION BY PORTFOLIO -- the state of Rhode Island has an innovation:  Students can qualify to graduate by submitting a portfolio.   You might have heard that the state of Rhode Island is looking for examples of portfolios to show a standard that is expected.   Would you be interested in having your portfolio exhibited and made available to students in other states to look at?

Thanks for your time.   Steve McCrea

My students continue to ask, "What did Ben do?"  and "Where did Ben go?"   now I can say, "WPI" (west Pacific Institute) and show them his new weebly site

Ben wrote the following:

Hello! Sorry for the delay

Weebly as a company seems pretty stable but I’ll never really be sure. The internet is a constantly changing place and I need to be flexible to change with it. Hopefully I won’t have to remake it anytime soon though :P

1. Yeah right now I was more focused on the framework of my DP. That way when I am out of college I can use it as an extension of my resume (which as worked well in the past)

2. I am a fairly technical person so if I had unlimited time I would design my own website. However I do not have unlimited time and weebly simply offered me a template that I liked (I am very picky). I used adobe illustrator and photoshop to make custom graphics and that’s about it.

3. I am not sure if my hth DP still exists unfortunately, but if you have it you can share it. You can also share the weebly one but make sure everyone knows I don’t use it right now so it’s rough :)    NOTE:   It exists here

4. I don’t think any of my friends from hth keep up their portfolios anymore. Maybe when it’s time to start applying for jobs. You can always go on the hth website and there is a list of current students that you could get in touch with. You can also contact the staff.

5. I would be interested, but I would be curious to know the requirements of want an example should look like (as mine is incomplete). Is there a certain time they need to be done? If it’s far enough out I might be able to polish it up.

Additionally, if you have any advice for how I can improve my digital portfolio I am all ears. P.S. The contact page on my website does work but I would prefer email for back and fourth communication.

========

Ben's advice appears in TINYURL.com/ShowYourWork

What goes into a Digital Portfolio?

Example of a "complete" Digital Portfolio.

Notice that the student includes comments in some of the pages as "reflections" about the work.

This blogpost is a form of "archive."  The work of Ben Staley is on a Google Site, but the site appears to be under the High Tech High Google Site.   To help students of the future, selections of Ben's digital portfolio are displayed here so you can get a quick overview of "what a large DP looks like."
============

You can see these items in a Google Drive archive HERE

Ben Staley wrote two descriptions of the process he used to assemble his DPs.  The first is from 2014 (his last year at High Tech High school) and the second is from 2018 (when he was a senior at WPI).

Start a Center for Projects, Presentations and Portfolios in your school.  Click HERE
The Center's website (a tribute to educational pioneer Abraham S. Fischler)