Assessment is messy. Day-to-day, in-the-moment assessments not only reveal information that drives future instruction but also offer a comprehensive picture of students' abilities and dispositions toward learning. As teachers, we might know what this looks and feels like, yet it can be hard to put into action-hence the messiness. Say hello to digital student portfolios-dynamic, digital collections of authentic information from different media, in many forms, and with multiple purposes. Using digital portfolios to capture student thinking and progress allows us to better see our students as readers, writers, and learners-and help students see themselves in the same way! Matt Renwick's Digital Portfolios in the Classroom is a guide to help teachers sort through, capture, and make sense of the messiness associated with assessment. By shining a spotlight on three types of student portfolios-performance, process, and progress-and how they can be used to assess student work, Renwick helps educators navigate the maze of digital tools and implement the results to drive instruction.

Expand your leadership capacity to help your school reach its potential All schools have the capacity for schoolwide instructional excellence. Schools with leaders who adopt a coaching stance as part of their practice are more likely to realize this success. Leaders achieve success with their teachers, their students, and their families, not alone. Leading like a C.O.A.C.H. reframes the approach to schoolwide change from a leader acting alone to a leader working with a community in which each member contributes their strengths and ideas to improving instruction. Renwick, a well-known blogger and writer on literacy and leadership, encourages school leaders to embody five practices: 1. Create confidence through trust; 2. Organize around a priority; 3. Affirm promising practices; 4. Communicate feedback; and 5. Help teachers become leaders and learners. Throughout this practical guide, readers will find Reflective questions Activities Indicators of success Examples of leaders coaching teachers to excellence Wisdom from the field This book provides new and veteran leaders with a practical approach and easily adoptable ideas for helping their schools realize their full potential.

What's keeping your school behind the technology curve? Is it a fear of the unfamiliar? Expenses? Or some other myth? Have you considered how students with special needs or students learning a second language may benefit from using digital tools? If you've fallen for the perception that technology is too expensive, unnecessary for real learning, or a distraction in the classroom, then you need this book. You use technology in your job. Why not help your students use it in theirs? Educator Matt Renwick debunks five common myths about technology and helps you consider how to fund and manage the devices and create a supportive, schoolwide program. Renwick uses his school's experiences and examples as a foundation to explain how you can assess and answer your students' technology needs in terms of access, purpose, and audience-and why you and your school cannot afford to keep students from using technology in their education.