I was recently asked if I knew of any "e-portfolio" solutions. I consider this site to be a sort of e-portfolio that contains and organizes my thoughts on technology and instructional design, including my submitted course work in my Masters program. I find it very valuable to maintain my site as a sort of working journal.
However, people also create e-portfolios as final "presentation" sites to demonstrate their work. The difference appears to be in the audience focus. For now, my audience focus is me (finding ways to design my e-portfolio to meet my current information collection and organization needs). Yet, I envision a day when that focus will shift when I want to use the site as a demonstration (or presentation) site of my work. Do I want this to be something I create as a working journal with "me" as the primary audience? Or do I want this to be something to showcase my work for "others" to see? You can likely do both, but a working journal is likely more on the fly and "messy" whereas a presentation site is more tailored and "clean". Therefore, it is important to keep in mind ways to easily slice and dice the material to edit content presentation depending on the desired audience (see more on this below).
While I could have kept a similar "journal" on my desktop, I enjoy being able to share my ideas and create what will one day be a "portfolio" of my experiences. What I ultimately do with this portfolio, I'm not sure. It is likely too raw to share it for interview purposes (again, different audience focus), but it does provide insight into where I am in my learning process.
Here are some of my reflections on what an e-portfolio (again online journal) means to me. I have also included some sources that I have found to be of value.
Important Features (to me):
- Accessible via the web: Ability to add / read content from any Internet enabled device (not just my home computer)
- Tags: Ability to quickly categorize content
- RSS feeds: Ability to share content (down to tag level)
- Print functionality: Ability to quickly print large blocks of content in a "readable" format.
- Multiple Content Modes: Ability to add pictures / audio / video / text / attachments of most file types
- Multiple Content Presentation: (From above) Ability to slice and dice content delivery based on audience.
- WYSIWYG: Ability to add content in an EASY format (no HTML required) – with Spell Check 🙂
- Integration with other (outside) sites – either by adding links or HTML cut and paste snippets (i.e. Flickr)
- Ability to accept reader "comments"
My current solution:
- Drupal enabled web site which accommodates my tags, RSS feeds, print functionality (nice set up in the "book" feature), multiple content modes, WYSIWYG functionality via tinymce module.
- I add most blog posts via the Performancing extension (in Firefox only) with spell check via the Spell Bound extension (also in Firefox only)
Things that annoy me about my current set up:
- Browser specific things (Performancing and Spell Bound in Firefox only)
- It is far easier to type a blog post in Performancing than in Drupal itself, but I nearly always have to edit again in Drupal to correct tags and complete spell check.
- For now, I have not considered multiple ways to display content (i.e. to limit, tailor or restrict based on audience). This is in the back of my mind, but I haven't spent the time to test out my thoughts. It will likely be in the form of site ID's and permission settings.
Creating an e-portfolio: Here are the two main ways to approach it:
1). Hosted: Your site is "hosted" by some other 3rd party for free or for fee.
Pros:
- Usually, more user friendly
- Usually, easier to start
- No major site maintenance required on your part
- Often free (for at least the basic storage amounts)
Cons:
- Subject to "whims" of site – they can go out of business or just close the site
- Usually, little ability to customize the site beyond the features they offer
- May have to deal with banner ads, etc.
- Usually fairly limited storage options
2). Your own site:
Pros:
- Make it whatever you want – Customize away 🙂
- You own it as long as you pay annual fees to web host (I use Blue Host as my host and they support Fantastico which makes the initial install of content very easy)
- Large storage capacity
Cons:
- Often very large learning curve as you create and customize the site
- All site maintenance done by you
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Options: Options can come in the form of (easiest to hardest learning curve)
- blogs: usually can embed audio, video, pictures and – of course – written word into "posts"
- wikis: wysiwyg page editing that is also good for collaboration with others
- Content Management Systems (CMS): ranging from hosted social networking sites like Flickr or Myspace all the way to more robust sites like Elgg – or Drupal, Joomla, and Mambo that you would most likely host yourself on your own site. However, there are many "providers" who will help you get a site up and running for a fee (such as lullabot.com).
- Start from scratch HTML (not my cup of tea as I would rather spend my learning curve time on content creation vs. site management)
Here are just a some representative samples of the gazillions of examples for you to consider: