Learning Portfolios

Specifically in my ePortfolio, I am going to be concentrating on writing and how my writing has changed throughout my life, along with what has changed it. My audience in this situation will obviously be my teacher and classmates, and perhaps anyone else whose curious enough to read it. My goal will be to show to my audience how my writing has changed over time, and to most of all show who I am. I would like to reveal something important about myself, such as what has motivated me to grow throughout my college experience, and the specific ways in which I have changed in recent years. I will go back and show some pieces from my high school years, including essays and some creative writing, to show how my mind worked at that age. Then I will move on to my more recent college years, and show how my experiences have changed my life. I would like to show how my school work  has changed, and also how I as a person have changed. I am most definitely not the same person I was right out of high school, and I would like that to be shown in my own ePortfolio. I will, of course, have it published online so anyone can make comments about how they feel, and I myself will look at it as a chance to evaluate my own work.  A lot of my writing is in the form of essays about books or poems that I have read, and I hope that my analysis of these reveals something about who I am.  I will write about what I am doing with my life now, and what I hope to do with it in the future. Mostly, I would like to concentrate on what I have learned while being at Foothill, through my classes, my friends, and my extracurricular activities, such as being Vice President of Activities in ASFC, and being involved in Jewish Heritage Month and JIFF(Jews, Israelis, and Friends). I want to write about how I've become more motivated, more passionate, and more myself in my years at Foothill than I ever was before.

Practical Portfolios

Obviously, from everything that we've learned in class and through our research, we all know that ePortfolios can be used in life. Personally, I think the way that they work best is in terms of self-evaluation, and also evaluation by a teacher in a classroom setting. For many ePortfolios, the purpose is to show a collection of work which highlights how a person has grown and changed over time through this very work. Often, interesting aspects such as video or audio sound bits, or links to an interesting website, or even just pictures, can be added to an ePortfolio to add a little bit of color, and also to animate the person's life and individuality more successfully. Then, as the ePortfolio continues to change with new additions, you can always look back on it to see how you yourself has changed, and to evaluate your own body of work. This is the part of making an ePortfolio that I personally am most interested in; I would like to have something interesting to look back on in the future which shows some of the work I have done in college. In terms of evaluation by a teacher, I think that this could be a very useful tool for grading and learning in a safe environment. The teacher can get an idea of what the students have been doing with their time and their ideas, and grade accordingly, keeping in mind levels of improvement and overall creativity.

In terms of using an ePortfolio for employment, I think that it really depends on your career. For certain people it might be extremely useful, such as teachers or artists, but for others, such as those working in the practical business world, I think that the helpfulness of an ePortfolio is probably limited. Theoretically, I think that it could be a very useful tool to show your work and your ideas, but in reality, I just don't think that many businesses would accept it as a reliable testament to what you have done, and I think getting it to them in the first place would be extremely difficult. For the time being at least, paper resumes most certainly rule over ePortfolios in the business world.  

What is an e-portfolio?

According to Dr. Barrett’s FAQ about what an e-portfolio is, it’s a digital collection of an individual’s work, focusing on growth over time, the person’s reflections, insights, and personality, and often includes additions such as pictures or video. There are three purposes for an e-portfolio: learning e-portfolios that are aimed towards education and development, assessment e-portfolios meant for grading or evaluating, and employment e-portfolios meant for people who are looking for a job. E-portfolios help with multimedia skills, and usually the process you go through in making an e-portfolio is decide the goals of the e-portfolio, decide what message you want to send, gather work that answers reflective questions such as what?, so what? And what now?, add links and digital tools, present it to an audience, and post it online. There are also two ways to make an e-portfolio according to the tools you use. You can take the common tools approach, which requires limited software and digital additions, or the customized systems approach, which is designed with an online system and is more high tech. Both can be relatively inexpensive, but obviously the customized systems approach can get more complicated. There is also a series of steps people often take in the development process of an e-portfolio. First there is no digital artifcats, and there can be word processing in electronic files. Then there can also be databases, hypermedia, or slide shows. Then it goes to portable document format, then an HTML based web page, and last a multimedia authoring program.

E-portfolios

I read five very different e-portfolios. The first two were from people interested in the field of marketing. The first e-portfolio included a bio, school history, work experience, volunteer work, hobbies, "what's new", and contact info. I have to say that this was the nicest e-portfolio that I saw. It opened with a beautiful picture of Toronto, where the woman lives, and spoke extensively about not only her experience, but her personality. This is an e-portfolio that really shows a glimpse into the wants and desires of another human being. The second one I looked at was also from someone interested in marketing, and it included an about me, objective, a resume, work experience, links, and contact info. This was also a pretty extensive blog, with a lot of information about customer service experience, with an extensive resume. It wasn't quite as creative as the first one, but still interesting. 

Next I looked at three photography e-portfolios. These were all pretty sparse on personal details, concentrating mostly on the pictures themselves. The first one had just different categories of pictures he had taken, the second one was a simple resume, and the third also had pictures. The third was by far the most interesting of the photography e-portfolios. It concentrated on pictures to do with tattoo art, and it included a page to make comments on each picture, and a forum. All of the e-portfolios were interesting, but definitely artistic e-portfolios focus more on the art itself, while professional e-portfolios focus on work experience, and often on interesting aspects of the individual's personality.

Other Blogs

I read two different blogs one the same subject, which is a new organization of liberals called Jstreet, and what they are doing in the political sphere for (or against) Israel. One blog showed the positive aspects of the group and one the negative. The positive side spoke of how many liberal Jews support a two state solution, and formed this group specifically with the purpose of funding and publicly aiding this end. They claim to want peace, and are angry with America's view that most Jews are in support of Israel "occupying" Palestine. The negative blog said something entirely different. It spoke of how the spear headers of this group are not true politicians or "thinkers", but simply those with money, and that one of these men is Avram Burg. Avram Burg is a supporter for the end of Israel, the end of a Jewish state. While Jstreet claims to want peace among two separate nations, one of their main supporters is an anti-Israel activist. This blog also brings up the point that it's all well and good to rally for peace, but what if the Arab terrorist groups are not quite so receptive to this idea? What if they simply do not want a peaceful solution? How do you make peace with those who want you dead and gone? Should the Jews simply leave their homes and lives and let the Palestinians have it all? Can there ever be a truly peaceful solution, or will this just be a never-ending fight which culminates in WWIII? The ultimate Middle East question.....

My U-Museum

The glory of my U-Museum is that it will be dedicated fully to the celebration of the kind of beauty and wonder that is only felt when looking at truly amazing works of art. The entirety of my museum will be one large square room, each wall representing a different artist, but all connected through their ability to escape from the real world into the emotional outcry of Impressionism. One wall will be for Monet, one Renoir, one Van Gogh, and one Degas. Everywhere you look there will be astounding beauty, the kind of art that makes you stand back and think about life and love for hours on end. Renoir's "The Dancer", with her childlike grace and fragility, will make you long for that period of playful innocence. Degas's numerous paintings of ballet dancers, albeit now grown women, will make you appreciate the female form for its lines and natural beauty. Van Gogh's shocking swirling colors will make you think of the chaos of the world, and yet how it somehow all makes sense in the end, and Monet's gorgeous sunrises and city landscapes will make you weep with the desire to explore every inch of the outside world. Each brushstroke will encompass some hidden desire, or hope, or dream that you have had at one point or another in your life, and these emotions will be overwhelming, which is exactly why only one room is needed to provoke the necessary response. No modern art will exist in my museum, only that which is classically beautiful and intriguing will have a place on my great walls.