May | 2011 | education | technology | ai & NOT A.I. | design

Good ePortfolio example

Hello students, educators, professionals, prospective employees and possibly even prospective employers. I am sure that you are aware that you need to consider your online presence. You need to worry about what you post on Facebook and tailor your comments professionally on blogs and websites because you know that once you post something it is always out there.

Future schools, employers, colleagues and acquaintances will all possibly be able to see what you created. It’s best that you take a proactive approach to the internet and create your professional existence.

That said, I came across an excellent ePortfolio just now through LinkedIn (I would consider this site a professional’s Facebook). The portfolio created by Eric Forsyth had these elements that you might consider for yourself, especially if you are an educator, but you could adapt them accordingly:

Home
Contact Information
Education
Employment History
Promotion Timeline
Teaching Timeline
Scholarship Timeline
Service Timeline
Teaching and Advising
Publications
Presentations
Research Studies
Authorship Samples
Service
Grants
Recognition
Affiliation
References
Family
Outdoor Pursuits
Just Out Riding

It makes me feel like I need to do more substantial things in my life. You might think so too. I look at Dr. Forsyth’s efolio and compare it to my rendition. Noting differences, he is missing artistry and my idea of good resources and videos.

You too, can and should update or create your very own ePorfolio if you haven’t done so already. You could do that here at WordPress.com, start one on Google Sites or try eFolios or just do a Google Search for Online Portfolios and decide which website suits you best. It’s best to start early and keep it up, because you would be surprised how many things you can add to it if you are diligent enough.

To see Eric Forsyth’s portfolio click here

2 Comments

Posted by Dr. Thomas Johnson | ict-design.org on May 10, 2011 in Technology

Tags: Electronic portfolio, Employment, Facebook, Google, Google Sites, LinkedIn

I want that.

09 May

Bento box from Fujitsu. I didn’t know I needed this before, but now I can’t see how I can live my life without it. I was writing posts about the 3:1 ratio that people need for the future, and now it seems that Fujitsu has heard what I was saying. From my understanding everything works in sync with itself: the notepad holds everything; the tablet becomes the keyboard; and the smart phone is the track-pad; plus more. Its sleek.

As we all know with technology, the first versions of everything are always cool, but I wonder what other companies have up their sleeves along these lines. I agree with the jump article which states tactile touch keyboards have something that a digital surface is missing. All in all though, I like it.

Do you use Facebook, Gmail AND Hotmail?

08 May

I bet you do. I bet you also use them similarly to how I use them. These days I use Facebook for daily communication, Gmail for important stuff and Hotmail or Yahoo for junk mail. Why is that?

Facebook has come out on top as the daily most used website. It’s due to feeds from friends, ease of use, and non-clunkiness. This is the place to be if you enjoy knowing what many of your friends are doing, most of the time. Because of this, you probably will write quick emails to them to comment about their activities.

Hotmail and Yahoo, however, may have been one of the first email clients you started using. You were probably not thinking too much about the silliness of your “handle” when you created the account. Therefore, you don’t share this information with people you want to think of you professionally. The account is still active and since you need a certain area to send email confirmations to this is your likely choice. Also, you remember the email password.

And then comes Gmail. It hasn’t been around as long as the former two and if you were born around the time I was (1976) or even sooner you started to think about how people are viewing you online. You needed to apply to a college, or job, or start a company and to do so you didn’t want somebody emailing you at fluffy123@hotmail.com or cheezeslick69@yahoo.com. It just didn’t cut it. You probably went out and tried to get a variation of your name – figure that, and now you have the third or fourth email account that you consider professional.

It could be the Outlook/Yahoo/Facebook combo, or the Webmail/Hotmail/LinkedIn combo, but when all is said and done, I bet you have something along these lines.

Whatever happened to the days before email? “Page me.” “Call me on my home (rotary) phone” I hardly remember them. Do you?

Hotmail’s new throw away Email accounts (headros.wordpress.com)

2 Comments

Posted by Dr. Thomas Johnson | ict-design.org on May 8, 2011 in Technology

Tags: Email, Email client, Facebook, Gmail, Google, Hotmail, Online, Social media, Technology, Yahoo

If you don’t consider “The Cutoff” you’ll hate yourself later

07 May

This is important if you are a blogger and you use Facebook to publish. After the Headline of your article, the next most important characters you write are the following 280. This is the “Facebook Cutoff”. Without getting people interested in your article in this amount of time they are not going to click on the link to see the rest of your article and hopefully peruse (read intensely) through your blog.

So, how do you do it?

Put the important information up front. Newspapers have been doing this for a long time, you can too. Look back at an article to see how they are doing it.

Don’t tell people something they already know. Why do they need to read the rest of the article if everything they are seeing is something they have already read before or is something they concluded about themselves.

Now, here is the interesting part: Test to see the sentence getting cut off at 280 characters is leaving someone yearning for more. Test the length in Facebook. Have you done so well that you have put ALL the important information in the first 280 characters that readers do not feel they need to read any further to gain insight? If so, rework the article.

Finally, do something I didn’t do in this articles headline, and ask a question. It might generate people commenting on the article, as they have thought about their response since they read the title.