Incredible Embeddables! The Next Level...

Adding Video to Your Site


Video preparation advice often centers on marketing or promoting a specific solution to an identified need. You are your unique brand! 

With a myeFolio site, your goal is to connect "who you are" and "what you know or can do" with your viewers. Images are helpful; text is necessary; but to make a deeper connection, you will want to add video content. 

Video recordings can convey that emotional tone better than text alone. 

Embedding video on a page of your myeFolio site only "sounds" difficult. With this short introduction, and the guided project notes, you'll be successful in very little time. Once your video is recorded and uploaded to a hosting service (such as YouTube) it's truly as easy as cut and paste.


Basic Preparation Considerations 


Today's post is about how to get your content into myeFolio so we are intentionally not discussing much in the way of recording techniques or video editing. (You'll find great recording and editing advice available in the content posted by both product vendors and production professionals when you participate in user groups, online forums or search the Web.)


Video Content Objectives 


You might consider building video into your myeFolio site with content that provides your...
  • Elevator Pitch/Self Introduction 
  • Video Resume 
  • Skill Demonstration 
Consistent advice across all eFolio content is to "keep it purposeful" but when adding video, you also need to consider your message and timing. The length of your posted clip should match the time a typical viewer will invest. 

  • Recent studies confirm ideal video duration to be less than two minutes with the first eight seconds being most crucial.
  • On average, today's viewer allows you 8.5 seconds to hook their attention or they will click away and move on. 

Assuming that you know your audience, the most common "video duration" exception is that of explaining or documenting a process that will be specific to learning assessment or demonstration of proficiency. To honor the viewer's time in this setting, a successful technique is to break up a lengthy presentation into shorter segments. Provide brief introductory descriptions or transition captions between clips to guide the viewer and recapture their interest.



Steps to Embed Video Content 

When you visit a site that hosts video recordings, such as YouTube, you are presented with a video box on the page. You can watch the video directly on the page or view the video full screen by simply clicking the "full screen" button from the player controls.  

YouTube provides the service and they also provide the bandwidth. With the video hosted on their servers using their bandwidth, it costs you nothing! 

An example of a YouTube video directly embedded into the page of a myeFolio site can be viewed at our featured page


Learn How in a Few Easy Steps 

This process might be somewhat new in your technical toolkit. Our Embedding Video Project Guide was developed to assist you. As you can see, adding a video to a page is not only simple, it's a site changer! 

YouTube is so popular among myeFolio users so we chose to focus our attention on their embed process throughout this posting. You'll find that among other video providers, most use a similar method to embed video. The difference is that you would use the myeFolio HTML content form to embed video from sources other than YouTube. 

Now that you've learned how, start by adding video content that is meaningful for your site purposes! 

Our support staff is available if you have technical questions during the process.

Incredible Embeddables! Level One...

...moving beyond mere text and hyperlinks.

You and I learn, work and live in a world that is dominated with visual content.

New apps to capture or share visual content appear frequently. 

As you find new tools (or use your preferred favorites) one thing is sure: capturing and creating visual content is easier than ever.
Creating an electronic portfolio is ultimately about telling your story. Regardless of where you begin or the amount of content you have prepared, the heartbeat of your story is based on your experience, ambitions, education, and achievements! Storytelling thrives on making experiences come to life. Adding images or video and other media often ensures that your story is more compelling than if you simply post numerous pages of text. In simple proof, we find images on most Webpages.  And, yes...we also find text!

Question: 

Does visual content draw your interest or influence your attention span?

Fact Check:  
Studies show that 60-65% of all people are visual thinkers. Visual thinkers are described as people who understand processes through visuals or actually interpret and see words as a series of pictures. In addition:
  • Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text
  • Ninety percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual
  • Forty percent of people respond better to visual information than text 
All those numbers indicate that we cannot ignore the need for visual content. In today's post, the myeFolio Spotlight takes time to focus on how to embed visual content to your site pages so your connection with viewers will be even more effective. 

Content that imports another resource into the existing location (Website or page) is embedded content. That is most significant because you want to keep viewers in your site rather than sending them elsewhere to see what you’ve got.

Showcase your competence as you increase your use of embeddables. The project or task artifacts you post (possibly in the form of presentations, scanned artwork, or visual sequences) often expand the impact of your site. Who doesn't want that?
The most frequent questions we receive about today's topic relate to tasks that involve the use of images or video clips in content. With much to share about both, we'll address images first and take on the process for embedding video next time.
Once you've captured your image, adjusted the dimensions or quality, and saved the file in GIF, PNG or JPEG format you're ready to upload it to a Web server. Many cloud-based hosting options exist or you can simply upload it to your content repository in myeFolio. Eventually you'll position the image by placing or dragging it where you want it to appear on the page (left, center or right columns; or to display within existing text). 

Each image below links to an example of image usage in existing myeFolio sites. Click the image to see the page content as described.

Images were placed on the page sidebar (center page space could also be used).
Image was posted within existing narrative using Drag-n-Drop or Touch-to-Place positioning. 
Images were embedded using the HTML Source Editor with tag attributes and properties. 
Image was uniquely embedded as an interactive map by capturing the code from the mapping source (in this case, Travellerspoint). 

You can achieve the same results you observed and more.  We've prepared two specific Project Guides to help you add images to your pages. (When clicked, each will open to a new browser tab or window.)

Image Basics:  Simple image control for myeFolio

Embedding Images:  Advanced techniques to increase viewer attention

For ultimate control, you'll want to embed the image within page content. That is best completed using the HTML Source Editor and is explained in the advanced guide (above). 

You'll find other reference guides at myeFolio Resources including one that illustrates the best "Image Preparation Tips" for myeFolio. All files will open in your PDF Reader.

As you apply visual content to your site, you'll also discover that some apps generate unique embed code for you to capture (copy) and then paste into myeFolio's HTML content form. However you add it, embedding visual content is a storytelling plus.

Take a step back and look at your site. Ask yourself where an image would significantly add to your story or best communicate what you want to share. You now know how!

Final Notes:
  1. There are many online tutorials that assist users with the tasks of editing digital images. Image edits must be completed outside of myeFolio. 
  2. Reasons to include alternative text or descriptions were not repeated in today's post. However, the accessibility advantage of following those time-honored rules of the Web is important. 
  3. Remember that the rules of intellectual property and copyright permissions apply. When using visual media not original to or licensed by you, get permission and list source credits. 
  4. If you want to learn more, or have questions when you first try these content practices, give our support team a chance to help you. 
We also enjoy seeing your successes so feel free to brag about what you've completed by sending us a link to your page. 

Explore 3 Easy Ways to Request Feedback!

Too Little?  Too Much?  Enough? 


image showing three question bubbles


Many of us were first introduced to the simplicity of three rating choices when we read the Goldilocks story. After testing each of three items (first the food, then a chair, and finally the bed) in the various settings of the story, Goldilocks determines that one of them is too much in one extreme, one is too much in the opposite extreme, and one is "just right."

Today, the Goldilocks principle is applied across many disciplines and industries. It states that something must fall within certain margins as opposed to reaching extremes.

When is something just right? While preparing your electronic portfolio, the feedback of peers, advisors, and others who have an investment in your success can be a great help in answering that. The technical term is "formative feedback" but you'll never know how much it helps if you don't ask!

Asking for feedback is one way to learn if your eFolio content has value to others or if they have suggestions to help you improve its presentation. The tools in myeFolio make it easy to post an "ask" at the site, page or object level. In today's post, you'll learn how.

1. Determine what feedback you'll be asking viewers to provide. Options may include:
  • Overall impression of the eFolio site (layout, content, navigation)
  • Reaction to a page in the site (relevance, section fit, retention)
  • Specific response relevant to posted content (characteristics, critique, suggestions)
2. Determine how much feedback you want. Options can include any combination of the following:
  • Display a 10-star Scale with uniquely labeled min/max values
image showing a 10-star rating scale
  • Display a Question that can be answered by one of two posted responses
image showing a question with two possible responses
  • Display a free-form Notes Field for visitor comments
image showing a comments field for viewer feedback

3. View and control feedback after it has been received. (Advanced settings configure additional editing and posting controls.) Some specific "Feedback Actions" that site authors manage are:
  • View feedback
  • Set public display of unique feedback to "on" or "off"
  • Retain or delete feedback entry

Try it on your own! Add a feedback link to your site.

You can check the settings outlined above as you experience adding feedback using our sample feedback links. You'll soon want to add feedback requests within your personal eFolio account. Step-by-step help is available in an online Resource Guide (posted as a printable PDF file).

Feedback systems were most likely far from his intent when the English poet by the name of Robert Southey authored the immortal children's classic, The Story of the Three Bears, the original Goldilocks story. For a moment, compare the phrases "Too hot or too cold; too big; too hard or too soft and just right" with today's trend of clicking "like" and "dislike" buttons in social media. There is a strange similarity.

Rarely will limited feedback, however natural it becomes, provide enough help for those who attempt to create or post meaningful content. It limits the degree of substance we seek in narrative comments or more defined survey responses as we try to improve the quality of our efforts.

Ultimately, the choice is yours! When you're ready to ask for feedback relevant to your site content, myeFolio feedback properties will assist you with the process! 


Additional Note: If you are reading this as an instructor or program director, we know that your organization may need to assess and collect specific evaluation data external to the owner's site. You might be more interested in summative evaluation than in formative feedback as has been presented in today's post. Be assured that myeFolio offers a solution for that. Ask about our permissions-based submissions and assessments that can be accessed, processed and reported online through a secure portal. Contact us at info@myefolio.com for more details and licensing information. 

Nurse Certification: Credentials & Renewal

Displayed in a Hospital Family Area

What can you do? 


What do you know?


Healthcare is in the public view on many fronts today. Nurses know that better than most. They are constantly being challenged to show evidence of growth within their profession, seek continuing education for new protocols, or pursue more advanced degrees. 
You might be enrolled in the first semester of your nursing program or working toward an R.N. or Doctor of Nursing degree as you read this. One task you are each aware of is the need for showing what you can do and demonstrating what you know for external certification boards as well as to meet internal requirements of your college or workplace.

Prototype of a myeFolio site for the Professional Nurse
The portfolio approach, long practiced in the healthcare profession, has made the shift from paper binders to electronic systems. Some systems have a short shelf life (used only to submit your evidence for evaluation) while others provide an easily accessible place to keep current records, documentation and evidence.

In today's Spotlight, the focus is on the content a nurse would include in their myeFolio site and how to best organize it. When getting started, you might be stressed but as you plan your pages and routinely add  postings, your portfolio can become an organized presentation of your career data.
Page Listing from Professional Section
Page Listing from Education Section
A detailed page chart is provided at the Prototype Site. When the site displays, click the "Prototype Page Chart" link from the text overlay to reveal content considerations and suggestions for pages or sections such as:
  • Home / Welcome 
  • Professional Section
  • Education Section
  • Resume
  • Critical Reflections
Each site is unique as you'll see in the "featured sites" posted on our showcase page. Feel free to visit each of these professional nurse's sites by clicking an image thumbnail below.
View Leigh's eFolio Site View Amber's eFolio Site View Renee's eFolio Site View Carissa's eFolio Site
Remember that your myeFolio site will not be viewable if you set its status to private or disabled. Likewise, you can configure specific pages to remain hidden from view. When you change the site display status setting to "public," it is technically possible for anyone to view your site online. Unless you list your myeFolio URL with one of the major search engines (e.g., Google, Yahoo) or link your site to a Website that is indexed by a major search engine, it would be difficult to find your site without knowing its URL. For these reasons, your content is unlikely to be seen by anyone who does not know your URL or has not received a visitor invitation from you.

Note: Additional "certification by portfolio" guidelines can be found online by searching your professional journals and association publications.

Job Search? It's Time to Promote Your Site!

Now, as summer arrives in the Northern Hemisphere, recent graduates or students on summer break are looking for employment!


Whether you are looking for that first "big break" in the career you prepared for or simply need work so you can pay for tuition and pizza when you return to campus in August, we have some suggestions to help you get noticed. It should be no surprise that we encourage using your eFolio site as a major strategy in your search.
image showing many parts of the job search process

Assumption 1: Your myeFolio site is ready to share.
   (If not, our recent Jumpstart Series would help you through the process.)

Assumption 2: Your site presents a positive reflection of you.

Assumption 3: Your site is work appropriate and aligned to your employment goals.

In our media rich digital lives, it's no longer true that if you build it, they will come.  However, if you built it, you should be sharing it. Using eFolio sites for the job search has become commonplace -- you need to do this!

Question to ponder: How do you get people to find or look at your eFolio site?

Answer that relates to myeFolio: Use hyperlinks, image links, QR codes or simple "show & tell" anywhere you can to point viewers to your site.

Where should you focus your energy in promoting your site?

  • Share the URL for your site in every inquiry you send out (by social media, job boards, texts, email, or paper mail). Point people back to your site in the follow-up correspondence you send to hiring staff.
  • Add your site URL to printed Resume or CV copies. How about printing some personal networking cards with significant bullet points from your elevator pitch on one side and contact info on the flip? Add a QR code that opens to your site when scanned!
Discover where the QR Scan directs you!
  • Connect to your site from your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts. Post your site URL to your professional online profiles. One tactic is to post the link to your Resume (as a page of your site) so while viewing it, people encounter other page links to learn more about you.
  • Answer face-to-face questions with ease by "Show & Tell" during interviews, networking at Career Fairs or while visiting with your contacts. It is so natural -- use your mobile device to reveal key evidence from your site as you talk about your experience.
  • Use your eFolio site to share other places where you can be "found" on the Web -- any significant online presence such as LinkedIn or other postings of your work (Prezi, SlideShare, image  collections, animations, YouTube video recordings, or Blogs and professional sites) can be helpful.

Your eFolio site is like a multimedia billboard about you...be sure it gets noticed. If you are the best candidate for the position, your eFolio should be useful in promoting that to employers.

To share experiences you've discovered in using myeFolio in your job search process, use the "Comments" link below! Positive or not, we want to hear from you.

Jumpstart Tip #6: Show "Who You Are!"

Connecting "Who You Are" with "What You Know" and "What You Can Do"


process diagram
In the final posting of the jumpstart series you'll discover:
  • 3 questions your eFolio should answer
  • 10 considerations with a focus toward relevant evidence
  • 5 specific items an impressive eFolio must include
  • 15 common eFolio mistakes
  1. Who are you?

  2. What do you know?

  3. What can you do?

As you reveal the answers to three critical questions, be certain to share the core of why you do what you do!
  • Why does it matter to you? 
  • Why should it matter to others?

A list is often only a list

If that list is a resume, it's about two pages in length. It tells the reader about where you have been – where you went to school; degrees, diplomas or certificates you received; and, where you worked in the past.

If your ePortfolio merely replicates that same list, why would anyone take time to look at more of the same? Avoid boring your viewers.

Get Noticed!

Your ePortfolio should expand what the viewer can learn about that person named in your resume! To share a "stand out" ePortfolio, make it more than a resume...maximize meaning through effective evidence connections. Use your content to tell the viewer what you can do and show who you are with more depth and breadth than is possible from a resume.
Ask yourself:
Would I view my eFolio if it was simply a Web-formatted resume with hyperlinks?

Ten considerations:

There are ten specific traits that today's managers and human resource staff are in need of for the workplace. Does your evidence show or confirm the following?
  1. Goals or accomplishments you have Achieved
  2. Areas where you have Improved
  3. People you have Trained/Mentored
  4. Projects that you have Managed
  5. Processes or products you have Created
  6. Ways you have Influenced a person, a team, a place
  7. Aspects of your life that have Increased or Decreased (value, stress, profits, loss, impact, learning, time on task, etc.)
  8. Your Negotiation skills and experience
  9. Initiatives you Launched (individually or as a member of a team)
  10. Bringing an event or campaign in Under-Budget
To address the considerations listed above, add content about yourself and what you learned in the process -- your emotions, passion and thoughts. You may not have all ten -- optimize the evidence you have today.

        How you show these as influences toward your future is key to your connected story.

Five items that, when connected, will attract curiosity and attention:

  • Your elevator pitch (brief, visionary, clear)
  • Examples of your best work (5-10 max! except in rare circumstances such as credentials review; include projects where you learned by doing)
  • Testimonials that prove your worth (from advisers, instructors, mentors, clergy, employers and colleagues)
  • Visualizations of you in your work environment (photo-quality images or succinct video segments)
  • Where you can be found on the Web (if professionally relevant... LinkedIn, Blogs, Twitter, Web sites and other examples of your online presence )

In part, you've now returned full circle -- back to "Why are you creating an ePortfolio?" Because you already know that part of the equation, it is now time to connect the dots.


As you use the technology features of myeFolio, you'll include many content items and techniques shown in the word cloud.

Showing what you value and who you are through the evidence, narrative and connectedness of your site will give you an edge in remembering what you've learned and representing yourself in your next career move.
Word Cloud created using WordItOut.

Fifteen common eFolio mistakes you'll want to avoid:

  1. No name on the site
  2. Slogans and quotes that disrupt your intent
  3. Poorly prepared or inappropriate photos
  4. No posted resume or link to your resume
  5. Page links that open but reveal empty space
  6. Inconsistent message or focus
  7. Ineffective grouping of content on pages
  8. Inappropriate content; too much content
  9. Lack of detail
  10. Site links that target the wrong resource
  11. Messy formatting, typos, and poor grammar
  12. Missing or outdated contact information
  13. Links without contextual narrative or descriptive labeling
  14. No evidence of recent activity or updates
  15. Privacy settings that require user log-in

Do you know of others you would add to our list? Share them with us in the Comments area.

Next month, myeFolio Spotlight will focus on best practices for sharing your myeFolio sites as we continue to help each of you curate the best possible presentation of "Who You Are!"
 

Jumpstart Tip #5: Let's Get Technical!


The week past, with a new blog post every day, has been intensive...for the author and for you! If you've been under the stress of preparing your eFolio site to meet a pending deadline, we hope the series helped you get on track to meet that goal.

Collecting, Selecting, and Reflecting...you have learned several key ePortfolio preparation tasks.

Are you ready for the last of the four process words in the ePortfolio preparation mantra?

Connect ... "joining items together so as to provide access and communication."

That becomes the main focus now as you prepare to publish your site online...putting it all together to produce a well-connected eFolio.
process diagram with focus on CONNECT

It's the part you've been anticipating: To share your site with instructors, peers or prospective employers!

However, before publishing your site online, you'll build your site pages and add those all-important finishing* touches. Connecting content to express your story and share your experiences using the tools in myeFolio can be, as you might expect, somewhat technical. What you need to remember is that "technical" does not equal "difficult" -- and that's because of the way myeFolio simplifies the process of connecting the pieces. 
(* We need to acknowledge that, as a lifelong "living and breathing" representation, an eFolio is never completely finished but you will have moments along the way where aspects of it come to a point of accomplishment. Celebrate those!)

What Happens Next?

Your part, during the connections phase, is to determine how you want your content, pages and site(s) to be displayed. As you try new techniques, keeping it simple is great advice to follow.
  • Some eFolio users follow an example where the eFolio seems to connect pages for education, employment, and volunteer activities as a mirror of their resume but in a more detailed format. 
  • Others follow a specific template provided by their program of study, often designed to align content with standards and prescribed outcomes. 
  • As eFolio users gain expertise, some begin to think ahead by creating and interlinking multiple sites to more efficiently share their learning evidence and experiences with a variety of audiences. 
Regardless of your site plan, there are a few concepts to be unpacked. You will first encounter these as myeFolio terminology but the concepts quickly becomes more of your technical know-how. Nine practical concepts, explained in the following paragraphs, are listed in "need to know" order (not alphabetically).

Site URL
This is the Web address for your eFolio site. A primary site URL will look similar to www.fnamelname.myefolio.com while sites added to the account in the future will retain the base URL extended to include a site shortcut reference. An example of a URL for a different site is www.fnamelname.myefolio.com/profdev, pointing to a separate site used to present on-going professional development (plans, goals, activities, achievements). All site URLs associated with your account are located in the Accounts tab within your owner view.
Owner View
The Owner view is what you see when building your site and making changes to existing content. You should plan to work online from a computer workstation or laptop computer, with access to your local or cloud-based storage and using a Web browser such as Firefox over a reliable Internet connection via your unique myeFolio account login. 

Utilities and myeFolio features allow you to manage everything in this space: create new pages, add additional sites, edit content text or related items, upload files, post or change content using the three-column page layout and properties, apply site designs and configure the status of your site or pages. Any changes you make in the "owner view" will be instantly applied to the appearance of your live site.
Live Site
The myeFolio view that visitors will see online is referred  to as the live site. Your pages, content layout and design choices determine the "live site" or browser view. If your site is public or shared through visitor invitation, the live site view is true to what you see when you examine your work using the "Preview" mode.
Navigation Menu
The names and structured sequence of your pages (and sub-pages) are displayed as navigation menu links. It is controlled by your site design to appear consistently across the top (horizontal) or at the left sidebar (vertical) throughout your eFolio site. It serves as an index and helps people locate the information they want to see. It also informs the structure of the "Navicon" feature when using a mobile-friendly responsive design.
Home Page
The home page is the introductory page of an eFolio Website and is typically the main page a visitor will find when navigating from a search engine. The home page is used to communicate your welcome and overview your site's purpose. It also facilitates navigation to other pages of the site by way of the navigation menu, links, or other elements.
Pages
Individual "pages" hold and present the content of your eFolio site. Each page and its related sub-pages will, at best, group and present categories of content. An example of this might be apparent if you had a page named Education with sub-pages such as Course Work, Service Learning and Studies Abroad. Another example would be a page named Volunteer Experience with sub-pages such as Community Service and Civic Involvement. Content should align consistently with the page labels.
Content
Images, text, hyperlinks, uploaded files, files embedded from other hosting services (i.e., Google Drive, MS OneDrive, YouTube), HTML, QR Codes, Twitter feed or other social media widgets and video files can be added as content for your eFolio site. You control the labels and sequence of your page tree; content is what you place on the pages.

In myeFolio, content is created and defined through field-based forms consistent with items from your educational, employment or personal experiences. Additionally, content formats such as resumes, image panels, image galleries, feedback links and other groupings of content (collections) are provided as presentation formats.
Design
Colors, fonts, banner appearance, top or side navigation options -- all are controlled by your design choice. Design impacts the "look" of your site from page-to-page keeping each element consistent. Selecting a design from our collection provides your site with a comprehensive style so you will not need to set properties for each item or page. If you should decide to apply a different design at a future time, your content continues to look great; it auto-adjusts to the global settings of your updated design choice. (Some organizations work with our designers to develop custom designs for use by their employees or students.)
Responsive Web Design (RWD)
A responsive Website will, by design, resize and display well on any device: desk workstation, laptop, tablet or smartphone. By resizing dynamically, RWD enables eFolio pages to be viewed in response to the screen size of a device. For example, if you use a smartphone to view a responsive Website, the content stacks into a single column, delivering your content in a vertical scrolling layout. Pages are made visible by clicking the Navicon (navigation icon) located at the top.
Device Comparisons
responsive design workstation display comparisons
Workstation Display / 1440 px width
responsive design smart phone display comparisons
Smart Phone / 375 px width
Applying one of the myeFolio responsive design options, your site will display automatically in the size that fits the mobile screen in the viewer's hand. This means that your images and other content will not be compromised by the design or the viewing device.
Can you feel the moment? You're almost there!

In the next and final "Jumpstart post" of this series you'll find several examples that demonstrate how you might connect your content for meaningful presentation of personal, learning, work and community experience. It you're curious or ready for a preview of a few ideas, myeFolio Content Features is a site to visit.

Your Action Checklist:
☐ Collect and prepare remaining content items
☐ Select specific content to be included at this time
☐ Create or upload items to your myeFolio account
☐ Add reflections to significant content
☐ Finalize page tree names and sequence
☐ Explore design choices in myeFolio
☐ Learn technical basics using the myeFolio Primer and Resource Guides

Jumpstart Tip #4: Think about it!

          Reflect ... "to think deeply or carefully about"

process diagram with focus on REFLECT
Reflection, as a process, helps us discover personal relevance from life experiences and learning. And, that matters much more than checking off a task from an assignment list.

Is there a benefit in taking time to reflect?

Yes! It helps us embed our experiences into long-term memory.
“We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.” (...John Dewey)

In recent "jumpstart" posts, we've taken time to expand on what it takes to create an eFolio site as we've shared tips on how to collect (prepare) and select content that aligns with the purpose of your efforts. Most people discover that preparing their eFolio is more beneficial than meeting requirements of a course or applying for employment. The process itself extracts meaning because, at its core, it becomes a representation of who you are through what you have learned, tasks you have accomplished, projects you have completed, insights you have gained and the many ways you have developed as a person.

Reflection, applied to the content you've added to your eFolio site, involves much more than simply describing what you did. Reflection is a conversational thinking activity. When you contemplate what you did, what you learned, and the implication is has for you in the future, your learning goes deeper!

The term "portfolio thinking" is used to describe the process of intentionally relating learning and experience to life, but that does not happen magically. Reflection is not a slam-bang, done forever, one-time activity. The value of reflection is that it is continuous and magnifies experience over time.

Compare your transcript or resume to the pages of your eFolio. Why is the eFolio viewed as a more powerful communication format?
It is more powerful because you are able to share "who you are" across many dimensions with an audience of instructors, peers, future employment contacts, and others. Providing reflection--posted as written text, audio, images or video--you are able to engage people in your story. The format you use is up to you. (By the way, your resume and transcript are also important!)
The myeFolio team values reflection so highly that every major content form includes space designated for your private reflection. Later, if you want to make your thoughts public, content property settings allow you to display those at the item level.

How can you get started?
  • Instructors often provide specific "thinking questions" aligned to an assignment or project.
  • Diagrams by learning experts (J. Driscoll; G. Gibbs; D. Kolb) visualize the reflective process.
  • Sources of sample reflective questions (online or in print) might prove to be helpful.

Perhaps this animated video created by
the Skills Team at the University of Hull (England) will express it best.
Take time to view it before we continue with the remainder of today's post.

Click the VIEW VIDEO link if the player is not visible on your device.

Dr. Helen Barrett, well-respected as a researcher in the area of ePortfolios, talks about reflection as the "heart and soul" of the electronic portfolio. Quoted from her writing: "Ask three simple questions that tie the past with the future: What? So What? and Now What?"

Karen Barnstable, Faculty Advisor and Educational Leader, offers four ways to reflect:
  1. Thinking Back -- revisit a prior experience from a fresh and different perspective
  2. Thinking Forward -- think about how to do things differently in the future
  3. Thinking Inward -- consider your emotions and feelings
  4. Thinking Outward -- may lead to new ideas or theories used to explain or make sense of something
If you think about the preparation of your eFolio site as a task to be completed, it merely becomes a product, no more that the destination in a travel plan. However, if you think of it as a process, it will be your discoveries along the way, similar to the places or events you remember from a vacation trip, that have lasting meaning. So it is when you reflect on your learning. It probably won't matter in fifteen years that you received a "C" on your midterm paper, that you applied an incorrect formula to a math problem or that two members on your research team didn't pull their share of the effort. In the practice of reflection, it is significant to share thoughts you had throughout the experience, feelings about how your choices or actions impacted the experience and implications for you in moving forward. 

BOTTOM LINE: As you become more familiar with the practice of reflective thinking, it will fuel your curiosity and guide you to new discoveries about yourself and the world around you. As you take time to reflect, and share your reflections, it makes you more believable! You want this and myeFolio is a great place to share your learning reflections.

TAKE ACTION: Complete this Practical Reflection Activity using myeFolio.

Jumpstart Tip #3: Choose What You'll Use!

Does it Fit? Is it acceptable for your eFolio purpose?

We shared an overarching process word in a previous post...curate! As an action verb, the word means "to pull together, sift through, and select for presentation."


Today's focus is on SELECTING content -- carefully choosing the best or most acceptable items to illustrate your competencies and skills.

Not to be confused with showing only your best work, artifacts that clearly demonstrate your learning growth and development are often the most powerful. 
process diagram with focus on SELECT

If working along with our posts during this week, you've been busy gathering and preparing items you might use in your site. Today we focus on what you will use to present your experience through myeFolio.

It's best when your content aligns with the reason for preparing an ePortfolio. Three prominent ePortfolio models and major characteristics of each are listed for your reference:

The Learning Portfolio (commonly used by students)
  • Captures your work in progress for reference
  • Includes personal reflection and self-assessment
  • Involves thinking and writing about your learning
  • Emphasizes the portfolio as a process of learning
  • Builds deeper understanding by sharing work with instructors and other learners
  • Documents your growth across a semester and bridges to your future self
The Showcase Portfolio (commonly used by graduates and career seekers)
  • Represents your exemplary work and skills
  • Intentionally displays evidence of experience and achievement
  • Emphasizes the portfolio as a product to be shared
  • Submitted for end-of-term evaluation
  • Provides evidence of capabilities to future employers
  • Sometimes described as a multi-dimensional resume
The Assessment Portfolio (commonly used at the program-of-study level)
  • Used by instructors and educators
  • Provides student work in a learning or showcase portfolio format
  • Presents a collection of student work to demonstrate competencies and criteria
  • Formatted to align evidence of achievements and reflection with defined standards
  • Satisfies program or organizational certification or accreditation outcomes
  • Frequently required for professional licensing or certification

The purpose of the model you decide to construct influences your selection of content. This over-simplification may provide a sense of the contrast: 
LEARNING: Content shows mastery of learning within course requirements.
SHOWCASE: Content promotes your personal abilities in a career search.
In each scenario, the same artifact(s) could be selected and be equally appropriate although the context of details shared publicly often varies. In myeFolio, by simply managing item properties to select "what fields are visible," you can post the same artifact to a "learning" site as you would post to a "showcase" site with different results. In other words, you do not have to produce it twice. Content items are re-usable and myeFolio allows you to create multiple sites in the same account.

Example: Assume that you collaborated with your peers on a research project and prepared a final report of your findings. Perhaps the report was recently published in a professional journal.
  • In the context of a learning portfolio, your instructor will want to see your reflections about how you selected your topic, how the team functioned together, what you learned about the research process and more...as well as the final product. You will need to reveal fields with expected details on the site page.
  • In the context of a showcase portfolio, a prospective employer or a selection committee determining graduate school entrance will be more interested in the final product. By including the artifact, you open the door for dialog about the process. It may not be essential to reveal course-relevant details on the site page.

Significant Questions when Selecting Artifacts
  • Think about what you learned while completing or working on the artifact?
  • Consider how the artifact reflects your strengths, interests, or future career goal?
  • In retrospect, would you have done anything differently?
  • Thinking about your eFolio site, where will you post the selected content?
Note: Responses to at least three of the questions above might influence your reflective writing for significant artifacts (covered next in our series of jumpstart topics).

Last month's final post introduced the Page Tree and how you might frame out site navigation through it. Those decisions can now help you select your content. The chart below shows some generic page options and suggests content you might post to each. In reverse, if no items currently exist for a page, you might decide to hide the page until you are ready to populate it.


myeFolio Site Pages
 Artifact/Item Home Personal Info Education Coursework Employment Photo Gallery Web Links
Welcome  x





Courses Taken


 x


Credential or Degree

 x



Contact Info
 x




Website URL





 x
YouTube Video ?
 ?  ?  ?

Study Abroad Images




 x
Resume PDF File
?

 ?

Written Report


 x


Self Biography
 x




Part Time Jobs



 x

Over time you will SELECT many of your collected items for posting to site pages. There are as many possibilities as there are people using myeFolio!
  • Content often exists without supporting evidence and yet, some items when added as "related content" will fill in the details for a greater artifact. 
  • Additional items may demonstrate a need to add another page or sub-page to the site (more common as your experience expands over several months).
  • Selections that are better shared within a defined context (such as your Resume) may cause you to create a separate site within your account. This provides a unique URL for use within other documents such as a cover letter or online application. 
  • Items that expose sensitive personal identity references should be avoided. Remember, your eFolio is available over the Internet! A great example of this would be your college transcript. If you must include it, examine it carefully and be sure to remove student ID numbers, addresses and social security numbers before uploading it to your account.
Reminder: Many existing sites at various stages of development are posted in the Showcase for your reference. These are live sites created by real people who are your peers and could provide ideas about what to do with your site.

Several Content Presentation Ideas are posted at the myeFolio Features site. Check it out!

Take Action: Upload the digital content you have decided to use in your eFolio at this time. Create or acquire additional items in digital format. Technical help is visible in the lower right column "Help panel" as you click from field to field within content forms while working at the ADMIN side of your account. Other helpful guides are posted at myeFolio Resources for your reference.

Jumpstart Tip #2: Prepare Your Stuff!

Practical "Real Time" Help

process diagram with focus on COLLECT
The focus today continues on the process of COLLECTING content.

Finding content implies that you will also prepare it for the Web environment of an eFolio site.

It makes sense that your collected items must be in digital format -- ready for the Web -- before posting any content to the pages of your site.
Create, Revise, Save Locally: This part of your preparation best occurs external to myeFolio space. It is easier to work with a file in the original software than to manipulate it after posting to the site.

Organization: When working with files, many users find it helpful to configure a system of topical folders for content in their local storage space before uploading content to myeFolio. Post larger items such as video files in the cloud (Google Drive, iTunes, Microsoft's OneDrive, YouTube, ScreenCast or others) and prepare your links.

Naming Files: Filenames influence URL behaviors and are an important part of your eFolio site. Editing file's name so it describes the content is important but it is equally necessary to make sure that the name allows the file to display correctly in most situations. Guidelines include:
  • No special characters -- Use letters a-z, A-Z, numbers 0-9, and, if needed, hyphens (-), underscores (_) or periods (.) are accepted. Other characters could keep files from displaying.
  • No spaces -- Spaces often display as an underline confusing viewers. Plus, browsers often require that a filename space be encoded as a plus-sign (+) or %20 -- that's tedious!
  • Start with a letter -- This is simply good practice for technical reasons. 
  • All lowercase or camelCase -- Your preference needs to become your standard practice as there is no absolute in this. Although computer operating systems are case insensitive, most Web server operating systems are case sensitive. 
  • Short filenames -- Strive for a name that is no more than 30 to 50 characters (that's about four or five words in length. 
  • Data file formats -- Save your files in PDF or HTM format whenever possible so your content will be viewed as intended regardless of locally installed software.
  • Image file formats -- GIFs, JPEGs, and PNGs are the formats used to display images on the Web. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. 
  • Media file formats -- There are several choices when it comes to video formats: MP4, flv, mov, qt, wmv, or WebM are most common. For both Web and mobile viewing MP4 is preferred. 
  • Audio file formats -- Usage indicates that MP3 is the most common sound file format today. 

Exploring Content Types from the myeFolio Perspective

It's tough to separate "finding and gathering content" from "adding it to your account" so, before you read the next post, you might already be thinking about adding "your stuff" to myeFolio.

Let's assume that you decide to begin by writing your Welcome Message, finishing your Resume, choosing some Assignments or Work Samples, grouping your Educational Experience and locating some Photographs to help viewers see you in real life situations!

To do so, there are several content item forms (found in myeFolio by opening the New Content panel) that you could choose from to add the five (5) kinds of content mentioned above to the My Content collection. The following grid suggests the New Content forms you might use to add the artifact listed at the left.


Artifact
General
> Basic
Upload
> File
Education
> Activity
Web Content
> Google Drive
Education
> Course Taken
Education
> Credential/Degree
Upload
> Image
Welcome Message x x
x


Add Your Resume
x
x


Assignments or
Work Samples

x x x

x
Educational Experience
x

x x x
Relevant Pictures x x

The choices above are not exclusive. Many content item types (field-based completion forms) are available in myeFolio. A complete listing with descriptions is available online.
[About Photographs: Be yourself, but only include images that would be "to your advantage" when viewed by a potential employer -- in most scenarios an eFolio site does not benefit from the more casual "social interaction focus" that Facebook users often share although personal images should be included if it adds to your story.]
Posted resource guides will answer many of your questions about how to complete basic myeFolio tasks.

In the next post, you will begin to filter the "greater collection of content" by selecting specific artifacts you'll want to use at this time.

Take Action: Continue looking for content...that which you already have or creating what you need. Digitize and prepare your files for the Web. Organize your files so you can find them when you're ready to upload each as content to myeFolio.