This afternoon I am doing an hand-on workshop on our Maricopa ePortfolio tool for the participants in our Maricopa Faculty Internship program. We have had some program like this for a few years where a year’s full of experiences, projects, mentoring is supposedly captured in a one page Word document report. I’ve been applying pressure for some time, that we ought to have intern / fellowship programs either blog, eport, or journal somehow along the way, as the old saw goes– the journey being more important and interesting that just the final destination. It’s like a vacation road trip across Australia, and the only memorabilia you save is the brochure from the tour bus.
Anyhow, we have created eport accounts for all the interns and are asking them to use it to post their resume, their materials developed as they move through the program, but most importantly, use the blog to journal their experience.
For this workshop, I’ve not overly prepared 😉 We have an excellent illustrated 26 page guide created and shared by Jennifer Strickland at Paradise Valley Community College that covers the basics nicely.
One of my rules of thumbs for technology related demos is to use the topic as the medium, so since our eportfolio as a feature to create a wiki inside an eport, I spent a whopping 25 minutes creating an outline as a wiki page inside my own shabby eportfolio. Its mostly outline, with some links I will show. It allows an audience member who is bored of my talking to explore on their own. Or it can be a reference to come back to.
I’m curious to see what things people can concoct for using an unlikely tools inside an eportfolio. At a simple level it is a quick and easy way to create web content (this one is set so only I can edit it). But one could set up a wiki where they let registered users, specific users, or the world, contribute. Maybe people can contribute ideas on how to develop my skills in a certain area (someone can write, “Learn to spell!”). Or Perhaps I could post a draft of a paper, and use it to solicit resources I ought to include.
