Keeping an E-Portfolio

An e-Portfolio has two purposes. First, it's a learning tool. The act of
constructing your e-portfolio--selecting artifacts to include and how to best
arrange them--and reflecting on the components of your e-Portfolio will allow
you to understand the work and the learning you've accomplished throughout
the semester. Second, it's a platform to illustrate your learning. Typically,
students in portfolio-assessed writing classes have higher grades than students
in traditionally-graded classes because, in portfolio classes, students explain
their work and highlight their achievements, tracing their thinking and their
writing over fifteen weeks (or however long the course is). Portfolios, in general,
show what/how much you've learned. In portfolio-assessed courses, your
teacher can assess you against you; instead of your writing being compared
to your classmates' writing, your teacher can see how where you are at the end
of the course is different than where you were at the beginning. Moreover, ePortfolios provide rich ways for you to make connections between components
(i.e. show how different assignments helped you complete others or furthered
your thinking in some other part of the course). In short, the e-Portfolio is
helpful to you in two different ways: it helps you learn and it shows your teacher
how much you've learned.
It might also be helpful to think of it this way: You are the curator, like in a
museum. You control what the audience sees and you can include/exclude
what is there. You shape your e-portfolio and it is an opportunity to show what
you have learned. Your e-Portfolio can showcase your writing assignments and
IS a writing assignment in and of itself.
Although your completed e-Portfolio isn't due until the end of the
course, we are setting up our e-Portfolios near the beginning so that
we can start collecting completed assignments digitally, thus
becoming experts by the time final e-Portfolios are due. There are
different options, if you select Weebly, the directions are below:
Set up your Weebly site:
a. Go to http://www.weebly.com/ and create and account.
b. Once you're in, you'll want to create a site. You'll see an orange "Add a Site"
button. This new site is your e-Portfolio for this course, so make an appropriate
title for your site.

c. Next, make your web address/URL. The free option is to use a subdomain of
weebly.com. For Example, the address of this site is
http://writingandinquiry.weebly.com. Keep in mind, again, that this is your ePortfolio for this course, so you'll want your address to accurately represent
your site.
d. Spend some time playing around with your design and learning how to
construct your page. You use the editing task bar across the top of the Weebly
editor page to add text, pictures, and to create new pages and blogs. The more
you play with the site, the more you'll learn. As with all technology, you *will*
get better at this!
e. Make sure you know your Weebly site URL (your web address)

(Suzanne Ingram)

Your e-portfolio should be organized and up-to-date at the time you submit the
web link. The link should be in working order and easy to open. It is up to you
to see that this is the case. Send it to yourself or someone else to insure that it
is in working order. It will be evaluated and graded upon the final submission.
How to create an E-Portfolio
Building an e-portfolio is not difficult. These are website-building platforms that
make the process easy. Also, each web-page builder has easy-to-follow help
directions, many in video format. You can also find tutorials on YouTube and on
Google through searching for help. Below are three suggested options:
1. Weebly.com: One of the easiest-to-use but also a highly flexible/creative
website builder.
2. UNCC Google Sites: Easier than Weebly and contained within UNCCs
intranet of Google applications, this option includes many UNCC
templates, or you can create your own. When you access the site, you will
need to sign in with your UNCC login and password. While this is the least
sexy of the sites, it has the most privacy controls, allowing you to limit
access only to those to whom you give permission.
3. Wix.com: For slightly more-advanced users, Wix has many bells and
whistles, including Flash and HTML5. Be careful about letting a coollooking website with lots of multi-media features compromise the
creation of a complete, well-prepared e-portfolio. (Better to be
straightforward and thorough instead of shiny and shallow.)
Instead of attaching documents to your website, you will embed them as
PDFs using a program called Scribd. (See the last page of this document for
directions. Apparently, embedding documents in Wix is more challenging, but

students in my classes have already done this. A Facebook request for help
might be a good way to learn.)
**An important warning: Write your portfolio copy on a word processor, and
then paste it into your website. If formatting messes up in transferring, use a
simple text (.txt) application. Save your work often on the e-portfolio.

Directions for Embedding PDFs with Scribd

Each draft/document you include in your e-portfolio
must be embedded as a PDF file instead of
uploaded or attached. This means the content of the
document is visible when someone views your
webpage. The viewer should not have to download
your document to view it.
The Scribd website (www.scribd.com) contains
directions, help, and FAQs, but Ive also included directions below. Also, you can
search YouTube and/or Google for how-to videos or written instructions.
1. Select a PDF file to upload and upload it. Be sure to click the box that says
"Make this document private." If you click it, you control who sees the
document. If you do not check it, anyone on scribd can read it. Check the
box BEFORE you begin uploading. Always look to see if there is a green
"Public" or a red "Private" next to your document.
2. Once it uploads, click on the document title. After another window opens,
look to the right toward the bottom. Click on the button that says
"Embed." There will be an html code that you copy and paste into your
site. When you publish your site, the entire document will be embedded
on your page, and your reader can scroll through it.
3. For step- by-step instructions from Scribd.com on how to embed
documents: http://support.scribd.com/entries/20533011-embeddingscribd-documents
4.

This will be clear when you get to it, but for an html website, use the html
code. For a flash site, such as Wix, use the flash code. Always be sure your
code boxes are large enough to hold your document and that you enable
the scroll bars. (Malcolm Campbell)

The Website you make

Personalize the websiteit is yoursconsider what makes a successful website:
it has an engaging title, is free from clutter, easy to navigate, and visually
inviting. Use the design and navigation aspects to create a site that represents
you. (Use photographs, multi-media components, whatever you like provided
these do not distract visitors from your e-portfolios content. Copyrighted songs,

movie clips, or pictures could be taken down by content owners, though that is
unlikely. This is a project you work on all semester, so you should add to it,
modify it, change it, and revise it, as much as you want. You design your EPortfolio and include which artifacts you want, but it must contain eight (8)
elements as follows:
1. Homepage This is the point of entry to your e-portfolio. It is where
visitors first arrive via your website address; it is your introduction to the
website. Carefully consider the various rhetorical moves you need to make
on this page to set the stage for our reader to read, interpret and move
through the various components of our portfolio in a manner designed by
you. This is your space, make it unique.
2. Writers Profile--Your name and a brief description of who you are. What
is your intended major or what courses/career paths interest you? If youre
undecided, thats fine; you can share whatever you want that tells the
reader about you as the author of this website. Share what makes you a
responsible, strong student (for future use). If you use pictures, make sure
you label each one and tell what it is about. Use tabs/buttons for easy
navigation to other sections.
3. Revision and Peer Review Select one of your project drafts upon
which you received helpful feedback from a peer and embed it as a PDF.
Beneath the peer-reviewed document, share how your peers comments
were of particular help. Write about the choices you made and did not
make and explain the outcomes of these choices. Explain any changes
you made as a result of peer review. You may include your opinions about
peer review.
4. Semester-Long Project On this page:
1. Embed your original Semester-Long Project Proposal as a PDF,
accompanied by a brief description of your initial interest in the
topic. Include a statement about why your topic matters and should
matter. If you changed, adjusted, or selected something different
about your topic, explain the reasoning behind your changes.
2. Embed the final, revised Semester-long Inquiry Digital Project
including your Works Cited page.
3. Include a research tab that will be the home anything and everything
you have uncovered about your topic.
5. Revised ProjectPick one of your projects and completely change it.
Now that the project is over, look at it from a different perspective, or with
a different outcome in mind. Show the original project and then the new
one. This can be anything that we did in this class. Write a paragraph
about the changes you made, including the reasons and rationale for why
you made the changes. The quality of the new version will be reflected in
your overall e-portfolio grade.

6. Daily WritingsInclude all of the Daily Writings done in class. Select two
of the Daily Writings and expand on them. Pick two that you feel like you
did not finish, or you had much more to say and double the original
length. (At least page)
7. Writing PromptsInclude all Writing Prompts whether initially turned in
or not. Select one Writing Prompt and write a paragraph about which one
helped you the most in terms of moving you forward in the writing process
or project that you were engaged with at the time.
8. Course Reflection letter. Think of this letter as a look back on what you
did over the semester and also think of this reflection as your thoughts
about what went on. As you formulate your letter, consider some of the
following and include anything you want me to know about your
experience this semester. This letter should be several paragraphs of
your thoughts. Return to the Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs ) in FirstYear Writing, the syllabus, and your own writing (daily, writing prompts,
drafts and polished work) as you respond to the following questions:
What did you learn, how did you learn it and how meaningful is what
you learned? Give examples of how you grew as a writer.
What did you struggle with over the semester and did you succeed?
What prior histories and knowledge shaped your work in this course?
What questions do you still have because obviously we didnt work
through everything?
Give some rationale about the rhetorical choices and decisions you
made, especially with the Semester-Long project. Did you find
yourself modifying the research component from your initial
proposal?
Think about the course as a whole and the relationship between the
projects we worked on.
Discuss how you see this class helping you in the future. What have
you learned about writing that will help as you continue to write in
your discipline, major, or elsewhere? Literacy development does
continue to evolve, so how do you see this impacting your future?
Discuss what you consider to be your best work this semester and
explain why it is your best. (Lynn Raymond)