Student Work Collection

The last thing I did for the Student Innovation Fellowship on-site was co-host a couple of faculty workshops with Brennan Collins designed to get faculty interested in creating digital portfolios specifically designed to collect outstanding student work in a central location.

Since then, some of my tech-minded gears have really been turning. What would the university atmosphere be like if all instructors collected student work to be showcased on their personal portfolios?

If you visit the link above to Brennan Collins’s portfolio, you will see a very simple page that is a basic list of the student work. Brennan has collected this work over several semesters, and we are using it as a jumping off point for the first projects we may showcase on Edge Magazine. If you scroll through, you will see videos, PDFs with visuals, Prezis, and other media that students have used to present for Brennan’s course. This leaves open possibilities for Brennan to provide examples of his work above and beyond the usual documentation instructors provide such as assignment sheets or student evaluations (say, if Brennan were looking for another job, for example).

This kind of portfolio, it is important to point out, is different than a digital teaching portfolio. With a simple Google search, I found several examples of basic teaching portfolios on the open web. Below is a screenshot from an elementary school teachers’ home page.

example dig-port

As you can see, Stephanie Ladner has several sections, including her teaching philosophy, and a project she sponsors. But she does not collect student work. Of course, at this level, that would likely be a violation, given that she works with children who cannot give their permission for public display of their work. I am however, using Miss Ladner’s portfolio as an illustration.

Now imagine if all the instructors at GSU had simple portfolios like Brennan’s. Not only could instructors use this kind of portfolio for future career prospects, but they could use student examples to mentor new colleagues, to display what kind of student work comes out of their department, or to contribute to school-wide projects like Edge. And these are just three ideas I am coming up  with on my own. With more heads involved, I’m confident there would be so many wonderful uses for excellent student projects like the ones Brennan’s page features.

In order to promote the idea of digital portfolios showcasing, Brennan and I have hosted two workshops on the idea, and they have gone rather well. The instructors we have worked with are interested, and willing to spread the word. If the idea catches on and other instructors are also willing to collect outstanding student work, GSU could set the standard for this kind of sharing. With student permission, of course.

Randy Swearer – The Provost with a Message

Dr. Randy Swearer came to Georgia State University to give a 2-part talk titled “Understanding Emerging Trends in Higher Education” last week. Swearer has been provost of Philadelphia University since 2009 – and I find this to be an exceptional detail.

It is exceptional because this is the first time I have heard someone with this kind of institutional power speak about a radical change in the system of higher education.

Let me give you a summary:

Swearer talks about the need to unbundle the university system.

Swearer-2

This means, in general, that we need to be less focused on disciplinarity, and more focused on a more flattened hierarchical system that relies on training for skills, rather than training for tests. It is student-centered, and it is a place where faculty can focus on a variety of ways to deliver content, rather then the way we have been doing it for the last 150 years.

What is more, Swearer has a model that he believes might work.

Swearer-4

In the picture above, Swearer is showing an overview of his Part 1 talk before he goes into detail about his proposed system. Here, he proposes to disintegrate the existing model, opening up new ways for students to move through the system – minus arbitrary grading, lecture-only classrooms, and other models that critical pedagogues argue against.

Once the talks were over, everyone I attended with that works in the Exchange had some very interesting conversation about Swearer’s proposed model.

For me – the outcome has little to do with Swearer’s solution. Instead, I am excited that Swearer, a provost with a very loud voice, is on a speaking tour, talking about how much things need to change. Swearer’s model may not be a good solution – and it might also be a wonderful solution. We can’t know until his group enacts it. What I agree with most about Swearer’s talk is that change needs to happen. What I would love to see are several different groups trying out different systems simultaneously, while collaborating to attempt to find what works and what doesn’t along the way.

Digital Portfolio Workshop

Yesterday, I delivered a 1 hour workshop on building a digital portfolio. 11 people showed up, but three of them were Will, Taylor and Heidi, so I’m not sure 11 is cheating or not. I WAS excited to see them there – don’t get me wrong.

The Interact Wall in CURVE in action

The Interact Wall in CURVE in action

Overall, the workshop was well received, though it felt a lot more like a class than a workshop. I spent the first 30 minutes talking through points which covered online presence, types of hosting, available apps, and potential content. I was really hoping people would have their own attempts at digital portfolios to share — but I think that might be a different kind of workshop all together.

We had a variety of people with different levels of knowledge in the group though – which I was really hoping for. Two people from career services showed up and provided some helpful tips, and a student from the art department had some really great questions about presenting an art-forward portfolio as opposed to the professional job-forward portfolio I have designed for myself.

If I do this again, which I might since many of you expressed interest, but couldn’t make the date/time, I would probably find other examples of portfolios online – both successful and unsuccessful and we would have a discussion about what works and what doesn’t. At this point, I’m unsure whether I focused too much on design, or not enough. I tend to forget that even though most of us spend an astonishing amount of time online, we often don’t soak up how the design works. Design, at this moment in Web 2.0 history, is minimalist with lots of white space, only little splashes of color, and lacking anything too flashy. This kind of design may be becoming naturalized for many users so that not only is the interface of the operating system invisible, but the very design of the site is also invisible. In fact, this is what we’re going for when we design (most of the time), so that means the design aesthetic is successful. But this then becomes problematic for people that don’t work in tech to break into this seemingly opaque world of design.

My overall aim was to make building a digital portfolio seem like a relatively easy, approachable task for people new to the idea. I was quite surprised to find that no one in the audience had a portfolio of their own – not even an attempt at one. So I decided to talk to that point and highlight the ease of the WYSYWG and the fact that my content was quite limited in terms of the way I showcase myself in a general way that could appeal to many kinds of potential employers.

If you have a desire to see this workshop and couldn’t make it – please leave me a comment below and we’ll see if I can’t get another one scheduled.

Building Digital Portfolios

I will be holding a workshop on digital portfolios Monday March 30th, at 1PM in the CURVE.

The workshop is for both students and faculty. If you are a student, you may want to come to see what kinds of options are available for you to create your own digital presence. If you are a faculty member, you can come for the same reason, OR to get tips on how you might teach the digital portfolio. I will be presenting a few versions of my own portfolio, and then we will be discussing ways to present ourselves, and sharing new tools and tips together.

In order to prepare for this workshop, I had to do a lot of research and a LOT of building. I want to be able to showcase a few of the major sites where portfolios can be hosted, both free, and at low cost. I learned an incredible amount about web building and design. I’ve picked up new coding tricks, and learned how to embed a Google Doc, though Google has some of their own bugs to work out concerning that.

Let me show you some examples of how different portfolios can look (this also serves as a sneak peak at my workshop):

Below is my Squarespace website. I own the domain, vrobinphd.com and I have been working on this for quite some time. This is my permanent portfolio, and the one I give to potential employers and promote on my social media.

Squarespace

Screen Shot 2015-03-11 at 12.17.42 PM

As you can see from this front page, the design is sleek, and professional looking, with a lot of white space, which is what the trend for design is right now. Squarespace is a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get), but it also has options for coding, so you aren’t always limited to the template parameters. For example, I was able to drop an embedded Google Doc in as my CV, using the code function. This took some experimentation (and Googling), as I assumed the embed function would do it – and this turned out to be not the case. Unfortunately, this cool red button you see in the header, is not something I can code or manipulate to make it show up on other pages. So while I can manipulate much of the template, I can’t control all of it. Also – it is important to note that buying into Squarespace allows me to create my own logo with tagline. You can’t see the little red robot well here, but you will see it on other portfolios below.


 

This next one I made on a website called strikingly.com which I learned about from an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education called “How to Curate Your Digital Identity as an Academic.”

Screen Shot 2015-03-11 at 12.18.26 PM

Strikingly is ONLY a WYSIWYG drag and drop application, and it only allows you to have one page. This page however, can be as long as you could ever want it to be. So instead of your visitors clicking to find content on new pages, they just scroll to each section. Strikingly allows you to upload backgrounds to enhance certain sections, and provides lots of neat, attractive buttons to place along the way for people to click on to email you, or visit a project you’re working on outside this site. It’s really simple, so it will be great for people who can’t code, or just want easy maintenance.


 

The last one I have to show you here is from wordpress.com which is on a template/theme called ‘pen scratch.’

Screen Shot 2015-03-11 at 12.18.51 PM

I chose a theme that looks clean and has a lot of white space to stay in the theme I have going among these portfolios I’ve made. This one is currently in heaviest build mode, but creating new pages, and showcasing my content has been very easy. WordPress is both a WYSIWYG and has coding capabilities you can use to manipulate both theme and content. I have learned a LOT about themes from working on the Tools Wiki project, including how much each theme can make or break the look of your site. I may find out as I continue to build that ‘pen scratch’ does not, in fact, work for my portfolio, and it could look COMPLETELY different by the time I give the workshop – this is one of the things we’ll cover in the workshop, actually. For now, you can see it largely works well, and there’s my cool Squarespace robot up at the top.


 

It’s been really fun hanging out at the Exchange researching, and building, and saying, “pssst, does this look stupid?” to other SIFs that hang out in the Exchange with me. I’m really excited I get to give the workshop, but I’m MORE excited about all the invaluable things I’ve learned in the process.

If you find yourself in need of portfolio help, please let me know and I’ll be happy to put my two cents in.

The Tableau Experience

Today I attended “The Tableau Experience.” I’ve been struggling with what to call it: a conference, a convention… It had only one speaker, and a Q&A – and a wet-bar.  So… I’m settling with ‘experience’ as they do. What it really was though, was an advertisement.

Don’t get me wrong – I like using Tableau to recreate charts for the Tobacco Ebook I’m working on, and this ‘experience’ was worth it for several reasons:

1. The speaker demoed several ways to share data that I haven’t seen in action since I’ve only been using it to create charts for data sets that are already created for me.

Tableau_Experience

 

2. There were a lot of people there from many different kinds of institutions.  I met others from universities like me – Georgia Tech, Gwinnett College, and so on. But I spent most of the time schmoozing with a lady from Home Depot, and then talked briefly to a man from a company called Norfolk. Everyone was using Tableau for something different – I’m pretty sure I was the only one making an Ebook.

3. I was able to ask about that pesky issue Ryan Cagle and I have been having in trying to get the distance between pane tick marks and labels to be exactly the same in all our charts so they’re uniform within the Ebook. Sorry, Ryan – there is no way to do this. The guy I asked said your idea was the smartest.

Overall, I’m glad I went to the Tableau Experience. And so I leave you with a picture of my spoils, the swanky bathroom in the wetbar, and the view from the 16th floor. Enjoy:

Tableau_Experience-2

Art Vandenberg and the World Community Grid

Today I went to the talk given in CURVE by Art Vandenberg. When I decided to attend, I didn’t know what the World Community Grid was, and now I know – and I think you should know too.

First, Art started off telling us a bit about himself. Here he is on the right:

I hope you all recognize that guy on the left by now :)

I hope you all recognize that guy on the left by now 🙂

Art was funny, and personable, and the perfect person to be telling us about World Community Grid.

What IS the World Community Grid, you ask?

ArtV_1

It’s pretty much the most complex, yet most simple thing you can do to help save the world. Essentially, if you join the world community grid (make sure you join the GSU team!), whenever you’re not using your computer, and it’s on (this also works on android phones, but they have to be plugged in), the world community grid can use your computing power to increase their ability to solve data problems like producing clean water, or mapping cancer markers. It’s really that simple.

And what’s cooler, is that all of our library computers (CURVE too) are already running world community. When the library is closed, there is a lot of world saving going on in there.

I left the link up there at the top of this entry – check it out. And if you have additional questions, go ahead an leave them below in the comments and I’ll see what I can do to find you an answer.

I’m an ArcGIS Convert

Today I attended the ArcGIS outreach presentation:

Spatial Symposium: An Intro to Mapping

… and I learned SO MUCH!

Amber introduces the presentation to us using the cool CURVE screens.

Amber introduces the presentation to us using the cool CURVE screens.

First, I learned that pretty much any person with a computer, an internet connection and some data can make a map specialized to what s/he is working with.

For example, let’s pretend for a moment that someone is writing a dissertation, say for example, me. And let’s say I want to map out an object, say a high-end wrist watch (like the one below), and I want to be able to show when certain styles and techniques of watchmaking happened. I can do that using one or more of the map-making software featured in today’s presentation.

Piaget Skeleton watch - taken from http://blog.perpetuelle.com/

Piaget Skeleton watch – taken from http://blog.perpetuelle.com/

Another thing I might do for my personal enjoyment is map out places that have various foods. Let’s say I am searching for the perfect noodle in Atlanta, I might input restaurants with noodles as a main dish, and then input attributes and create a ranking system.

Essentially, if you can imagine mapping it – you can probably use some of these resources to create it.

And this makes me very excited about mapping possibilities.