My Digital Portfolio, Final Draft..

As I make the final changes to my digital learning portfolio I want to thank everyone in the IT&DML program at the University of New Haven that gave me constructive feedback throughout this process.  I also want to thank my family and friends who also looked at my portfolio with a critical eye to make it something that reflected my learning, and me, which is a life long journey.

During one of our final classes I was able to show my classmates and professors my rough draft of my digital portfolio.  This is something that I was anxious about but I was happy to get feedback and suggestions to make my digital portfolio mine.  There was the suggestion of adding real pictures to each of the tiles on the homepage. I then thought I should make the tiles and the headings on each section of my portfolio the same.  Finding a way to get real pictures in the summer is tough but I went into my classroom and found parts of the room that I wanted to highlight.  As I looked at each of my classmate’s digital portfolios I thought off things I should add. I wanted to highlight my digital badges but wasn’t sure if someone looking at my portfolio would know what they were.  I then decided to add a link to share what digital badges were and then I added links to each of badges explaining each one in detail.  I also wanted to add a Creative Commons license because I wanted to make sure that my work was copyrighted.  I thought about adding music to my portfolio but then decided it would be too much.  Thanks to the feedback from my classmates and professors I made the changes and then was able to publish my digital portfolio and make it live.

Once my portfolio was live I was able to share it with family and friends and have them look at it not knowing much about digital portfolios.  I wanted to make sure it was easy to navigate as well as understand.  Finding typos and grammar errors were helpful as well.  I also shared it with the incoming students to the IT&DML program, it seemed like I had just done the same thing with the students that came before me but I was able to confidently share with them my digital portfolio and answer any questions they had.  It was nice to be able to tell the new students that the program is a lot of work but more than worth it because it will help them grow as professionals and help their students grow as learners.  I thought at that point I was done but then I wanted to share it with my classmates and professors once again to make sure it was ready for public viewing.

As usual my classmates and professors provided a lot of positive feedback and suggestions.  Thanks to classmate’s critical eyes they discovered a few more spelling and grammar issues but overall minor changes.  I am still on the fence about adding all of my blog, for now it’s all there but moving forward I plan to put a few selections so to not overwhelm the reader.  I decided to not add a link to my Facebook account because that is my personal space not my professional space like my Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.  I also added links to all of the text and pictures on my homepage to make it easier to navigate.  Finally I was then finished…

My digital portfolio is something that I plan on using and updating during my teaching career.  In a sense it will never truly be “finished” but for now it’s live and ready for the world to see.  Thank you to everyone for your encouragement, support, and suggestions through out this program.  In a way this “finished” digital portfolio includes each of you!