What’s a Webfolio?
The Randolph Webfolio is a digital portfolio that
can be published on the internet through the College’s server.
Portfolios are a collection of work, accomplishments, and
skills. Artists and writers often submit portfolios of their
work when applying for work or for selection for exhibition.
Portfolios are NOT just for artists and writers. Portfolios can
be a vehicle to showcase your work and experiences. It is
tangible documentation that adds dimension to a resume.
Why do I need to create a Webfolio?
Four years of College is a long time and a lot of
work and experiences to remember. The Randolph Webfolio is a way
for you to remember what you have done by archiving and
reflecting on your work and experiences. Your Webfolio will
help you set personal and career goals, remember your
undergraduate experiences (through the reflections), and
articulate to others what you have learned and done in college.
Goals for the Randolph Webfolio:
As a result of creating and maintaining a
Randolph Webfolio we anticipate students will:
- Archive
their academic, work, and co-curricular experiences while at
Randolph College;
- Reflect on
the experiences they archive to identify what they are
learning and gaining in knowledge, skills, and experience;
- Recognize
patterns in interests and skills and set goals relative to
identifying opportunities to enhance skills or pursue their
interests in their personal life or career;
- Be able to
articulate to people what they have learned from their
college experience and what they can do with this knowledge
and skills; and
- Learn
valuable skills related to developing and maintaining a
website and become skillful with software and equipment
related to website creation.
What do I put in my Webfolio?
The wonderful thing about a digital portfolio is
that it can contain artifacts in many different media formats:
audio, video, graphics, visual stills, and text. It is cost
effective, flexible (because it can be continuously updated and
edited), and practical – it can be shared with others, 1
portfolio equals many viewers. Some examples of multimedia
elements that students can include in their Randolph Webfolio:
-
Video of
dance recital
-
Audio of
music vocal performance
-
Digital
photos of events you coordinated or of work produced
-
Digital
copies of written work
-
Resume
When should I create my Randolph Webfolio?
The fall semester of your first year is a great
time to get started. Creating a primary Randolph Webfolio
Archive during your first year can help you keep track of your
work and experiences over the duration of your career at
Randolph College.
When you are ready to sit down and archive your
experiences, assignments, and activities, think about your
experiences and what you are learning both in and out of the
classroom. As you document these artifacts, write short
explanatory sentences that help you identify what you have
learned from the assignment, activity, or experience. This will
help you later when you create a resume, as well as when you
create other Portfolios from the materials you archive in your
primary Webfolio. Designate time during every semester to
review your work and archive it within your primary Webfolio.
You can develop multiple Webfolios. One can be a
primary archive to organize your work and experiences. Over
time, you can develop other portfolios from the artifacts in
your primary portfolio by selecting the best and most
appropriate material for the audience that will be viewing the
portfolio – whether that is a potential internship supervisor, a
graduate school admissions committee, a scholarship committee,
or an employer.
How do I get started on creating my Randolph
Webfolio?
Every student has space on a server dedicated to
the Webfolio. But before getting started, you must do the
following:
- Read the
Randolph College Computer Resources Policy pages.
- Read and
print the
Web Publishing Agreement Form, fill out the requested
information, and bring it to the Help Desk (located on the
fifth floor of Leggett).
- While
waiting to receive your webpage address via email from IT,
preview the FrontPage tutorials, and the tutorial on how to
create a PDF. FrontPage can be found on all lab and ELC
computers.
- You will
then need to set up an appointment at the Experiential
Learning Center (ELC) for further instruction on creating an
effective and usable Webfolio.
- You are
now ready to begin creating your Webfolio.
But I am not looking for a job or applying to
graduate school, what am I supposed to do with my Webfolio?
For now you will be creating an Archive Webfolio as a starting
point to hold digital files and information related to your
coursework, employment, and co-curricular experiences while at
Randolph. Review the categories below; we suggest using these
categories to organize your Webfolio:
-
Education: Place files and information about degrees received,
courses, languages spoken, outstanding examples of classroom
assignments and papers, digital copies of artwork, etc. in
this section.
-
Co-curricular Experiences:
Place files and information about club involvement, sports,
leadership and personal development activities.
-
Work Experience: Place files related to paid employment, volunteer
and service experiences, externships, internships, career
plans, and evaluations.
-
Life Long Learning: Place files and information about your hobbies,
personal interests, and talents. For example: photography,
writing, artistic ability, etc.
-
Honors and Awards: Place files related to the awards and recognition
you have received. You can scan award letters, scholarship
letters, certificates, news articles, etc. and organize them
in this section.
-
Resume: Place the most recent pdf version of your resume in this
section.
-
Skills: Place information and files that document skill
achievement in areas like technical abilities, software
skills, communication, project management, writing,
demonstration of the ability to work with diverse groups,
and skills special to your occupational area.
You can also
use the skill sets that are identified in Randolph College’s
academic outcomes as a way to organize your skill development
archive: Critical Thinking; Scientific Inquiry; Artistic
Expression; Written Expression; Quantitative Reasoning; Capacity
in a Language; Understanding of the Historical and Philosophical
or Religious Dimensions of the Human Experience; Organization
and Application of Knowledge; Respect for Diversity of Ideas and
Cultures; Development of the Mind and Body (as described in the
Randolph College Catalogue, 2007-8; pp 17-22).
I have created a sample Webfolio Archive at
http://webfolio.randolphcollege.edu/lmcguire/ to give you an
idea on how you might organize your archive pages and write your
archive material. There are also some helpful tips within the
sample archive.
Eventually, you will want to create multiple Webfolios for
different purposes: getting an internship, applying to graduate
school, or marketing yourself for your career. A digital
portfolio used for the job search will be set up differently. Visit
http://filebox.vt.edu/users/lmcguire/index.html to see an
example.
What’s all this about Reflection – that just sounds like more
work?
Reflection is the key ingredient for transforming experiences
into learning. Reflection is a way to build connections among
your experiences and articulate what you are learning. In your
reflections, you should be able to illustrate your learning with
examples. The more specific you are, the more it will be helpful
to you as you prepare your resume, job search Webfolio, and
prepare for your interviews.
For example, “I learned a lot about communication.” is a good
start to reflection, but it is not specific. “I learned how to
present the main points of a campaign to staff members in weekly
staff meetings, work with a co-worker to address a conflict, and
write project summaries for my supervisor” provides examples of
communication skills you gained. Then you can expand it further
by writing a little description about what you had to do and how
you felt learning the different communication skills. The work
you do early on in the process of developing your archive will
help you build your resume and be successful in interviews.
Your interviewer may ask you to give an example of your conflict
management skills or presentation skills. You will remember,
because you took the time to reflect when you had that
experience.
There are three basic questions or reflections that are connected
to specific critical thinking skills (so not only are you
identifying what you are learning, you are practicing valuable
critical thinking skills that you will need in graduate school
or your work):
|
3 Basic Questions of Reflection |
Components of Reflection |
|
1. What?
What will / are / have you been
doing? |
Analysis |
|
2. So What?
What will / are / have you been
learning?
Why is this knowledge or skill needed? |
Critical Thinking |
|
3. Now What?
What are you going to do with this
knowledge or skill? |
Decision Making |
