I want to share a story about something similar to an eportfolio that I created back in my undergrad years. I took this class in journalism and it was a magazine/production class that taught me the in’s/out’s of creating our own magazine from scratch. We had to come up with a name, decide who our audience was, what we would display, who would be our advertisers etc. The class was one of my favorites because it allowed us to create something that we could show to others, and possibly to future employers.
Well one day I received an interview to work at a local Houston news company (although the job was for like a sales assistant, which was completely my fault) I assumed the role would be something for news production, or possibly lead to a role in the future. I took my magazine plan hoping to impress the inverviewee, and I must say that was far from it. She questioned me about certain aspects of the magazine plan that I wasn’t ready for, seemed to degrade my idea, and just brush it to the side like it was nothing. Now don’t feel too bad, again this may not have been my best work. I think she could have not critiqued me so harshly if the position wasn’t one in the writing field, and even when I asked her if I could possibly move into a different sector, she replied bluntly no.
Either way, I felt destroyed once the interview was over because although my product wasn’t that great, I thought it was something impressive to show this employer, and they couldn’t care about it at all. That experience makes me wonder if this eportfolio carries the same weight as my magazine plan that I created years ago. The other questions that come to mind is “have I updated any of the info” and “have I used that since, and improved the issues” and the answer is no. Subconsciously I feel that initial experience kept me from pursing other magazine careers, or was I just another recent grad trying to stuff their “magazine plan” down the throat of an employer? I don’t really know, but I feel the same fear that could come from this eportfolio. What makes this any different from what I did in my undergrad? Maybe it was the thinking aspect of it, and the fact that I have more time and have had more learning experiences to improve my product.
While I do believe an eportfolio is a great tool to have, I wonder if employers really do look at them and are wowed by what they display from the student standpoint. Now this shouldn’t be my only point for future employment, so I also believe that this tool is important for many other reasons as well. As I stated in last weeks discussion posts, reflection is something I’ve wanted and done recently in the classroom and in my own life. After I saw the readings, guess what popped up? Reflection! So this definitely clears up any confusion I have for “what else do I do with my eportfolio?” and reflections is the answer.
I’ve learned quite a bit of new information while working with WordPress, but I also learned quite a bit doing a recent internship where their platform is WordPress. I learned how to embbed images from Instagram and Twitter, how to break a post into pages, and add videos and external links as well. so when it came to choosing a platform, I choose WordPress thinking it’ll be easier to use, but I was wrong. There is so much more to explore about the platform, but that’s not bad. I got to enjoy spending time figuring out how to turn my posts into pages, how to add my own images from my Google account, how to add widgets that show others what I am learning and/or reading etc. , and it has been a great learning experience.
So going back to that initial story with the magazine plan, I must say that an eportfolio definitely has more benefits than the plan I presented. Employers can look for certain things, and ask questions about how to run a magazine because that the business they know. But when it comes to an eportfolio, the only reason they can ask is why and how. Why did I feel that way, why do I feel I learned these things? How did those experiences help me grow and learn? How did I learn to use multiple tools? How did I teach others and why did I do it? So to go back to the previous statements, I believe we all should use eportfolios because they are a real-life reflection into who we are and what we truly learned.
Let Them Learn 