Electronic Teaching Portfolios–Part 2
So you have decided that the time is right to transition your large amounts of artifacts into a professional looking electronic version. Good for you! Now comes the tricky part. Where do you start? Hopefully, this series of posts will ease your mind a little and point you in the right direction. Today, we’re going to discuss the materials you will need to get started. Are you ready for this? The list is after the jump.
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The easiest way to start an electronic portfolio is by converting an existing hard copy portfolio. This article assumes you have a hard copy portfolio and you’re not starting from scratch. Here’s a basic list of what you’ll need to get started:
1. Your hard copy portfolio
You’re all organized and ready to go, right? If not, or if you have some new artifacts to add and update, it would be wise to do this before trying to get it all on your computer.
2. A computer with internet access and a word processing program
A lot of resources you will need to put your theme and professional looking page together can be found, usually for free, online. If you don’t have internet access, it will still be doable, but much more difficult.
3. A scanner
The majority of your artifacts are probably either hand written or can’t be reproduced solely with word processing software. You’ll need a scanner and its software on your computer to convert them into electronic documents.
4. Some sort of word processing software
You will be typing up your reflections (if they aren’t already) and explanations of artifacts. You may have most of that already done, and that’s great. If it isn’t, though, you’ll need to type them up.
Some optional software that could make things easier would be a full version of Adobe Acrobat to turn your scanned documents into .pdf files, and a program like Dreamweaver to make design a bit quicker. It is also advisable to have a photo editor like Photoshop. All three of these programs are very expensive, however, so buying them solely for this purpose wouldn’t be advised. Check with your school to see if they own copies of these Adobe programs, or something similar, you can use for awhile.
The final component in this process is to have either a website to post your finished product, or a CD burner to create many copies on disk. We will talk more about the pros and cons of both online and portfolios on disk in the next part of this series. Until then, go get your hard copy portfolio organized and ready to convert!
