Today, I went out of town for a work conference, and I walked out of there with a topic to write about. One of the presentations was based on an idea a university has to get students into keeping online portfolio material from their courses. It got me thinking of an informal poll for those WOW readers who would like to help me out with this.
1) Do you have a portfolio of your work online?
2) If you do have one, what was the inspiration for you to start one? If you do not, would you?
3) For those with a portfolio online, is it on a personal website, blog, a private (password-protected) webspace, and/or another area in cyberspace?
4) Do you monitor how many views there are of the page? Ask people if they have read your work online?
5) Do you market it mainly on your resume/CV or it something you self-promote?
6) What types of advice would you have to students and/or novice writers in starting an online portfolio? What should they include/exclude? What do you wish you would have done with your papers etc. online?
Ultimately, there was only surface-level discussion of the idea, since it's only starting to come together at this particular institution. As a college student, I was given "free" webspace, and I used it first for classes where I had to upload papers and presentations, but then, also to tell people about myself, to practice web editing, to put up study abroad pictures, and then lastly, to market myself for graduate schools I applied to. For a while, I had a paid site, but I've taken it back to the baseline for now. Right now, I'm only linking to other sites featuring my work, but if given the chance, I might PDF some grad school papers etc. to show what I can do. To me, ultimately, having students do some writing with a goal of having even a hardcopy-only portfolio is better than nothing at all. Now, the question is how far can and ought online portfolios go? Final drafts only? Revised drafts to show editorial talents? Subdividers for different genres, styles, presentation types? Please enlighten us all fellow WOWers. We learn best from one another, not in isolation! I felt that especially true today at that conference.
I started one using blogger, but never followed through. Since I wrote for two newspaper that no longer exist, I don't have any online clips and scanning in news clipping looks sloppy. So, I'm kind of at a standstill. I'd be interested in hearing what others think on this topic.
ReplyDeleteI do have a blog where I do some of my writing and I know if you google my name, you can come up with other places to see my work. But a portfolio is an interesting idea. I'm not quite sure how the best way to go about that would be, though. There are a variety of options, that's for sure. Perhaps that may become a new wave for the future of writing that has yet to be explored.
ReplyDeleteYes I have an online portfolio.
ReplyDeleteMy inspiration was Misti Sandefur at Life of a Writer blog which was the first freelance blog I ever visited early last year.
My portfolio is on my freelance writing website which has an island theme. My website is on Piczo whom I have been with for over three years and would recommend to people to use as it is very easy and you can post pics and things there too. If you would like to take a peek to see what I'm talking about and not posted as spam but shameless promotion my link is http://www.IslandWhispers.piczo.com/
Yes I monitor all the stats and so can anyone with a website there.
When applying to writing jobs I include my resume and writing samples. I post my website and blog link in my signature line if they want to see a portfolio but only if they ask.
Items to include in a portfolio include:
1. Virtual or physical volunteer work related to publishing or writing
2. Writing competition status - semi-finalist or finalist
3. Fictional biography or interview
4. E-zine or newsletter content
5. Book report or review
6. PowerPoint Presentation
7. Valedictorain Speech
and many other things one can think of can be included in an online portfolio.
When I started putting together mine I typed in writing portfolio how to into Google and came up with some good links. I can post these links later if you'd like when I find them again.