Random Talks

Building an electronic portfolio—ePortfolio—is a step forward in furthering and deepening your education and how you present yourself to the rest. With your ePortfolio, you will be able to present all of your work electronically without the need of paper print-outs and such. There are many benefits of having an ePortfolio. First, ePortfolios serve as a transfer tool for potential administrators to see while reviewing an applicant’s profile because they contain proof of academic work as well as a small reflection which denotes the learning outcomes of assignments. Second, they can serve as a cover letter-like way to present yourself to a prospective employer. It has been common to read on the news how employers usually visit their candidates’ Facebook pages for evaluation purposes. Third, they can serve as way to better use the technology available in this generation. Decades ago, resumes and other types of proof of high work quality had to be handled manually, yet with today’s availability of tools; we can easily share information over the World Wide Web with others and use those tools to our advantage. Just think about how much your life has changed with the evolution of electronic communication—email. Correspondence used to be sealed in an envelope and it took a short while to be delivered yet today anyone can write an email to someone else across the nation in a matter of minutes.

Yet ePortfolios need constant revision. As any writer who sits down to draft a manuscript and then comes back to it for further adjustments, ePortfolios should also go through the same type of reflection and revision. Thus, it is not a matter of “just posting stuff about yourself,” but instead reflecting on every aspect of your performance as a student and refine it with progresses made and challenges accomplished. Therefore, it is a matter of constantly rethinking about your path and how your educational experience is taking you where you want to be.