Sometimes students think an ePortfolio site should only include academic content, but you can customize your site to share who you are and what you love. Although your academics and professional goals may be the focus of your ePortfolio, including a blog about a hobby or interest gives visitors a taste of your personality and a peek into a topic that you enjoy or an activity that refreshes you, especially after finishing another semester!
Summer is a great time to start a blog. Your blog topic may be related to your major or minor, but it does not have to be. It could focus on a favorite summer activity or an exciting opportunity like an internship or volunteer position. Not only does a blog give you the opportunity to give visitors a more in-depth understanding of who you are, but it also demonstrates your ability to create multimedia compositions. Your design choices, links to resources, and use of visuals will show your creative side!
I kept it really, really simple…with food blogs in general, it can be difficult to follow the instructions if the design is complex.
–Anthony’s approach to his blog design
Where do you begin? Since you are creating your ePortfolio in WordPress, you have the technical skills to get started. Once you have a topic, sketch out a few blog posts to introduce your audience to you and your topic. Next experiment with design. For some ideas on layout, watch the video below to learn about Anthony’s food blog content and design choices. Then follow along to learn to make sushi!
In his blog tour, Anthony references using royalty free images from unsplash.com and a Creative Commons license. According to their site, “One goal of Creative Commons is to increase the amount of openly licensed creativity in ‘the commons’ — the body of work freely available for legal use, sharing, repurposing, and remixing. Through the use of CC licenses, millions of people around the world have made their photos, videos, writing, music, and other creative content available for any member of the public to use.” Acknowledge creators of images as you would acknowledge a source in an essay. To learn more, see “Images.”
Your blog may also be used as one of three digital projects that you create to earn a multimodal badge from UNE. What’s that about? Click here to learn more about UNE’s multimodal badge.
As always, if you need some help, make an appointment with a DigiSpace consultant (via https://une.tutortrac.com/) or stop by SASC to get more information.
