Reflecting

(Image take by Scott Kellum)
At the start of this semester I didn't know what an E-portfolio was or the value it could bring. An E-portfolio is the same as the kind of portfolio that would be created offline. You gather all the best information about yourself, your accomplishments, and abilities and develop them into a folder or catalog of about you. Offline portfolios can be very hard to create, manage, and share. If a suspected employer asks to borrow it for further inspection, it sets you up for it to be lost or damaged. It limits you from sharing it with others possible employers as well. The great thing about establishing an e-portfolio is that it allows you share it with everyone. From the day that the e-portfolio is started it becomes a small evolving organism that you constantly improve with new accomplishments, papers, projects, hobbies or anything else that defines who you are. Employers are free to view your portfolio from any computer they like when it is most convenient for them. They can search your accomplishments to see how well you actually perform with the skills that are posted in your resume. It becomes the ultimate marketing tool, allowing employers to see what you are capable of before they decide to hire you. I also love how many different employers you can reach or better yet can find you. It is awe inspiring to think that with a well built e-portfolio my dream job, in my dream location, could find me.

The two most intimidating part of creating an e-portfolio for me were putting myself out there and getting past the feelings that I don't have anything worth publishing. At the start of the term I felt intimated about commenting on blogs, publishing my own articles, or even just sharing on twitter a video that I felt needed to be shared. As the class progressed I learned that the greatest part of the net is reaching out and sharing my thoughts and likes/dislikes. I was scared to publish articles in my blog because I felt like I wasn't good enough writer but quickly learned that it is the quality of thought and not the quality of writing that people care about on the net. From comments left by other classmates I came to realize that, despite the classmates being excellent writers, it is common to feel intimidated to publish work but like feeling nervous before giving a speech, it simply means I care about it enough that in a worst case scenario my feelings could get hurt. Now that the class is over and am mostly no longer afraid to share who I am with the world. Yes some people will be rude but I now have to confidence to know that most people will be supportive of my efforts in when I do a truly bad job provide me with feedback on how I can improve.

The biggest liberation I see in having an e-portfolio is finding employment after graduation. In the past find jobs in a new town was difficult. Particularly the question do you find a job then move or do you move so that you can find job? With an e-portfolio I know I can put my best foot forward to employers in what ever city I want to work in without ever going their. The employer can interview me on Skype and use my portfolio to gain a great idea of the kind of employee I will be. After finding a job the e-portfolio will still be of great value allowing me to network with both clients and fellow professionals helping me to rapidly advance my career.

Although I entered the class with a lot of resistance in the end I have found many benefits. I have learned how to communicate online professionally, present myself in interviews, and use social media to boost my career. The biggest advantage I gained from ales 204 was learning to incorporate online communication into my comfort zone. I agree with Lara that this course has taught me how a strong online presence can be a huge asset.

Links to my five comments:

• http://emilyshand.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-wikipedia-editing.html?showComment=1323291364643#c2608618100424557115
• http://rulenumbaone.blogspot.com/2011/09/flickr-link-my-business-facebook.html?showComment=1323292056604#c7865397488014858496
• http://kmclean.blogspot.com/2011/12/tweets-tags-ccs-oh-my.html?showComment=1323292526067#c6158485462397445809
• http://lphan22.blogspot.com/2011/11/twitter-vs-facebook.html?showComment=1323292732152#c8324817891935121907
• http://ales204-laura.blogspot.com/2011/09/facebook-profile.html?showComment=1323293069822#c6792383804563798596
  

Ref Works - Technology that actaully makes life easier

On November 4th a Teaching assistant named Angie gave a guest lecture in my Ales 204 Communications class. She discussed a little piece of software call Ref Works which, since the lecture, has absolutely blew my mind. This software was suppose to take care of all my citing and referencing needs which considering I had 6 papers due in the next 2 weeks really caught my attention.

At first I was a little skeptical. Angie's description of how to use the software left me very confused and intimidated. It looked easy enough with the supported journals. Just add the article to the Ref-works folder and then when I quote the article in my writing I just click a button and like magic the software inserts the in-text citation and adds the article to a list of articles to compile into the bibliography. The hard part was other journals that didn't support ref-works. There were complex work around that almost scared me away from the trying the software. I decided to jump in and give it a try and the software far exceeded my expectations.

Like most writing I started by doing my research. I scanned dozens of peer reviewed articles looking for valuable content to add to my papers. I start adding these articles to ref-works with just a few clicks of a button. I added most of the articles I read, just in case I decided to use something form them. After the research I planned my paper and started writing. When I put my first in-text citation I started questioning the validity of the software as instead of an in-text citation, a complex line of programming was placed. It looked nothing like the APA citation I was expecting. I decided to trust the software and push forward finishing my article with dozens of what would hopefully be in-text citations. The last and in my opinion worst part of writing a paper is creating the bibliography at the end. I have spend countless hours searching through different citation manuals for the correct place to put periods, date, and other tiny nit picky details that could cost me marks. In the past I have used and provided the minimal amount of source material to reduce the amount of time I would spend fixing citations and creating a bibliography. Having been promised that ref-works would handle this for me I let loose and used all the quality sources that I could potentially make what for me is a huge bibliography. I clicked the create bibliography on the ref-works page and was amazed to all the programming code in my paper transformed into proper in-text citations. A fully created bibliography was also created and placed at the end of my paper. I was stunned, not only did the software work but it only included links to the papers that I had referenced in the article. The software actually did what is was suppose to and promised, make my life easier.

Ref-works has made a dramatic difference to my writing. The quality of my writing has greatly improved because instead of searching for only a couple sources that contain all the quotes that I need for a paper I use a larger variety of source material giving my wiring more depth and validity. My papers have also improve because rather than spending hours writing citations I can dedicate that time to editing my article and improving the overall quality of my writing. The biggest benefit to using ref-works was on my attitude towards writing science papers. I found pride and enjoyment where before was hesitation, stress, and a great deal of dislike. I plan to continue using ref-works for the rest of my university studies and give it two thumbs up for being an amazing product. Now if they would only add support for Wikipedia then people like myself and my class mate Emily (http://emilyshand.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-wikipedia-editing.html) wouldn't have difficulty with citing Wikipedia articles.