Professional Digital Portfolio
Collect, Select, Reflect, Connect
“We do not learn from experiences; we learn from reflecting on our experiences.”
John Dewey, 1933
About this Assignment:
- This assignment is to be completed individually, it is your mid-term assessment, worth 25% of your final grade
- Your task is to create an individual professional portfolio website using WordPress.com (ref: Chapter 1: Types of Websites: Personal Websites, Web Templates and Content Management Systems)
- Since your portfolio will be posted online, please do not include any personal information such as phone number, home address …etc. If you are concerned about posting your actual name, please speak with me
- You may choose to “Allow search engines to index this site” or “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” through the Dashboard –> Settings –> Reading (do not keep it private while I need access to it during the semester)
- Use the following portfolio planner before you start building your website
Phase 1: Pages, Widgets, Video & Navigation (10%)
You are required to create your free WordPress.com account (e.g. hanadi.wordpress.com) and include the following:
- Home page: must be setup as a static page (not blog) and must include:
- Welcome: Short welcome paragraph about yourself
- Quote: Your favorite quote using the Quote block type, with the source (who said it)
- Image: Suitable royalty free image from Unsplash, with the photo credit using pre-formatted block type
- Video Business Card: This is a short video where you would introduce yourself, summarize your experience and tell us what you’d like us to know about you. The video can be created using Adobe Spark, a free, easy to use online tool. The easiest way to include the video is to upload the file to your YouTube channel (through your gmail account and choose unlisted or public) then embed it into your WordPress page. More on creating videos here (Humber library). Your video must:
- Be 40-50 seconds
- Include multimedia (text, images, music or voice over)
- Include appropriate content only
- Embedded on your homepage using the embed YouTube block type
- Widgets:
- Social Media widget with your LinkedIn profile (external link must open in new window)
- Text widget in the footer explaining that this portfolio is a class project created using XXX theme, include a link to the WordPress.com free demo theme used for this website, e.g. :
- “This portfolio is a class project, created using the Sketch theme”
- Recent Posts widget
- Any other widgets as you see fit
- You are required to structure your website based on the nature of your content into both pages, and blog posts.
- Your portfolio must reflect your professional skills and expertise, for example:
- Education, work experience, skills (technical, transferable), volunteer experience, community involvement, extra-curricular activities, conferences, workshops, seminars you’ve attended, awards, samples of projects (post screen captures only and a short description), interesting articles related to your field…etc
- Create your navigation menu
- Optional: Some themes such as Sketch (free) Snaps (free) support “portfolio projects”. Talk to me if you’d like to use a portfolio theme to make sure your content aligns well with that option
- Minimum requirements: 4 pages of your choice (not including a contact page)
- For this phase, all pages other than the homepage must have a short paragraph or “under construction”
- No blogging at this stage, blogging will be completed in the second phase. However, if your “theme” comes with default blog posts, you must delete them to avoid confusion
Submission through BB:
- Link to your website, for example: https://hanadi.wordpress.com (make sure your website is “public” so I can view it)
Phase 2: Blogging (15%)
In this phase you are required to complete your website: finalize your pages, write two amazing blog posts, develop and refine your content based on SEO. Polish your website and get it ready to go live!
Blogging Topics: based on Mentoring Conversations with a Humber Fashion Management Grad
To prep for blogging, I have connected with a group of Fashion Management grads who offered to support you one-on-one through “Mentoring Conversations”, read more about the Mentoring Conversations, access the Excel sheet and choose a mentor. Our grads will be able to share their career journey, success stories, lessons learned along the way, and any advice for you as you’re getting ready to graduate. Make sure you go with a list of good questions!
You are required to write two blog posts based on the following (please write in your own style, and use the sample questions I provided below for guidance only):
- Blog Post 1 (before meeting with your mentor): write a blog post about preparing for your meeting with your mentor. Some ideas to explore are: How did you choose your mentor? what industry do they work in? what role do they currently hold? what questions did you prepare for them? (provide the list of questions)
- Blog Post 2 (after meeting with your mentor): reflect on your meeting with your mentor. Some ideas to explore are: What lessons did you learn from that meeting? what advice and feedback did your mentor provide after reviewing your portfolio? what are the highlights of your meeting?
Important Notes:
- Use the following blog planner template to plan both blog posts (to be submitted)
- Do your own research on the ideal length of a blog post
- Both blog posts must be optimized for search engines
Submission through BB:
You will need to submit the following through BB:
- Your website URL in the “Submission” text field, make sure your website is “public” so I can view it
- Screencaps of your dashboard (details below). Make sure you use PPT, then save as PDF before you submit on BB
- Blog Post Planner 1 (PDF)
- Blog Post Planner 2 (PDF)
Since I do not have access to your dashboard, I will need to see screen captures of some of your dashboard items (listed below). Create a PPT file with a title slide that includes your full name, student number and link to your portfolio, include the following items, then save it as PDF before you upload it on BB. Make sure ALL screencaps are high quality images that can be viewed so I can see the details:
- Blog Posts
- Posts –> All Posts (view example)
- Choose one post to show categories and tags (view example)
- Posts –> Categories (view example)
- Posts –> Tags (view example)
- Portfolio Projects (only if used):
- Projects –> All Projects (view example)
- Projects –> Project Types (view example)
- Projects –> Project Tags (view example)
- Media –> Library (view example)
- Media –> Library; one image showing details (view example)
- Appearance –> Themes; showing the active theme (view example)
Hanadi Alnawab 