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)
Required Readings:
Behance, Inc. “Why We All Need a Personal Website – Plus Practical Tips for How to Build One.” Adobe 99U, 13 Aug. 2019, 99u.adobe.com/articles/64112/why-you-need-a-personal-website-and-tips-for-how-to-build-one.
Li, Bryan. “Think beyond Your Resume – the Effective Ways to Make You Stand out in the Job Market.” Enlighteni, Enlighteni, 8 July 2020, enlighteni.com/blogs/enlighteni-moment/think-beyond-your-resume-the-effective-ways-to-make-you-stand-out-in-the-job-market.
Deliverables:
Part 1: Information Website & Blog
- Home page: must have a short introduction, with a video that summarizes your experience and tells 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.
- You are required to structure your website based on the nature of your content into 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
- The following are examples of questions you may wish to think about while developing your Digital Professional Portfolio:
- What industry are you interested in directing you career search efforts and why that industry?
- Who influenced you the most to study business and what is their relationship to you?
- What traits did this person see in you that would enable you to be a successful businessperson?
- In what jobs or positions do you work/ have you worked and which industries have you been exposed?
- In one word (or two), how would you describe your personal BRAND?
- Where, geographically, have you spent most of your life since you were 12 years old?
- How many/what languages do you speak?
- 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
The following are the minimum technical requirements
- Pages:
- 4+ pages of content (based on the guidelines above)
- Blog Posts:
- 2+ blog posts, categorized and tagged properly
- One of the blog posts must be based on attending a webinar of your choice from the following list (you can sign up directly through the link). All the webinars have been recorded and will be shared on this link by the end of October.
- Widgets:
- Social Media widget with your LinkedIn profile
- Text widget in the footer explaining that this portfolio is a class project
- Recent Posts widget
- Any other widgets as you see fit
Part 2: SEO Strategy
This is a document that summarizes your SEO strategy based on Marg Raffel’s SEO session, as well as your own research. You are required to list and briefly explain five distinct organic SEO strategies you will be implementing for your own brand (your own digital portfolio), they must be:
- Organic (not paid)
- Realistic (something you can plan to achieve using WordPress.com)
Please refer to the content provided by Marg Raffel on BB, that covers content and structural organic SEO strategies to optimize your website for optimal rankings and searchability.
Length: 2-3 pages of content in PDF format (you may use visuals or infographics)
Part 3: Reflection
Think of this as your “lessons learned”, or “project post mortem”. You are asked to reflect on the learning process and share with me what went right and what went wrong. There is no right or wrong answer here, I want to hear your own experience. Your reflection can focus on the process of choosing content for your portfolio, choice of theme, branding, or anything else you found was interesting, challenging, or time consuming – positive or negative, I want to hear it all 🙂
Length: 1-2 pages in PDF format (no restrictions on formatting or number of words)
Submission (Blackboard)
You will need to submit three documents:
- Part 1: Screencaps of your dashboard (details below). Make sure you use PPT, then save as PDF before you submit on BB
- Part 2: SEO Strategy (PDF)
- Part 3: Reflection (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:
- Blog Posts
- Posts –> All Posts (view example)
- Posts –> Categories (view example)
- Posts –> Tags (view example)
- If you chose to use Portfolio Projects:
- Projects –> All Projects (view example)
- Projects –> Project Types (view example)
- Projects –> Project Tags (view example)
- Media –> Library (view example)
- Media –> Library; any image showing “Attachment Details” (view example)
- Appearance –> Themes; showing the active theme (view example)
Hanadi Alnawab 