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Reflection

Click here to view my website on Weebly!

I've never created a Digital Portfolio before, and I'm only 89% convinced that I know what is entails. I visited About.me, Wix, and Visualize Me before settling on Weebly. Weebly seemed like a great tool to use with many features that'll allow the user to customize their website to their liking, all the while, not appearing too overwhelming. Navigating through the site was as simple as creating an account. After I created the account, I started reflecting on what it means to have a Digital Portfolio on myself. Thinking about what I want people to know about me, what I want to share, was a big ordeal. On my website, I created pages based on my identity today--what makes me, me. I'm a teacher, student, and mother, and I wanted to speak about all the three components in my life that has allowed me to evolve into the person I am today.

On my "My Story" page, I gave a brief overview on who I am, my educational background, and my teaching experience. Then I worked on "The Educator" page, and I started writing about myself as a teacher. Here is when I experienced my first challenge because of course, nothing is simple with me. The website was not saving my writings. Whenever I would write something on the page, it'll auto-save (as I thought), and when I left the page and returned later, it'll all be gone; I started copying and pasting my work in a Word Document just in case. I contacted Customer Service through Live Chat, and after about 32 minutes, he (Trevor) recommended when I finished typing my text, to exit the site immediately and then return to the page in an attempt to trick Weebly into auto-saving my written words before the session timed out; he had no idea how to help me otherwise, but surmised the problem was with my computer timing me out due to a cache. After some time and several attempts, my words started to save. On this page, I focused on Web 2.0 tools this year that I tried for the first time, and it made a difference. I shared some of my flyers on Smore.com, an image of Google Hangouts (even though my Google Voice has all my updated calls and messages), and I also shared one of the presentations I used on NearPod. These tools that I used throughout the year has impacted my role as an educator tremendously.

Bianca "The Student" was the next page, and I was wondering what I wanted to incorporate on this page for the longest. I literally revisited all of my past courses through Live.Wilkes and explored some of my projects; many of my projects where papers or items (images/graphs/tables) sent through Microsoft Word. I was really interested in the projects I completed online using Web 2.0 tools and applications, so I picked three courses (Digital Media; Impact Learning Environment; Internet Tools for Teaching) where I felt I created the most projects and decided to share several pieces on my website. These projects included those using Powtoon; Thinglink; Adobe Sparks; Livestream. While creating this page, I ran into a technical issue with embedding codes into my page, so I just refreshed the website, left it alone for about 15 minutes, and revisited it again to finish. I shared my entire Adobe Sparks page because I created so many pieces in that course, it would've been incredibly time consuming to incorporate both my videos and all those projects on my page from that one course. I tried to share enough projects of mine without going overboard or cluttering my website. I also made sure I provided some context on the work I was sharing on my website. I was not sure if I went into enough detail on each course description, but this is my first Digital Portfolio and I'm always going back in and editing; I;ve actually edited my website over 6 times after publishing it!

The last two pages I created are titled "The Mother" and "Social Media." I didn't go into much detail on "The Mother" page, but if someone wants to know me, then they should know I'm a mother before anything else. It was important for me to talk about my children since they are my greatest motivators--to continue teaching and to finish graduate school. I have those two to thank for everything, and I want visitors to know about my two miracles. Now, I'm not social media savvy. It took me years to create a Facebook account after it came out. I don't use Instagram, SnapChat, Twitter, Youtube, etc. I only use Facebook. I decided to turn my last page into a blog in hopes that every month I could add a monthly post on my favorite Facebook posts; my Facebook is private, so visitors won't see much if they went there themselves. The Slideshow featured showcases snapshots of my favorite posts of the month.

This final project was a reflective piece in itself. It truly allowed me to think about my own Digital Dossier over the years, and how the many projects I've created represents myself. I know in the past two years alone, I've created many blogs for assignments and used other Web 2.0 tools too--I simply can't remember them now. During my undergrad, I remember I created my first blog on WordPress, and I often think about that blog and revisit it sometimes; you might be able to view it if you do a search on Bianca Bradwell's Twilight review. My point is, I've created so many projects online, and I wish I had a Digital Portfolio back then to track everything. I also felt it especially important to talk about my personal life on my portfolio since it help viewers understand the author more. I intend to continue using my Digital Portfolio after this class is over mainly so that I have a platform to revisit my works and update with new projects.