Branding Redux: The E-Portfolio
I read a very insightful article in The Chronicle of Higher Education this week (see here). The article discussed the importance of creating an e-portfolio, especially if you are a graduate student on the market. I think the concept of the e-portfolio is very timely and if done right they can say a lot about the candidate and their pedagogical stance.
Creating a web presence that is not dictated by others is of the utmost importance in the age of Google. If you are Googling yourself and the first hits that appear are not something that you yourself created that is problematic. You wouldn't want someone else to go into the interview for you, so why would you let the internet dictate your brand, who you are as a teacher or as a researcher. This is of both ethical and pedagogical importance.
David Brooks's article was just the motivation I needed to tweak a few things on this blog. I know I am still using a blogspot, and not a WordPress site, but again this relates to the perpetual dichotomy found in academia. Like the tensions between colleges and universities, the hierarchies of blogging platforms are also culturally created. The blogspot has gone through stages of being innovative and at times regressive and tacky, but with the advent of Google+, I like how everything can be filtered through one meta-program. (Yes the Orwellian aspect of Google knowing everything and having access to all my information, all the time, has not escaped me. I am perpetually weighing the financial reality of free vs the ethical implications of who owns my ideas)
E-portfolios can serve to catch-all of the many selves that we have floating around the web. Since I am very much into the pedagogical value of diagrams at the moment, this represents what an e-portfolio can do:
I will be adding to this in the near future: linking to teaching resources/courses I have created, my teaching philosophy statement, etc. My hope is that my friends and colleagues will take this as an opportunity to think about how they can relate their own research and pedagogy on the web.
Creating a web presence that is not dictated by others is of the utmost importance in the age of Google. If you are Googling yourself and the first hits that appear are not something that you yourself created that is problematic. You wouldn't want someone else to go into the interview for you, so why would you let the internet dictate your brand, who you are as a teacher or as a researcher. This is of both ethical and pedagogical importance.
David Brooks's article was just the motivation I needed to tweak a few things on this blog. I know I am still using a blogspot, and not a WordPress site, but again this relates to the perpetual dichotomy found in academia. Like the tensions between colleges and universities, the hierarchies of blogging platforms are also culturally created. The blogspot has gone through stages of being innovative and at times regressive and tacky, but with the advent of Google+, I like how everything can be filtered through one meta-program. (Yes the Orwellian aspect of Google knowing everything and having access to all my information, all the time, has not escaped me. I am perpetually weighing the financial reality of free vs the ethical implications of who owns my ideas)
E-portfolios can serve to catch-all of the many selves that we have floating around the web. Since I am very much into the pedagogical value of diagrams at the moment, this represents what an e-portfolio can do:
I will be adding to this in the near future: linking to teaching resources/courses I have created, my teaching philosophy statement, etc. My hope is that my friends and colleagues will take this as an opportunity to think about how they can relate their own research and pedagogy on the web.
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