Looking back, even though I didn't always realise it at the time, I've spent much of the last 20 years exploring the potential of digital portfolios across a surprisingly wide range of formats and projects including:
• the original Mapper and 101 series for TAG
• Apple's Portfolio Builder for primary schools
• TagTeacherNet and Creating Spaces online profiles
• Walkers Showcase online gallery
• MAPS ICT online assessment portfolios
• e-scape storyboard assessment
With all this experience to hand, when I was recently asked for a copy of my formal CV I found the process of constructing a paper based version extraordinarily challenging. Once I had collected everything together I realised that, although impressive, viewing the outcomes of my work in linear isolation, as a series of disconnected lists of ‘bits’, does not in any way portray my achievements as I perceive them. Nor, more alarmingly, do I feel that this would give potential colleagues, partners or employers much of an idea of my true worth or capability.
For me, it is not the bits that are important, they are just the raw material, a much clearer picture of my potential is revealed by the connections and the dynamics of the journeys I have been on as I have explored how everything joins together. Documenting these journeys and interconnections in the form of a linear, list based, paper CV is either clumsy - requiring lots of repetition or a significant cross referencing system, or long-winded – becoming more like an auto biography than a succinct record. The challenge of containing and representing a portfolio is much better suited to the form of an interactive digital database, where individual bits of information can be stored invisibly and then grouped and re-grouped automatically, to be presented to the viewer in a range of different arrangements, depending on the context of their enquiry.
Forced to confront the need for a formal CV and inspired by my recent work with pupils to capture snapshots of their progress using photographic storyboards, project timelines and adaptable origami workbooks, I have applied these experiences to develop a series of more interactive, integrated formats for my CV. I have tried versions using a range of educational software tools including:
• an AppleWorks database
• a HyperStudio multimedia presentation
• a Timeliner timeline (offline Dandelife for kids)
• and an Inspiration topic web.
I want my profile to look like it's mine, it needs to carry my aesthetic rather than package me inside someone else's corporate wrapper. But it also needs to take advantage of the new metaphors and possibilities presented by online digital systems. I think 10x10 and Thinkmap's Visual Thesaurus have real possibilities but as neither have simple authoring systems I have not got round to fiddling about to see what the real possibilities are.
I was inspired by Tyler Morgans photographic interface in his rtm86 site and also found a bunch of interesting interactive pinboards in Flickr. I spent some time fiddling around with photographic interfaces for my own CV based on collecting, arranging and photographing relevant stuff which I could convert to hyperlinked button in a range of different 3D interface styles. I tried:
• pinning stuff on noticeboards
• collections of desktop clutter
• piles of photos
• dangling mobiles (which I planned to animate)
• iced biscuits, beans and other food stuff
Fundamentally my CV is a database and realising that probably the most popular database at the moment is Apple's i-tunes, which not only copes with sound files, videos and pdfs, but also has tagging and smart folders to help navigate the information, I have converted and re-tagged my stuff to try to squeeze it into the existing i-tunes format. It sort of works on my computer, but gets lost in my collection of songs. I have downloaded a copy of Libra which lets me work with multiple i-tunes libraries but even then the headings are wrong, and if I want to share it with someone else I am not sure how to export my smart folders and other settings. I have suggested to Apple that they need to explore the educational e-portfolio potential of i-tunes but they are not interested (or already working on it!)
The pressure was on for me to present a "traditional" printed CV and in the end I compromised and created a visual storyline, which I organised as a timeline using postage stamp icons for each of the most important events. I divided the timeline into the following thematic strands:
• awards
• reports
• publications
• products
• promoting
• digital
• performing
• influences
• capabilities
It is very much a work in progress and even though I was working to a deadline I managed to get sufficient content in to feel confident that it told a sufficiently rich story of my life to present it as (part of!) my CV. (I chickened out and included a text based version as well) The really interesting thing about the visual version is that by putting everything together on one page you start to look for connections, in a way that you don't with a linear text based document. The really time consuming bit was not collecting and formatting the images, but deciding how to organise and group them.
And then came dandelife, which I stumbled over on the go2web2.0 site. Intrigued I fiddled with it and found it fitted nicely with my previous Timeliner experiments and my storyline CV. I have now started to populate my dandelife-line with a selection of different types of material so I can see what's possible, and share with others a more tangible example of what a dynamic version of my data-driven CV might look like...
• the original Mapper and 101 series for TAG
• Apple's Portfolio Builder for primary schools
• TagTeacherNet and Creating Spaces online profiles
• Walkers Showcase online gallery
• MAPS ICT online assessment portfolios
• e-scape storyboard assessment
With all this experience to hand, when I was recently asked for a copy of my formal CV I found the process of constructing a paper based version extraordinarily challenging. Once I had collected everything together I realised that, although impressive, viewing the outcomes of my work in linear isolation, as a series of disconnected lists of ‘bits’, does not in any way portray my achievements as I perceive them. Nor, more alarmingly, do I feel that this would give potential colleagues, partners or employers much of an idea of my true worth or capability.
For me, it is not the bits that are important, they are just the raw material, a much clearer picture of my potential is revealed by the connections and the dynamics of the journeys I have been on as I have explored how everything joins together. Documenting these journeys and interconnections in the form of a linear, list based, paper CV is either clumsy - requiring lots of repetition or a significant cross referencing system, or long-winded – becoming more like an auto biography than a succinct record. The challenge of containing and representing a portfolio is much better suited to the form of an interactive digital database, where individual bits of information can be stored invisibly and then grouped and re-grouped automatically, to be presented to the viewer in a range of different arrangements, depending on the context of their enquiry.
Forced to confront the need for a formal CV and inspired by my recent work with pupils to capture snapshots of their progress using photographic storyboards, project timelines and adaptable origami workbooks, I have applied these experiences to develop a series of more interactive, integrated formats for my CV. I have tried versions using a range of educational software tools including:
• an AppleWorks database
• a HyperStudio multimedia presentation
• a Timeliner timeline (offline Dandelife for kids)
• and an Inspiration topic web.
I want my profile to look like it's mine, it needs to carry my aesthetic rather than package me inside someone else's corporate wrapper. But it also needs to take advantage of the new metaphors and possibilities presented by online digital systems. I think 10x10 and Thinkmap's Visual Thesaurus have real possibilities but as neither have simple authoring systems I have not got round to fiddling about to see what the real possibilities are.
I was inspired by Tyler Morgans photographic interface in his rtm86 site and also found a bunch of interesting interactive pinboards in Flickr. I spent some time fiddling around with photographic interfaces for my own CV based on collecting, arranging and photographing relevant stuff which I could convert to hyperlinked button in a range of different 3D interface styles. I tried:
• pinning stuff on noticeboards
• collections of desktop clutter
• piles of photos
• dangling mobiles (which I planned to animate)
• iced biscuits, beans and other food stuff
Fundamentally my CV is a database and realising that probably the most popular database at the moment is Apple's i-tunes, which not only copes with sound files, videos and pdfs, but also has tagging and smart folders to help navigate the information, I have converted and re-tagged my stuff to try to squeeze it into the existing i-tunes format. It sort of works on my computer, but gets lost in my collection of songs. I have downloaded a copy of Libra which lets me work with multiple i-tunes libraries but even then the headings are wrong, and if I want to share it with someone else I am not sure how to export my smart folders and other settings. I have suggested to Apple that they need to explore the educational e-portfolio potential of i-tunes but they are not interested (or already working on it!)
The pressure was on for me to present a "traditional" printed CV and in the end I compromised and created a visual storyline, which I organised as a timeline using postage stamp icons for each of the most important events. I divided the timeline into the following thematic strands:
• awards
• reports
• publications
• products
• promoting
• digital
• performing
• influences
• capabilities
It is very much a work in progress and even though I was working to a deadline I managed to get sufficient content in to feel confident that it told a sufficiently rich story of my life to present it as (part of!) my CV. (I chickened out and included a text based version as well) The really interesting thing about the visual version is that by putting everything together on one page you start to look for connections, in a way that you don't with a linear text based document. The really time consuming bit was not collecting and formatting the images, but deciding how to organise and group them.
And then came dandelife, which I stumbled over on the go2web2.0 site. Intrigued I fiddled with it and found it fitted nicely with my previous Timeliner experiments and my storyline CV. I have now started to populate my dandelife-line with a selection of different types of material so I can see what's possible, and share with others a more tangible example of what a dynamic version of my data-driven CV might look like...
my first try at a web CV
my Creating Spaces CV
my TagTeacherNet CV
my AppleWorks database CV
my i-tunes CV
my noticeboard CV...
my desktop CV interface
my Palm desktop CV...
my iced biscuit CV...
my toast and beans CV...
my web CV
my web CV roles
my web CV logo designs
my web CV digital role...
my web CV influences
my photo CV interface
my 10x10 CV
my CV matrix
my storyline CV cover
my storyline CV
