MCLA First Year Experience ePortfolio Instructions · PDF fileMCLA First Year Experience ePortfolio Instructions 1 ... The Sample First Year Portfolio is a template, ... use this if

MCLA First Year Experience ePortfolio Instructions

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Display your personal and professional growth through technology. Map a path of success and achieve it step-by-step, documenting your achievements along the way. Gain a sense of accomplishment with

each new entry and use this vehicle to showcase your work and talents. Build, grow and assess your interests through reflections and tools using an e-portfolio system.


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Contents Log In ......................................................................................................................................................... 3

Understanding Your ePorfolio Homepage ................................................................................................ 4

Selecting a Portfolio and understanding the space .................................................................................. 5

The Header ............................................................................................................................................ 5

Sections ................................................................................................................................................. 6

Pages ......................................................................................................................................................... 6

Modules .................................................................................................................................................... 6

Basic ...................................................................................................................................................... 6

Social ..................................................................................................................................................... 6

Copy Portfolio ........................................................................................................................................... 7

Permissions ............................................................................................................................................... 8

Anatomy of the FYE portfolio ................................................................................................................... 9

Bio ......................................................................................................................................................... 9

Resume ..................................................................................................................................................... 9

Goals ..................................................................................................................................................... 9

First Days ............................................................................................................................................... 9

Community Reading .............................................................................................................................. 9

My First Year Experience Course .......................................................................................................... 9

Edit .......................................................................................................................................................... 10

Upload ..................................................................................................................................................... 11

File ....................................................................................................................................................... 11

Media/Gallery ..................................................................................................................................... 12

Add A Module ......................................................................................................................................... 13

Publish ..................................................................................................................................................... 13

Creating a PDF document in Word ......................................................................................................... 14

Digication Quick Start Guide ................................................................................................................... 14


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Log In Begin at our Campus Connection page (http://campus.mcla.edu) and look down the left hand side for the image Learning Portfolio button.

Login to Learning Portfolio on the campus connection site using your regular A# and password.

http://campus.mcla.edu/�

http://campus.mcla.edu/�

http://ssl.mcla.edu/portfolio�


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Understanding Your ePortfolio Homepage

a) The Quick Start Guide (pdf) is a fantastic resource for getting you up to speed with how to use the ePortfolio. You will find a copy of at the end of this document.

b) My e-Portfolios will list all the portfolios you have access to and are working on. In the example above, you should see that there is the Sample First Year Portfolio. This is the one you will be working on first.

c) You may have classes or be enrolled in departments/majors here at MCLA that will be asking you to submit information to Buckets. You will find these areas listed here.

What is a bucket? Buckets are assessment areas where

we collect artifacts (documents, reflections, pages of your portfolio) to

help MCLA assess how well we are doing when it comes to teaching,

learning and supporting student life.

https://mcla.digication.com/quickstart.pdf�


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Selecting a Portfolio and understanding the space

The Header

This area contains the primary navigation tools. You can switch between Edit and Publish. In Edit Mode you can add Modules and edit information that is already on the page. In Publish Mode you can see what the page would look like to a visitor on the web – in other words someone who isn’t logged in.

To the right, you can see Portfolio Tools. This space is very, very important and you will be using this button first in the next step.

The Portfolio Tools contains the following options:

Settings Basic Information including e-Portfolio Title, e-Portfolio Web Address, Contact Email and Categories. Visual Styles including your directory icon, your portfolio header and your footer. Permission Settings & Tagging this section includes information about who can see your portfolio.

Submit You will be asked to submit pages of your portfolio for different assessment areas. We will provide more information on this section, once the assessment areas are established.

Download Leaving MCLA and want to take a copy of your portfolio with you? Use the download option to copy your portfolio to your computer.

Make A Copy The Sample First Year Portfolio is a template, you will need to copy this portfolio before you can begin to customize it. You will find instructions on this tool on the on page X.

Delete Did you make an extra copy or did you create a new one but now want to delete the entire portfolio. Use this tool to do that. Please do not delete the Sample First Year Portfolio.


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Sections

The second level down is the Sections area. A portfolio may be made up of multiple sections, with multiple Pages in each section. Each page is made up of at least one, if not more modules.

You want to think of Sections as big content areas, like chapter titles. We’ve defined six sections for you, you are welcome to add more as you see fit, using the Add/Edit button.

Pages

Each section has at least one page. You can add multiple pages using the Add/Edit button. You can also use that tab to rearrange the order of the pages.

Modules You must have a module on a page, otherwise the page is blank. Add modules using the Add Module button. There are several types of modules that you can add.

Basic Image/Video/Audio – Use this to add one of these media types from your desktop

or link to one from the Web. If you are uploading an audio file, make sure you save it in a file format other people can hear, like mp3.

Rich Text – Use this to add an open text box where you can compose your thoughts. Within this you have the full option of editing tools (bold, italic, underline, left & right alignment). You can also use this to insert text and have that link to a .pdf document.

Gallery – Do you have a lot of images to upload and would you like to add a caption to each one? Add the Gallery module which will handle resizing and creating thumbnails. You cannot rotate an image once you’ve uploaded it, so you may need to rotate and save your images before you upload.

Contact Form – This module creates a nice, well formatted contact form that visitors can use to contact you.

Social Twitter – Do you tweet? Use this module to embed your Twitter feed.

Bookmarks – If you would like people to link to your page on Facebook, del.icio.us or one of the many social networking sites, add this module.


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Copy Portfolio

The next steps are crucial. The Sample First Year Experience Portfolio is a template. You should not edit this version, as any changes you make will modify the original. Please follow the instructions carefully.

Begin by going to Portfolio Tools and selecting Make A Copy.

The next screen will ask you for some information. We’d like to recommend the following settings.

Title: Your Name First Year Experience Web Address: use the first part of your MCLA email address, i.e. as1465 then FYE. You can use an _ (shift dash) to separate the two or not. You can not leave any spaces.

Select Go when you complete both fields. When you see this message, you will know you did it correctly.


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Permissions

Once you are in your new portfolio, you have full control over who can see your portfolio by going to Portfolio Tools -> Settings -> Permission Settings & Tagging.

a) Directory Listing We would like to encourage you to choose Yes, show in directory b) Permission Settings We would like you to choose Anybody (public) but if you don’t feel

comfortable with that, please choose Anybody at my school can view. When you have reviewed your permissions, go ahead and click Save.


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Anatomy of the FYE portfolio In this section, we’ll delve into the details of the FYE portfolio and the specific areas you need to work on and edit.

Bio Please introduce yourself to faculty, administrators, staff, and fellow students at MCLA. Take some time to think about how you will present yourself to our community.

Please upload an image or include some other form of visual media that you believe accurately depicts who you are. If you're adventurous, you can use this technology to embed a YouTube performance or a MP3 file.

Resume Do you already have a resume? If so, you can upload your resume. If you don't have a resume, here's your opportunity to create one. Career Services at MCLA recommends using OptimalResume™. Using your MCLA email address, you can get started at https://mcla.optimalresume.com/

Goals As you begin your college career you may be feeling overwhelmed with all the changes that are happening. What will it take to create the kind of life you want here at MCLA? What would you like to accomplish by the end of your first semester? Set a goal in each of the following areas: Academic, Co-curricular, and Personal. Then define a step that you can take to bring you closer to your goal.

First Days First Days offers a great opportunity for you to settle into MCLA and make connections with the campus community before you begin classes on September 8th. You will meet new friends and engage in a wide variety of academic and social experiences. We encourage record your experiences and upload images that showcase memorable moments - a view from the top of Mt. Greylock, pictures from a community service event, meeting your First Year Experience instructor, attending Convocation, singing Karaoke or anything else! Be sure to post photos, video, and/or reflections that tell us what First Days meant to you.

Community Reading Use this space to take notes, reflect, ask questions, or make comments as you complete the reading. You can use this as a blog or link to a Twitter feed of your tweets about the readings.

My First Year Experience Course This space will be used for posting the FYE course assignment related to the community reading and October 19th event with Laura Ling.

This is your canvas, be creative! In addition to the basics,

consider including brief reflections on a moment that defined you, an achievement of which you are

especially proud, an activity that gives you great satisfaction

https://mcla.optimalresume.com/�


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Edit

To begin editing, you will need to click on Edit. All Rich Text Modules have the same editing box.

The following is a list of the basic buttons you will be using. Not all are included here. If you want more information, hover over a button and it will tell you what the button does. The Insert File and Insert Media buttons will be covered later in this document. After making changes, always click the save button.

1 Undo – This undoes your most recent action, Redo – This restores the action 2 Paste From Word – use this if you wrote your document in Microsoft Word, as it clears away the

Word formatting. 3 Left, Center, Right Align, Justify Text 4 Insert File, Insert Media 5 Insert Table 6 Change Color 7 Change Font Style 8 Change Font Size 9 Bold, Italic, Underlined, Strikethrough 10 Bullets & Numbers 11 Indent 12 Insert A Link 13 Spell Check – Very Important


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Upload You may be typing in most of your content, but there may be occasions when you want to upload a document or file, or link to media already on the web. Maybe you want to upload a full photo album. These instructions will help you with each of these tasks.

File In order to upload a file, you must begin by typing a word that the file can link to. In this case, type in Here is a copy of my resume. Then you can click on the Insert File button.

Browse your local computer for the file, just like you would browse if you were searching for a photo to upload to Facebook. When you are done, click Insert. We strongly recommend you only upload .pdf files, not Word files. Not sure how to save your document as .pdf? See the instructions at the end of this document.


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Media/Gallery You can insert media in two ways, the first is from your computer, again just like you would for Facebook.

Or you can insert media from the web. There are a number of different sites you can use, we’ll use YouTube in this example.

Go to the YouTube video you want to include, and find the embed code. It will look something like this:

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/v62yDk06TO4&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/v62yDk06TO4&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

Copy & Paste that code into the Embed Box. Do not paste the URL as it won’t work!

Insert and it should appear on your page.


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Add A Module If would like to add more modules to a page, maybe add a video or a photo gallery, you can use the Add Module button. You will be presented with a list of choices, all of which were covered on page 6 of this guide. We haven’t found a limit to the number of modules you can add, but try not to go overboard.

Publish When you are satisfied with all your changes, make sure you select Publish. You will need to publish all changes on each of your pages or else they won’t be available to the public.

Once you click the Publish All Changes button you will get a confirmation message.

Go back to the Published mode to see the site as visitors from the outside would see it.

Feel free to go back and continue to work on this portfolio as often as you want.


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Creating a PDF document in Word 1. Click the Microsoft Office Button, point to the arrow next to Save As, and then click PDF or XPS.

2. In the File Name list, type or select a name for the document.

3. In the Save as type list, click PDF.

4. If you want to open the file immediately after saving it, select the Open file after publishing check box. This check box is available only if you have a PDF reader installed on your computer.

5. Next to Optimize for, do one of the following, depending on whether file size or print quality is more important to you:

If the document requires high print quality, click Standard (publishing online and printing).

If the print quality is less important than file size, click Minimum size (publishing online). .

6. Click Publish.

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What is Digication? Digication is an online e-Portfolio tool for showcasing work and achievements. Digication makes it easy for teachers and students to create and share e-Portfolios.

Log in to Digication. Go to your school's Digication website, fill in the username and password, and click on ‘Sign In’. Your username is usually your school email address. If you can’t remember your password, click on the link that says ‘Forgot your password? Click here.’ and put in your email address. You will get an email with reset password directions.

Create Your e-Portfolio Once logged in, you will come to your Dashboard, a page that lists everything you have on Digication – a Calendar, e-Portfolios, Courses, and Communities. To create a new e-Portfolio, under ‘My e-Portfolios’ click the ‘Create’ button. Choose an e-Portfolio Title and Web Address. Remember that web address can only contain letters and numbers. The other options allow you to customize information about your portfolio. Remember, you can always come back and edit these fields by clicking the ‘Portfolio Settings’ tab. When you’re ready, click the ‘Submit’ button.

Edit Your e-PortfolioLet’s get familiar with the structure of the e-Portfolio editing page. When you are logged in and view your portfolio, you first see it in Edit Mode. The tabs along the top of the page let you switch viewing modes. The ‘Preview’ tab lets you preview your changes as you are editing. The ‘Published’ tab shows you the published version of your portfolio – what your e-Portfolio visitors see.

Organize Your e-Portfolio Using Sections and PagesWhat sections would you like to add to best represent the topics of your e-Portfolio? Then within each section, what pages will be needed to best categorize your content? These sections and pages can be modified later if needed. You just need an initial structure to get you started. Also keep in mind that you can create more than one e-Portfolio with your account so

you do not need to fit all your projects or content in one e-Portfolio.

Add Sections & PagesIn the ‘View Sections’ area, click on the ‘Add/Edit’ tab. To add sections, click on the ‘Add Section’ button on the right side.Type in the section name and then hit the ‘Save’ button. To reorder sections, make sure you are in the ‘Add/Edit’ tab, simply drag and drop the sections. . To add pages, click on ‘Add/Edit’ tab next to ‘View Pages’ area. The rest of the process is identical to adding sections.

Digication Modules

You can use built in modules to build content rich pages easily.Rich media supportYou can upload images in just about any formats, and we automatically put it into web friendly format and resize it appropriately for you. Upload multiple files at onceYou can upload multiple files in one click. You no longer need to upload files one at a time!Create links easilyYou can create links easily just by pasting in a web address. We automatically recognize them and make them work.Integrate with other servicesYou can embed videos from Youtube, Google Video, TeacherTube, SchoolTube, Photobucket, Brightcove directly into your page. Your viewers will not need to leave your page to play back videos.

System Requirement• Internet Access • Internet Explorer 7+• Firefox 2+• Safari 3+• Latest Adobe Flash player

Add ContentTo add or edit content within your e-Portfolio, highlight a section and a page within your e-Portfolio where you want to add or edit content. Click on the button ‘Add A Module’ to add content.

‘Choose A Template (Pre-Built Modules)’ have a combination of modules that make up a template. Either selection will allow you options for designing the layout of your content. Try them all!

You can create multiple modules on the same page. Take a minute to look at the variety of layouts that are possible and choose the one that will represent your work the best.

Upon clicking ‘Done’, the page will automatically scroll to the module that

you just created. You can add more by clicking on ‘Add A Module’ again.

Each module has tabs across the top:

View (Media or Text) is a preview of what your viewers will see including your unpublished changes.

Edit is where you can add / edit content, upload files, and create links.

Publish is where you can publish a specific module to your viewers. If you have multiple modules in a page that needs to be published at the same time, you can use ‘Publish All’ above all modules.

Delete allows you to delete the module from the page.

Drag to reorder allow you to reorder modules on a page.

Need More Help? Or have a great suggestion?Email us: [email protected]

Call us:1-888-342-DIGI (3444)

Remember to Publish when You’re Done!You can now see what your viewers see by clicking on the ‘Publish’ tab.

Comments & TagsYou can decide on a per page basis whether you want others to give you feedback via comments and tags.

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Documents

MCLA First Year Experience ePortfolio Instructions · PDF fileMCLA First Year Experience ePortfolio Instructions 1 ... The Sample First Year Portfolio is a template, ... use this if