Working on customizing the e-portfolio has honestly been one big giant headache. Not being familiar with the platform has caused me to time and time again start over. The first problem I encountered, was not being able to match the way I imagined my academic platform to the limited themes that were to choose from. I found it frustrating to begin the process so late and only have such a limited amount of time to come up with a vision. I was hard to figure out what was best for a project when I did not have a great direction of how exactly I wanted the project to look.
This experience not only frustrated me but challenged me due to the fact that customizing the chosen theme did not come with exactly instructions on how exactly to change the header. The easiest part of the customization process was choosing plug-ins and enabling widgets. The rest of the process strongly needed a tech or someone who was knowledgeable of to maximize the allowances of the platform.
The over all design and concept has taken some shape of my E-portfolio is still under construction. I am still having a hard time editing and customizing the attributes of my chosen theme, however I do believe that my chosen theme fits the concept of my project. I hope to keep editing and building this to completely fit the project and all it encompasses.
Mariah, I definitely hear you that learning how to customize a platform can be challenging at times, but we’ve been working with OpenLab for quite some time now, and we’re starting this back-end process six weeks out so you have plenty of time for the designing / building out of ePortfolio. This phase, this past week, as we discussed in class, is exploratory, which is what you should focus on here (your experimentation). Did you consult the comprehensive Help section on the OpenLab (e.g., here’s info. on how to change your site’s header: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/blog/help/changing-your-sites-header-image/)? Did you make use of the OpenLab resources available to you (workshops, office hours, email support), the ePortfolio lab (on 6th floor), or my office hours? What are you trying to achieve? Let your goals for the ePortfolio (and your project) drive your design / content of the site. I’m happy to discuss any / all of this work with you at any point (if the Help section doesn’t answer your questions, bring them to me!).
You mention plugins / widgets? What plugins did you explore (choose to activate / play around with)? What functionality do you want to have?
You mention that the “chosen theme fits the concept of my project.” What is your chosen theme? How is it aligned with your project?
Please revise this post to describe / reflect on your choices, as you will be presenting this in class tomorrow. The reflection should also include a bit about how the one section of content you added: the “about me” page. Can you revise (add) to discuss how you chose to present yourself online in that section? That’s something you’ll take us through tomorrow in class as well.