updated 12/6/09

MAKE SURE TO "REFRESH" PAGE EACH TIME YOU OPEN IT

"Only connect! . . .Live in fragments no longer.Ó  E. M. Forster, Howards End (1910), ch. 22

ÔOne day when I was twenty-three or twenty-four this sentence seemed to form in my head, without my willing it, much as sentences form when we are half-asleep, ÔHammer your thoughts into unityÕ. For days I could think of nothing else and for years I tested all I did by that sentence [...]Ó William Butler Yeats (cited in Frank Tuohy, Yeats, 1976, p.51 )

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Turning the Initial Website into the Portfolio "the easy way."

First of all, now that you have an idea of the assignment, you may wish to switch to Dreamweaver, iWeb, or Publisher. Only Dreamweaver makes it easy to make changes: so that would be my first choice.

Now that you have the first few links on your website working, in the future you can change the hyperlinks so that they have what are called "hard" as opposed to "relative" links. (However, the only way to test your portfolio using this method is to bring it to my office so that I can upload it to your website, thus activating these URLs.)

To see what the "hard" link looks like go to your course website where the student websites are listed. Go to your website. Select "Website" and the index file appears. Select "Project One" or whatever it is called. When project one appears, look up at the top of the browser. You will see the complete URL. In the case of, say, 30209, Karen's first project URL is

http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/30209/web/Karen/website/P1/project%201.htm

Now you see that the "hard" hyperlink address for all such websites, including yours, is

http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/30209/web/

Returning to your index file creation program, you open up your index file and then replace your hyperlinks that do not work with this URL, adding on the equivalent of your name, as it appears in the directory, and "website" if that is the folder name in your directory. So the result for the beginning of a new link would be something like

http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/30209/web/[your name here]/website/

You can use this technique for the creation of new hyperlinks as well for, say, TM Forms, Road Map movie, Road Map picture, Type DB entry, 9-1 Quiz, P1, Reviews of Your P1, Reviews of Others' P1, and P2,.........

Now, of course, you create a new text for a link to, say, a folder called "TM Forms," and your hyperlink is something like

http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/30209/web/[your name here]/website/TM Forms/

Remembering that "TM Forms" is a folder on your jump drive containing the forms, you complete the hyperlink to the first form, titled, say, "Form1.html" with this result:

http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/30209/web/[your name here]/website/TM Forms/Form1.html

However, before you begin making hyperlinks such as this you need to organize your jump drive into folders for all the categories that have more than one item in them, such as TM Forms, pictures and videos, DB entries, Quizzes, Projects (including subfolders for reviews of your projects and your reviews of others), etc.

 

 

The Portfolio

 

REQUIREMENTS

1. First requirement: Your portfolio WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED and will be given a grade of -140 IF THERE ANY LINKS TO THE WEB, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE LINKS TO OUR COURSE WEBSITE and links to videos that can not be seen in any other way.

There is a simple way to find out if you have links to the web that will make your portfolio unacceptable. Take your jump drive (with your complete portfolio on it) to someone else's computer. Disconnect that computer from the internet: turn off the wireless, remove the ethernet cable, etc. Now open up a browser on that computer and go to "open file" and open the index file on your jump drive. Notice what works and what does not work. The only features that should not work are the links to the course website or to the location of video files. If your blogs don't work because they are linked to Facebook, or your project pictures don't appear because they are hyperlinks rather than picture files, or whatever, your portfolio is unacceptable. Your need to replace those hyperlinks to Facebook or whatever with links to files on your jump drive.

So, first, collect and/or create all your files. Complete files are required for blogs; critiques; pictures that are not on our website; etc. All files, except video files, must be on the jump drive and linked to the index. Hyperlinks to files on blogger.com, wordpress.com, Blackboard, Facebook, etc. will mean the portfolio is not acceptable.

To avoid such links, when you go back to blogger.com and view your blog in, say, Firefox, go to "File" and then select "Save Page As" and then "Web Page Complete." The result should be an html file* and an accompanying folder of image files (the same kind of result as choosing "Save as Web Page" for a Word document). The resulting html file AND the folder of images must be put on your jump drive. The exceptions are video and flash files, which must link back to YouTube or whatever.

If you have the html files in your jump drive, but not the folders of images to go with them, when your html file is selected, the computer begins linking back to blogspot.com., making the whole portfolio unacceptable.

 

*If you try to save the page and it will only be saved as php rather than an html file let me know.

2. Second requirement:You can not include files that an internet browser such as Firefox can not display in the browser itself, such as files ending in .doc, .docx, .rtf, .txt, .pdf, .mht, .zip, .sitx, etc. If you do, your portfolio WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED and will be given a grade of -140.

3. Third requirement: WORKING INDEX FILES, such as the one you made for the Website grade, with every link to at least nine categories working properly, or -140.

How index files work. Index files are the preferred way to write your portfolio or website. The internet is set up so that when a folder (directory) is selected, the internet automatically looks for a file named index.htm or index.html. When such a file is found it is automatically activated. When you revise an index file, I just upload the new one onto the old one and the old one is replaced with the new one. So your main file is index.htm and it links to various folders each containing their own index.htm files. As long as you keep these index files in their respective folders there should be no problem confusing them. So don't start adding numbers or letters to your index files, as in indexa.htm or index2.htm. The internet does not recognize these files automatically and the more times you do this the more confusing your website becomes.

 

WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? 

To put together all that you have done in this class in one place, thereby hammering your thoughts into unity.

To make a portfolio for applications, letters of recommendation, etc.

To activate the right side of your brain: see Role of Class Pictures in the Course

Electronic Portfolios from E603A Freshman Last Year:

the two highest scoring portfolios (130-140):Mary Tyler

our example of the minimum, no points for visual impact: Russ

 

RECOMMENDED PROCEDURE

 

1.a. Find the files you need that are already on the course website. It is probably easier to hyperlink to these files than putting them on your jump drive. However, if you do connect to a website file or image, the link must be the full URL for each file you use, as in

http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/30209/images/maps/Allison.jpg

Some links to files on our course websites

Your websites, which include your road maps, projects, :

http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/30209/web/

pictures and movies:

http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/30209/images/

1.b. In the case of images on Facebook, if there is no alternative image on our website, copy the Facebook image on to your jump drive. The easiest way is drag and drop.

 

2. Once you have collected all your materials, return to the jump drive where you have your website index file and project folders. ( I am assuming that your jump drive is big enough to hold all your files, and I am assuming you were able to create the website index file according to the directions. If not, you need to go back to the original website directions and keep trying until you get it right.)

Now, inside the folder you named WEBSITE  or whatever, in addition to the folders you created for P1 and P2, create and name more folders for your other categories: say, a folder named DB for Discussion Board entries, one named PR for Project Reviews, one named IC for In-Class Writing, one named Pics for Images, one named M for Miscellaneous, etc.

2. Put all the files you are going to use into the relevant folders. (The files you are going to use on the course website will be hyperlinked in the index file.)

3. Now make index files for each new folder, putting in the name of the item, and connecting to every file in the folder. Put the items in the order specified in the checklist below. For example, name the DB files with date and subject and put the DB files in the chronological order specified below.

4. Now open your original index.htm or index.html file and type in the names of your new categories/folders next to the P1 and P2 folder names.

5. Now create hyperlinks to the index files in the new folders the same way you created hyperlinks to the index files in P1 and P2.*

*If your links don't work on other computers, make sure you are not putting a / in front of your initial folder or file name. In other words, let's say you have added a folder called "images" to your basic folder called "website" or whatever. Then you add the line "images" to your index file and create the hyperlink for it.  When your program asks you to supply the link you simply put in "images/" but not "/images" or "/images/" If you are writing the html code directly in Notepad or Textedit or a word processor using the "Text Only" option you would write the code this way:

<a href="images/">images</a>

IMPROVING THE VISUAL APPEARANCE OF YOUR PORTFOLIO.

1. IF YOU HAVE ALREADY MADE A PORTFOLIO IN THE SIMPLE WAY RECOMMENDED ABOVE and want to improve the visual appearance, you may consider making another version (after you have saved your first version somewhere safe as a backup option).

1.a. If you have Publisher on your PC, this may work for you. Some students have success with this program, such as these two Freshmen: MARY BETH and AUSTYN

 1.b. the iWeb option, for Mac users. Some examples:   TYLER    and SAMANTHA

Samantha: "for mac users, iweb is pretty handy. You can copy and paste your blogs into it, as well as make new pages for your site which can be p1, p2, photos, etc. The mac tutorial on iweb explains everything pretty clearly and I didn't think it was too hard to figure out. Then once everything is in your site, you can choose the 'publish to folder' option which creates the website folder on your jump drive with an index and everything (the index is a separate file, so don't forget to look for it)."

 

2. How to increase the visual impact of the whole portfolio without using a new program, or in addition to using one.

2.a. First of all, meet the requirements: make sure your images folder includes at least two class pictures in which you appear and all pictures* and videos of four or fewer people in which you appear, whether the pictures and videos are on our website (and its subdirectories) or were in Facebook. *If you have more than ten such pictures, just choose the best ten.             Just link to the .jpg file itself to show an individual picture.

2.b. Secondly, choose some images to increase the visual impact of your various htm files. For this purpose, you want the pictures themselves to appear on their own, not as links which must then be selected by the reader. To make them appear in this way use the "insert image" command in your program or go to the html code itself and insert the the code <img src= "hyperlink">, as in

<img src="http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/379N/images/India%20Day/Pond1.jpg" >

2.c. Thirdly, you might consider using some background images, as long as you can still read the text against the background image. In Dreamweaver, you would go to "Modify" and then "Page Properties" to insert the URL of the image. An alternative is to go the code itself and then insert the following code right below </head><body background="URL"> as in

 <body background="http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/%7Ebump/images/BevoSky1024x768.jpg">

checklist

Reminder: You can not include files that an internet browser such as Firefox can not display in the browser itself. Files ending in .doc, .docx, .rtf, .txt, .pdf, .mht, .zip, .sitx, etc. are prohibited.

 ______Visual impact of the whole portfolio: 45 points.

Includes presentation of all pictures and videos of four or fewer people in which you appear, whether the pictures and videos are on our website (and its subdirectories) or were in Facebook. *If you have more than ten such pictures, just choose the best ten.

You must also include at least two class pictures in which you appear.

Just link to the .jpg file itself to show an individual picture.

-4 FOR EACH PICTURE OR VIDEO MISSING.

The visual presentation grade will be low if you do not supply captions or simply put all the photos in a folder somewhere with no order or organization instead of organizing them chronologically or in some other way and selecting some to show up where appropriate in the portfolio. Also, for maximum credit, some of the pictures themselves will appear on their own, not as links which must then be selected by the reader.

 _______Index file with working links to at least nine of the categories below or -140

_______Very Detailed index file links: every individual item with its own working link on an index page (not necessarily the first index page).(Up to 10 extra points.)

Projects: clean copies, no highlighting unless specified, color pictures, only htm or html files.

______ Road Map (8)

______ Projects P1 and P2  REQUIRED or -140

______Reviews of your project 1 by others (1 X 5)

______Reviews of your project 2 by others (1 X 5)

______ Your reviews of othersÕ first projects (1 X 5)

______ Your reviews of othersÕ second projects (1 X 5)

_____  Discussion Board contributions, with images,

in this order points [10X4 = 40]: 9-8 Your "Type"; 9-24 Leadership; 9-29 The Idea of a University; 10-6 Alice 1; 10-22 Covey; 10-27 Alice 2; 11-3 Racism; 11-5 Slavery; 11-10 Compassion; 12-1 Dobie;

. (For a good example of how to include all your DB entries in a web portfolio see Franzi and some of the websites listed above.)

____  In Class Writing Exercises (2X4.5=9): 9-22 Woodruff lecture notes; 10-13 Harry Ransom Center;

_____ Quizzes: (12X1=12) 9-1 Course Goals+Flunking out of College;9-24 Leadership; 9-29 The Idea of a University; 10-6 Alice 1; 10-22 Covey; 10-27 Alice 2; 11-3 Racism; 11-5 Slavery;11-10 Compassion; Punctuation; Listening; 12-1 Dobie;

____  TM Forms (3X2=6)

____  Optional DBs such as Heroes, Earthlings; Blanton;

____  Leadership Lesson Plans, if any

_____ Extra Credit: Ranch party nature writing, etc.

_________Total number of points for portfolio (140 maximum)

_________ Total number of points in course


Grades: To get a B on the portfolio you need to meet all the basic requirements almost perfectly, including detailed table of contents/indexing and linking.

Grades: to get an A on you need to go beyond that to an achievement in visual rhetoric. Think of this as a portfolio you will be citing in an application to an architectural or leadership magazine, seeking employment in competition with many others. You would be well advised to have it all typed in one way or another, perfectly proofread, illustrated, etc. and very professional in appearance.

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