Showing posts with label Carbonmade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carbonmade. Show all posts
Friday, 12 April 2019
Five curricular changes to consider when teaching visual arts e-portfolios
Written for visual arts and design teachers who teach their students e-portfolio curation.
'Young black women curate visual arts e-portfolios: negotiating digital disciplined identities, infrastructural inequality and public visibility' was recently accepted subject to changes for a special issue of the Learning Media and Technology journal. Contributions whose perspectives challenge 'universal technological solutionism' were invited for the forthcoming 'Global technologies, Local Practices: redefining digital education with marginalised voices'.
My contribution foregrounded the key challenges that three young black women faced in creatively appropriating online portfolio software for showcase e-portfolio production. Each student had to negotiate (i) cultural and technical forms of exclusion, (ii) visibility versus privacy concerns and (iii) different forms of digital infrastructural inequalities. To reach the journal's 6,000 word limit for articles, I cut mine's initial visual arts e-portfolio curriculum recommendations, but cited this post. I trust its readers will find the recommendations below helpful, whether for reworking the visual arts showcase e-portfolio curriculum or refining similar curricula. Such changes may better accommodate young visual artists’ varied circumstances and creative aspirations:
Recommended changes when teaching visual arts e-portfolios
+1 > Provide examples of privacy protection that can address visibility risks
+2 > Accommodate the roles in creative industry and digital identities that young people explore
Taken together, the case studies suggested a broader need for a more inclusive visual arts syllabus. South African visual arts pedagogy largely ignores the many and varied types of genres in visual culture that students may participate in. Despite affinity spaces in youth-, do-it-yourself and ethnic cultures potentially being valuable resources for young people's e-portfolio personas and projects, students reported exercising self-presentation strategies that hid participation in "unofficial", "illegitimate" genres. There was a missed pedagogical opportunity for challenging cultural exclusion and supporting greater e-portfolio differentiation by including teens' informal cultural interests.
I trust these five suggestions will help teachers of visual creative e-portfolios to better accommodate young people’s different circumstances, repertoires and creative aspirations.
'Young black women curate visual arts e-portfolios: negotiating digital disciplined identities, infrastructural inequality and public visibility' was recently accepted subject to changes for a special issue of the Learning Media and Technology journal. Contributions whose perspectives challenge 'universal technological solutionism' were invited for the forthcoming 'Global technologies, Local Practices: redefining digital education with marginalised voices'.
My contribution foregrounded the key challenges that three young black women faced in creatively appropriating online portfolio software for showcase e-portfolio production. Each student had to negotiate (i) cultural and technical forms of exclusion, (ii) visibility versus privacy concerns and (iii) different forms of digital infrastructural inequalities. To reach the journal's 6,000 word limit for articles, I cut mine's initial visual arts e-portfolio curriculum recommendations, but cited this post. I trust its readers will find the recommendations below helpful, whether for reworking the visual arts showcase e-portfolio curriculum or refining similar curricula. Such changes may better accommodate young visual artists’ varied circumstances and creative aspirations:
Recommended changes when teaching visual arts e-portfolios
+1 > Provide examples of privacy protection that can address visibility risks
"Lesley Ann", "Melissa" and "Dina" all chose not to use their full first and last names for minimising risks of sexual harassment. Such measures were often not sufficient, since their full names were shown in their email addresses. E-portfolio curricula must guide students appropriately on how to protect their privacy by not sharing genuine identities. For example, a curriculum could include reflection of the potential negative consequence of presenting one's legal identity online, versus assuming that using one's genuine identity and legal name, as "the ('Modern gallery') artist" must be the norm. Alternative self-presentation strategies should be taught, particularly where vulnerable individuals would benefit from privacy protection.
+2 > Accommodate the roles in creative industry and digital identities that young people explore
Taken together, the case studies suggested a broader need for a more inclusive visual arts syllabus. South African visual arts pedagogy largely ignores the many and varied types of genres in visual culture that students may participate in. Despite affinity spaces in youth-, do-it-yourself and ethnic cultures potentially being valuable resources for young people's e-portfolio personas and projects, students reported exercising self-presentation strategies that hid participation in "unofficial", "illegitimate" genres. There was a missed pedagogical opportunity for challenging cultural exclusion and supporting greater e-portfolio differentiation by including teens' informal cultural interests.
Educators could explore potential continuities between youth’s extra-mural affinities and the visual arts syllabus. This may better engage students’ interests, whilst also offering youth greater scope to share their varied personas. For example, presenting market-driven identities in creative industry proved a valued strategy for gaining economic capital amongst under-resourced students. E-portfolio curricula can also better house the existing social network and online content practices of students, which our curricular plans neglected. For example, the curriculum could accommodate students’ pre-existing digital portfolios by encouraging students to link link to theirs from within their e-portfolios.
+3> Cater for students who want to be seen as 'emergent creative pros', not "students"
An online identity as an arts student can be seen as undesirable to emergent visual creatives, who prefer to portray themselves as 'creative professionals' outside school. Examples of young creatives could be added to visual arts e-portfolio curricula for such students to learn from and experiment with.
+4> Foreground both process and product to make context explicit
The 'visual arts showcase' e-portfolio curriculum was taught as a capstone showcase exhibition project. This neglected sharing information related to students’ digital infrastructures. Their e-portfolios did not list the resources that each student used, which made it very difficult to compare the respective infrastructures youth used in e-portfolio curation. Teenagers from black, working class homes faced the greatest obstacles in accessing and using digital infrastructures. A danger lies in the increasing use of digital portfolios potentially serving as a new hurdle for these youth in accessing tertiary studies at elite institutions. This is allied to the rise of professional, digital self-presentation in spaces of creative production potentially serving as another gatekeeper to freelance projects.
+3> Cater for students who want to be seen as 'emergent creative pros', not "students"
An online identity as an arts student can be seen as undesirable to emergent visual creatives, who prefer to portray themselves as 'creative professionals' outside school. Examples of young creatives could be added to visual arts e-portfolio curricula for such students to learn from and experiment with.
+4> Foreground both process and product to make context explicit
My thesis revealed that students’ curation of disciplined digital identities and addition of other personas was strongly shaped by their levels of connectivity. In particular, under-resourced youth’s school and homes did not provide sufficient infrastructure for them to fully participate in e-portfolio design. The least resourced students were under-connected in lacking home internet access and having to share ownership of digital devices. Both were strong markers of class inequality. Under-connected students were at a severe disadvantage in being constrained to doing digital portfolio curation only in e-portfolio lessons. Youth with costly mobile internet access could workaround their computer lab’s slow internet speeds, but could not always work on e-portfolios at home owing to priorities related to mobile broadband costs.
The 'visual arts showcase' e-portfolio curriculum was taught as a capstone showcase exhibition project. This neglected sharing information related to students’ digital infrastructures. Their e-portfolios did not list the resources that each student used, which made it very difficult to compare the respective infrastructures youth used in e-portfolio curation. Teenagers from black, working class homes faced the greatest obstacles in accessing and using digital infrastructures. A danger lies in the increasing use of digital portfolios potentially serving as a new hurdle for these youth in accessing tertiary studies at elite institutions. This is allied to the rise of professional, digital self-presentation in spaces of creative production potentially serving as another gatekeeper to freelance projects.
+5> Provide workarounds for inequalities in digital infrastructures
E-portfolio teaching must accommodate the media ecologies of students who are under-connected to the internet. They should be identified and prioritised with classroom support, since other students can readily do such work at home. Our syllabi also neglected mobile technologies by focusing on desktop and laptop computer users. Resourceful teens used their mobile phones in class to continue e-portfolio curation and overcome school infrastructure constraints. Teaching should accommodate the mobile devices that students bring with them. Students must be encouraged to use these tools for creative production, as well as to make resourceful workarounds where there are problems with classroom infrastructure.I trust these five suggestions will help teachers of visual creative e-portfolios to better accommodate young people’s different circumstances, repertoires and creative aspirations.
Friday, 8 July 2016
Unexpected ethical challenges in using screen grabs of youths' #participatoryculture productions #visualresearch
Advances in online image and text search may pose unexpected ethical challenges to researchers in protecting the privacy of their participants while sharing visual productions. I mistakenly assumed that depersonalising screen grab imagery would be sufficient to conceal teenagers' identities. However, in testing "depersonalised" screenshots of my participants' online portfolio screen grabs, I learnt that the ever-growing accuracy of text-and/or-image searches (i.e. via Google Image, TinEye, Bing, Pinterest et al.) requires additional steps for dis-identification. Without these, sharing webpage screen grabs can potentially be used by undesirable audiences to locate young people's websites and contact details. Screen grabs may also pose reputation risks in potentially being shared long after participants might want them to be. Both types of risks will be weighed up against the benefits of sharing select students' e-portfolio productions in my thesis. These include visual representations making it easier for readers to become familiar with the online portfolio genre. Screen shots also provide visual support for research themes emerging from young people's choices.
Background to my visual research ethics challenge.
I had developed an original method for multimodal content analysis that used screen grabs to reverse-engineer the choices that 29 visual arts students made in using Carbonmade. To keep the rich nature of my visual data, I analysed these privately using NVivo. I then sought to de-identify select web page screenshots for sharing in conference presentations. I followed a process for visual anonymization, which was not extensive as I wanted to preserve most of the screen grab for accuracy. The anonymizing process involved Adobe Photoshop's blur function being used on several fields of every webpage. This ranged from the web address and portfolio name on every page to all mentions of their name on their profile pages and their contact details. It also involved checking that the e-portfolio's creator was not identifiable from their portrait picture and that no images disclosed their school's identity (i.e. school poster designs or uniforms). To further protect anonymity, image files were titled using pseudonyms.
I also added select screen grab, two per A4 page, into my draft thesis's case study chapters. During their review, Associate Professor Marion Walton advised me to remove screen grabs that might expose its creators to ridicule and also to check the reverse search-ability of all images. She was concerned that these might not be truly anonymised. In checking, I learnt that the depersonalisation measures I took were insufficient. A 'visual specific dilemma' existed whereby my participants could still be traced through the following types of internet searches:
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"George", 'depersonalised' About page, 2012. A participant who gave permission for portfolio screen grabs to be shared. |
- An internet text search using text used in students’ self-descriptions under their About Us page;
- An internet text search using the folder titles shown by the screenshots (i.e., in Google, using <e-portfolio software name> + <folder title>);
- An internet search using the image titles shown in the screenshots (i.e. in Google, using <e-portfolio software name> + <image title>);
- An internet image search using the screen grabs (for example in 'Google Images');
- An internet image search of the images inside the screenshots;
- In addition, location information and other information in the case studies and school backgrounds could be used in narrowing image and text searches.
Testing the first four types revealed I had not successfully de-identified several screen grabs.
Ethical concerns and considerations.
This was concerning as it held ramifications for my future and past publications. It also had consequences for the ongoing e-portfolio pedagogy at the independent school research site:
I warned the e-portfolio educator, "Mr Proudfoot", that he should take additional steps to better protect student privacy via revising their e-portfolio pedagogy: my action research project found that teaching students to hide their contact details did provide a false sense of security, since teachers mistakenly believed that this made their students difficult to contact. Simply using students’ real names in online searches quickly served up their social network profiles. Some of these were public by default. Teachers must better support students with resources and examples of effective privacy protection that can at least minimise the dangers of ill-considered self-disclosure. This could include case studies of bad examples and in-depth advice on constructing pseudonymous personas. Schools should also provide support, such as policies and staff that young people can readily refer to in case of unsolicited online contact.
I recently asked an ethics expert about protecting students' privacy and his advice contrasted to the cautious visual research feedback that I expected. He advised that since the screen shots are of web pages they are in the public domain already, I actually do not need these students' permission. Despite it not being a legal or institutional requirement, I remain mindful of the assurances that I gave to schools and students on protecting the research participants' privacy. Such assurances helped me overcome one challenge in securing ethics approval from the Western Cape Education Department/Department of Education and my two research sites. I am also aware that only a few of my case study subjects responded to Facebook or emailed requests for retro-active permission to publish anonymised screenshots in my thesis.
My concerns around potential disclosure and lacking participants' explicit consent resonates with Prosser, Clark and Wiles' (2008) contention that concrete contextual issues and a researcher's individual moral framework must be added to legal and institutional requirements in making ethical visual research decisions. The risks to participants associated with disclosure may be small, but it does not sit well with my moral compass that the screen grabs in my thesis might provide visual evidence for subverting past assurances. Particularly now that the thesis itself is easy to source and search. In the past, the provision of UCT thesis hardcopies were mostly limited to its library. However, these are now automatically digitised for sharing post-graduation online via the library's website (and possibly Open UCT). Further, since I have already shared many screen grabs online in conference presentations, I must also explore reciprocal measures to protect my participants' privacy. For example, by replacing the screen grabs I shared in old presentations with properly anonymised ones.
To find out how other researchers have tackled the problem of depersonalising screen grabs, I did Google Scholar searches for guidance on anonymising 'screen grabs', 'screenshots' or 'screen captures'. I could not find relevant content, which seems to mirror the reality of screen capture techniques being mostly used for exemplars rather than in the research process itself. Lacking a matching example to follow in visual culture research, I found Dr Kirsty Young's discussion of her research experiences with young people's online spaces (2013) particularly informative. It highlights several ethical dilemmas posed by new forms of research enabled by the internet.
My research project is unusual in being human subject research focused on public texts. It is the former as I have been involved in developing a new syllabus and doing face-to-face research with youths throughout e-portfolio lessons. However, I am also researching public texts since all my participants Carbonmade portfolios have no privacy restrictions. Given its unusual position in straddling both methods, I cannot expect unanimous agreement in the academic community regarding how the ethical principles of consent and anonymity pertain to my study. The public text argument versus one for the more onerous rules governing human subject research could easily be argued in both cases. This may pose unexpected problems for the publication of my visual research data. If research data cannot be shared it becomes redundant, which itself is unethical in wasting participants' time (Young, 2013).
In response, I must be cautious and take steps to ensure that my project's ethics in sharing screengrabs cannot be faulted from a human subject research perspective. While all participants and their parents/guardians consented to my research, some were only asked after my fieldwork concluded for permission to re-publish their work. I had not considered the future need to use young people's webpages publicly in academic publications. Given that the webpages are the intellectual property of their authors and that their content would be displayed more widely than the youth possibly intended, I intend to secure written consent for their academic use. This consent will address the timespan that informed consent is given for and afford options for the level of anonymity required. I will show my case study subjects examples of their dis-identified webpages to assist their decision-making.
My research project is unusual in being human subject research focused on public texts. It is the former as I have been involved in developing a new syllabus and doing face-to-face research with youths throughout e-portfolio lessons. However, I am also researching public texts since all my participants Carbonmade portfolios have no privacy restrictions. Given its unusual position in straddling both methods, I cannot expect unanimous agreement in the academic community regarding how the ethical principles of consent and anonymity pertain to my study. The public text argument versus one for the more onerous rules governing human subject research could easily be argued in both cases. This may pose unexpected problems for the publication of my visual research data. If research data cannot be shared it becomes redundant, which itself is unethical in wasting participants' time (Young, 2013).
In response, I must be cautious and take steps to ensure that my project's ethics in sharing screengrabs cannot be faulted from a human subject research perspective. While all participants and their parents/guardians consented to my research, some were only asked after my fieldwork concluded for permission to re-publish their work. I had not considered the future need to use young people's webpages publicly in academic publications. Given that the webpages are the intellectual property of their authors and that their content would be displayed more widely than the youth possibly intended, I intend to secure written consent for their academic use. This consent will address the timespan that informed consent is given for and afford options for the level of anonymity required. I will show my case study subjects examples of their dis-identified webpages to assist their decision-making.
Additional steps for depersonalising or anonymising screen grab images
Given the ready availability of image search sites and image reverse search applications, it is important for researchers to take steps to fully depersonalise images for participants' anonymity. As web page design is multimodal, it is also important that researchers filter both images and text. For example in my research into students' e-portfolios, I had to avoid mentioning folder titles verbatim in my thesis. I also must try to avoid quoting students’ profile descriptions verbatim for longer than three words.
The two alternate options (A - B) I tested for depersonalising screen capture images were:
A. Black out all text and replace profile image with silhouette outline
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| Option A. "George" depersonalised About page with with all text blacked out and profile image in silhouette outline, 2012 |
All text is blacked out, making it impossible for viewers to copy text strings in their searches. The blurred outline image is replaced with an outline drawing to add some visual information.
B. Only add depersonalised screen grabs at small thumbnail sizes, organised inside tables
Here the size of each image is reduced to a thumbnail size for making their recognition via reverse image search more difficult. I tested each option in reverse image search engines and neither options A nor B produced results linked to its creator, let alone Carbonmade.
While the process of dis-identifying over 80 images will be lengthy, I am pleased that I can use heavily anonymised imagery, rather than none. In addition to changing these thesis' images, I must also reciprocally update them in old presentations, which need then to be reloaded to Slideshare.
Request for comments... or turning this post into an academic paper.
This post was written to stimulate discussions on ethical issues related to the use of screen grabs.
It heeds the call to engage the general internet publishing publishing population in debates about the use of content for research purposes as this can ensure the ethical use of online content, (Young, 2013). Kindly add your thoughts by commenting below.
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| Option B. "George" de-personalised e-portfolio pages from 2012 reduced into thumbnail images in a table |
Here the size of each image is reduced to a thumbnail size for making their recognition via reverse image search more difficult. I tested each option in reverse image search engines and neither options A nor B produced results linked to its creator, let alone Carbonmade.
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| Google image search result for option A's image, 2016 |
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| Google image search result for option B's image, 2016 |
Both options enabled sufficient levels of anonymity in their results being linked to generic software entries. I then tested what would happen if a thumbnail image of student's work was selected from the table of thumbnail images. At such a small size, the highly-pixelated image results did not link back to their creator or Carbonmade during a reverse image search.
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| Google Images result for "George" depersonalised thumbnail painting crop 2016 |
Request for comments... or turning this post into an academic paper.
This post was written to stimulate discussions on ethical issues related to the use of screen grabs.
It heeds the call to engage the general internet publishing publishing population in debates about the use of content for research purposes as this can ensure the ethical use of online content, (Young, 2013). Kindly add your thoughts by commenting below.
There is also a gap in the literature concerning ethical issues related to sharing screen grabs of young people's participatory culture as research evidence. If you would like this post to be upgraded into an article for helping close the gap, please get in touch. For updates on my research, follow this site or @travisnoakes.
Saturday, 7 September 2013
Four Learners Responses to an Emergent ‘Visual Arts Showcase e-Portfolio' Meta-Genre
Written for Visual Arts educators and researchers interested in the electronic learning portfolio design choices that learners make.
I presented at the South African Visual Arts Conference 2013 today on a cross-section of four independent school Visual Arts learners' e-portfolio design choices. Since I spoke in its pedagogical stream', I chose to prepare a paper that focused on learners' design choices and how they varied in reflecting different aspects of the e-portfolio's significance to the learners. This was used as a basis for a pedagogical reflection, which suggested three avenues for future research into teaching approaches:
A Social Semiotic approach to Multimodal Communication (SSMC) was used to explain the significance of designed ‘texts’ (such as an e-portfolio), which learners described in their interviews and profiles. Kress (2000) proposed that textual significance can be explained by using the the three key questions of an SSMC approach; ‘Who produced it?’, ‘For whom was it produced?’ and ‘In what context and under what constraints was it produced?’. Bateman's Genre and Multimodality {GeM} framework (2008) was used to describe learners' varied page design choices using its layout, content and rhetorical structural layers. My presentation features screen grabs from the four case studies and examples of choices that reproduced, extended, replaced or undercut (Yoshioka and Herman, 2000) their educator's guidelines. His instructions constitute a meta-genre (Giltrow, 2002), which one learner complied with very closely and extended, two reproduced, replaced and extended slightly and one completely undercut. These choices are explained in context of the e-portfolio's significance to each learner and my paper concluded with a pedagogic reflection that advised Visual Arts educators to teach these aspects when teaching e-portfolio curricula.
I presented at the South African Visual Arts Conference 2013 today on a cross-section of four independent school Visual Arts learners' e-portfolio design choices. Since I spoke in its pedagogical stream', I chose to prepare a paper that focused on learners' design choices and how they varied in reflecting different aspects of the e-portfolio's significance to the learners. This was used as a basis for a pedagogical reflection, which suggested three avenues for future research into teaching approaches:
A Social Semiotic approach to Multimodal Communication (SSMC) was used to explain the significance of designed ‘texts’ (such as an e-portfolio), which learners described in their interviews and profiles. Kress (2000) proposed that textual significance can be explained by using the the three key questions of an SSMC approach; ‘Who produced it?’, ‘For whom was it produced?’ and ‘In what context and under what constraints was it produced?’. Bateman's Genre and Multimodality {GeM} framework (2008) was used to describe learners' varied page design choices using its layout, content and rhetorical structural layers. My presentation features screen grabs from the four case studies and examples of choices that reproduced, extended, replaced or undercut (Yoshioka and Herman, 2000) their educator's guidelines. His instructions constitute a meta-genre (Giltrow, 2002), which one learner complied with very closely and extended, two reproduced, replaced and extended slightly and one completely undercut. These choices are explained in context of the e-portfolio's significance to each learner and my paper concluded with a pedagogic reflection that advised Visual Arts educators to teach these aspects when teaching e-portfolio curricula.
The ‘Visual Arts Showcase e-portfolio’ meta-genre has changed and matured since 2010 to become one that assists learners by providing in-depth guidance on each design choice. This approach resonates with the compositional approach of Linguistics, where learners create meaning from the “bottom up” through specific modal choices. Although this proved successful in encouraging compliance for particular choices, it is unlikely to help learners in appreciating how different combinations of choices can be used to create successful examples within the ‘Visual Arts Showcase e-portfolio’ sub-genre.
They should encourage learners to think about the cultural and social significance that the e-portfolio may have to them; at their school, in their professional life and in hobbies, the relevant curricular and extra-mural disciplines they want to feature, who they want to involve in its development and their orientation to potential audiences. In addition to supporting coherence, this should also give more freedom to learners to develop their emergent identities and voice.
The results of following this pedagogical curriculum design recommendation are an avenue for future research. Two other important avenues are pedagogical strategies to address time constraints and design choices with e-portfolios supporting social networking: The number of lessons allocated under ‘Self-management and Presentation’ is insufficient for educators to address important issues of self-curation and publication. The effectiveness of strategies (such as ‘flipping the class’) for helping educate learners about these issues should be investigated. An important criteria for Carbonmade being used at the independent school was that it did not afford social networking functionality (Noakes, 2011). It would be interesting to explore the design choices that learners make when their e-portfolios also afford social networking affordances.
The references for the citations in this post are included in my article. I have provided its source data (such as its interviews) under http://www.travisnoakes.co.za/p/articles-and-data.html at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UXNq-TP8KVOLSAPOSid5ozWdWouTlgz5ltYqCmZOwPY/edit?usp=sharing.
They should encourage learners to think about the cultural and social significance that the e-portfolio may have to them; at their school, in their professional life and in hobbies, the relevant curricular and extra-mural disciplines they want to feature, who they want to involve in its development and their orientation to potential audiences. In addition to supporting coherence, this should also give more freedom to learners to develop their emergent identities and voice.
The results of following this pedagogical curriculum design recommendation are an avenue for future research. Two other important avenues are pedagogical strategies to address time constraints and design choices with e-portfolios supporting social networking: The number of lessons allocated under ‘Self-management and Presentation’ is insufficient for educators to address important issues of self-curation and publication. The effectiveness of strategies (such as ‘flipping the class’) for helping educate learners about these issues should be investigated. An important criteria for Carbonmade being used at the independent school was that it did not afford social networking functionality (Noakes, 2011). It would be interesting to explore the design choices that learners make when their e-portfolios also afford social networking affordances.
The references for the citations in this post are included in my article. I have provided its source data (such as its interviews) under http://www.travisnoakes.co.za/p/articles-and-data.html at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UXNq-TP8KVOLSAPOSid5ozWdWouTlgz5ltYqCmZOwPY/edit?usp=sharing.
Wednesday, 19 December 2012
Online portfolio users new to computers must get familiar with these new terms and processes.
Written for Visual Arts or Design learners new to online portfolio page creation and computers.
As a learner who wants to create one online portfolio (or more), but has not been taught computer courses and may have limited access to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in school and home, you need to learn about the new terms and processes involved in working digitally. This post was written to help you better prepare for these:
1. Getting familiar with new words, acronyms, symbols and signs in online portfolio creation.
If you are used to working on paper and canvas, the move to working on a computer screen involves learning new words (such as 'screen resolution'), acronyms (like DPI), symbols (i.e. ©) and signs (e.g. @) and new processes (such as 'file editing and saving'). It is useful to ask your educator to provide definitions if you do not understand what he or she is talking about to avoid misunderstanding what is being taught. You can also research almost any word, acronym, symbol or sign's definition using Google and other search engines:
1.1 New words
It is important to understand the words used for online portfolio page design elements (such as uniform resource locator, title, header, body, footer, et al.) as your educator is likely to provide you with guidelines for each choice. If you don't know the terms he or she refers to in lessons, you may struggle to understand the reasoning behind the guidelines. Please ask your educator if you need further help or you can find out what new words mean by using a search engine; simply type in the word you want to know, a plus (+) sign, then the word definition straight after (i.e. type 'uniform+resource+locator definition' into www.google.co.za). If you can spare the time, it's best to read through several results to gain a broader understanding of the word's definitions and usage. {You should also read my post on 'Online portfolio page design element questions to help you in creating a better one', as it lists these elements with important questions on your use of them}.
1.2 New acronyms
Acronyms are heavily used in ICT and those you will encounter when creating your online portfolio will fall under the categories including: imagery digitization (DPI, OCR); file format selection (JPG, GIF, PNG); internet-use (WWW, HTTP, .COM) and screen display sizes (W, H). Please ask your educator to explain the acronyms you do not know, or search for them (for example, type 'JPG+definition into google.com and click to its top results).
1.3 New symbols
The symbols you are most likely to encounter in online portfolio use are © for copyright, ™ for trademark and ® for registered trademark. If you encounter others, ask your teacher for help. It is also useful to get help with sourcing special symbols when typing in your computer's word processing software and via your browser. You can then also ask to be shown how to cut-and-paste these into your online portfolio.
1.4 New signs
A sign you will definitely use is the at sign (@) in creating your email address (i.e. @gmail.com). You may want to experiment with signs for emoticon creation {i.e. listening to music d(-_-)b}, too}!
2 New processes
If you are new to working with a computer, you should sit close to a more knowledgeable peer or your teacher to get help with; using its keyboard, editing and saving files, using relevant software, accessing your lab's network and installing drivers for your own device(s):
2.1 Working with a keyboard
Be sure you get help if you are struggling to type what you intended to. Pressing a "wrong" button just once on your keyboard can create very irritating results: 'Caps lock' will capitalize all your text; 'Num lock' can prevent you entering numbers; and 'Ins' can lead to you typing over content you didn't intend to. You may also need to be shown by your educator or peers how to select alternate keys (such as the symbols above your numeric keyboard) using the relevant key combinations for your operating system and its software.
2.2 Editing and saving files
As a learner who wants to create one online portfolio (or more), but has not been taught computer courses and may have limited access to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in school and home, you need to learn about the new terms and processes involved in working digitally. This post was written to help you better prepare for these:
1. Getting familiar with new words, acronyms, symbols and signs in online portfolio creation.
If you are used to working on paper and canvas, the move to working on a computer screen involves learning new words (such as 'screen resolution'), acronyms (like DPI), symbols (i.e. ©) and signs (e.g. @) and new processes (such as 'file editing and saving'). It is useful to ask your educator to provide definitions if you do not understand what he or she is talking about to avoid misunderstanding what is being taught. You can also research almost any word, acronym, symbol or sign's definition using Google and other search engines:
1.1 New words
It is important to understand the words used for online portfolio page design elements (such as uniform resource locator, title, header, body, footer, et al.) as your educator is likely to provide you with guidelines for each choice. If you don't know the terms he or she refers to in lessons, you may struggle to understand the reasoning behind the guidelines. Please ask your educator if you need further help or you can find out what new words mean by using a search engine; simply type in the word you want to know, a plus (+) sign, then the word definition straight after (i.e. type 'uniform+resource+locator definition' into www.google.co.za). If you can spare the time, it's best to read through several results to gain a broader understanding of the word's definitions and usage. {You should also read my post on 'Online portfolio page design element questions to help you in creating a better one', as it lists these elements with important questions on your use of them}.
1.2 New acronyms
Acronyms are heavily used in ICT and those you will encounter when creating your online portfolio will fall under the categories including: imagery digitization (DPI, OCR); file format selection (JPG, GIF, PNG); internet-use (WWW, HTTP, .COM) and screen display sizes (W, H). Please ask your educator to explain the acronyms you do not know, or search for them (for example, type 'JPG+definition into google.com and click to its top results).
1.3 New symbols
The symbols you are most likely to encounter in online portfolio use are © for copyright, ™ for trademark and ® for registered trademark. If you encounter others, ask your teacher for help. It is also useful to get help with sourcing special symbols when typing in your computer's word processing software and via your browser. You can then also ask to be shown how to cut-and-paste these into your online portfolio.
1.4 New signs
A sign you will definitely use is the at sign (@) in creating your email address (i.e. @gmail.com). You may want to experiment with signs for emoticon creation {i.e. listening to music d(-_-)b}, too}!
2 New processes
If you are new to working with a computer, you should sit close to a more knowledgeable peer or your teacher to get help with; using its keyboard, editing and saving files, using relevant software, accessing your lab's network and installing drivers for your own device(s):
2.1 Working with a keyboard
Be sure you get help if you are struggling to type what you intended to. Pressing a "wrong" button just once on your keyboard can create very irritating results: 'Caps lock' will capitalize all your text; 'Num lock' can prevent you entering numbers; and 'Ins' can lead to you typing over content you didn't intend to. You may also need to be shown by your educator or peers how to select alternate keys (such as the symbols above your numeric keyboard) using the relevant key combinations for your operating system and its software.
2.2 Editing and saving files
You probably have already used a mobile phone to edit and save pictures and search through these. But on moving to a shared computer in a lab, saving, editing and accessing these files often becomes more complicated, because your lab's computer is setup for many users with more complicated file paths. Your educator should show you how to setup and access a folder on the desktop where you can save your online portfolio-related work securely.
2.3 Using your computer's relevant software
2.3 Using your computer's relevant software
In digitizing imagery, you may need to edit its size, colour balance and resolution. Ask your educator or computer lab's manager to show you which software is available for this; your computer may have a basic image editing and management software (like Microsoft Picture Manager) pre-installed or more advanced software like Graphic Image Manipulation Program, Corel Photo Paint or Adobe Photoshop.
2.4 Accessing your lab's computer network
If you are scanning imagery at a different computer from the one you normally use and wish to copy it across, you should ask your educator or lab manager to show you how to access the lab's network and copy your scanned image(s) across. This is also useful if you have to use a different computer from the one you normally have access to.
2.4 Accessing your lab's computer network
If you are scanning imagery at a different computer from the one you normally use and wish to copy it across, you should ask your educator or lab manager to show you how to access the lab's network and copy your scanned image(s) across. This is also useful if you have to use a different computer from the one you normally have access to.
2.5 Installing drivers for your own devices
If you bringing your own device to class, you should bring the device's software drivers and a storage device (like a USB flash drive), too. Hopefully, your school lab's computers are up-to-date enough to install the driver and link to your device. If not, you should ask to be given access to the lastest computer at your school, so that you can install the relevant driver, download your files, save them to your storage device and transfer them to your personal folder.
Saturday, 14 July 2012
Guidelines for learners' Carbonmade homepage and template choices.
Written for Visual Arts and Design learners using Carbonmade and their educators.
Carbonmade gives you varied design choices for creating three distinct pages types; a 'homepage', an 'about' page and 'project folder artwork' pages. In designing with Carbonmade's online portfolio template, you will make design choices that are specific to each page and those that apply to all. This post focuses on providing suggestions for the look-and-feel of your homepage, which covers all template choices and those specific to it. These are your 'portfolio title', 'website address', 'artwork thumbnail layout', 'artwork names', 'background color' and 'footer':
What is your portfolio for?
Before making choices, its important to reflect on your reasons for using an online portfolio. Creating a quality portfolio takes a good understanding of what you want to express, how to achieve it and how you would like your audience to interact.
As a learner, here are some important reasons to create yours:
N.B. If you are unsure, take the time to look at the portfolio examples of the creative types (see the left hand side menu) that interest you, and learn from their example. If a portfolio is one you would like to have one day, simply think about what its creator's goals are, then think if they could match your own...
Your online portfolio's title (and web address')
Once you know the reason(s) you are creating an online portfolio, you should have a sound basis for choosing a name and its website address. Your online portfolio title can be based on your; genuine identity (i.e. your real name), your nickname, a pseudonym, a fake name, a corporate identity or your particular interest (i.e. subject, theme or medium). Whatever your choice, make sure it is well-aligned to your online portfolio's aims, unless your aim is to confuse your audience :) ! As a free user of Carbonmade, your website address will be your portfolio's title inserted between http:// and carbonmade.com (i.e. http://amymullen.carbonmade.com).
Background color
Carbonmade offers just two choices for a background colour; either 'black' or 'white'. In making your choice, it is useful to think of the resonance that your colour choice creates. For example, a white background can suggest a sketchpad and is well-suited for portfolios that feature many drawings. A black background suggests a screen or film negatives and is often highly appropriate for mixed-media, photographic or film portfolios.
Homepage thumbnail layout
Carbonmade offers three design choices for the layout of your homepage's artwork folder covers; either one, two or three thumbnails per row.
If you want to create a cinematic effect, then the one thumbnail option works well. It is also well- suited for artworks in landscape format. If you prefer a look that is more similar to a gallery, then the two or three thumbnails option is more appropriate.
Artwork project folder names
Please visit my tips to name your online portfolios for advice on choosing folder names, if your educator hasn't given you specific instructions.
Artwork project folder images
Your artwork folder covers can either be the first artwork that is inside them, or show an image that does not feature in the folder itself. You can choose whether you there's merit in having artwork or designs that are especially chosen as folder covers, or whether your first folder image does the job.
Copyright your online portfolio's content using your footer.
Your Carbonmade online portfolio's 'header' section is at the top of every webpage and features your online portfolio's name and the 'Work' and 'About' buttons. You can also add a footer, which will appear at the bottom of every page. I recommend that you use this space to assert copyright for your website. To do this, insert the copyright symbol © in front of the year your online portfolio was first-published and then list the copyright owner. For example: © 2010 Travis Noakes. It is also a good idea to do the same for each artwork, when you label each newly uploaded one.
I hope this advice proves helpful. Should you need more, kindly review my online portfolio posts. Comments welcome in the box below, thanks.
Carbonmade gives you varied design choices for creating three distinct pages types; a 'homepage', an 'about' page and 'project folder artwork' pages. In designing with Carbonmade's online portfolio template, you will make design choices that are specific to each page and those that apply to all. This post focuses on providing suggestions for the look-and-feel of your homepage, which covers all template choices and those specific to it. These are your 'portfolio title', 'website address', 'artwork thumbnail layout', 'artwork names', 'background color' and 'footer':
What is your portfolio for?
Before making choices, its important to reflect on your reasons for using an online portfolio. Creating a quality portfolio takes a good understanding of what you want to express, how to achieve it and how you would like your audience to interact.
As a learner, here are some important reasons to create yours:
- To impress your adjudicators by exhibiting it as an adjunct to your analog portfolio in your matric exhibition (on a tablet or laptop computer);
- To showcase extra-mural and co-curricular work, the extra-effort in which might otherwise be unnoticed by your educator;
- To help you in your application for further education;
- To showcase your visual creativity and media-savvy to future employers;
- To show your interests in an amateur, visually creative hobby.
N.B. If you are unsure, take the time to look at the portfolio examples of the creative types (see the left hand side menu) that interest you, and learn from their example. If a portfolio is one you would like to have one day, simply think about what its creator's goals are, then think if they could match your own...
Your online portfolio's title (and web address')
Once you know the reason(s) you are creating an online portfolio, you should have a sound basis for choosing a name and its website address. Your online portfolio title can be based on your; genuine identity (i.e. your real name), your nickname, a pseudonym, a fake name, a corporate identity or your particular interest (i.e. subject, theme or medium). Whatever your choice, make sure it is well-aligned to your online portfolio's aims, unless your aim is to confuse your audience :) ! As a free user of Carbonmade, your website address will be your portfolio's title inserted between http:// and carbonmade.com (i.e. http://amymullen.carbonmade.com).
Background color
 |
| Learner EG's homepage: white background example (May, 2012) |
 |
| Learner MH's homepage: black background example (May, 2012) |
Homepage thumbnail layout
Carbonmade offers three design choices for the layout of your homepage's artwork folder covers; either one, two or three thumbnails per row.
 |
| Learner AK's homepage: horizontal thumbnails example (November, 2010) |
Artwork project folder names
Please visit my tips to name your online portfolios for advice on choosing folder names, if your educator hasn't given you specific instructions.
Artwork project folder images
 |
| Learner KP's homepage: artwork folder example (May, 2012) |
Copyright your online portfolio's content using your footer.
Your Carbonmade online portfolio's 'header' section is at the top of every webpage and features your online portfolio's name and the 'Work' and 'About' buttons. You can also add a footer, which will appear at the bottom of every page. I recommend that you use this space to assert copyright for your website. To do this, insert the copyright symbol © in front of the year your online portfolio was first-published and then list the copyright owner. For example: © 2010 Travis Noakes. It is also a good idea to do the same for each artwork, when you label each newly uploaded one.
I hope this advice proves helpful. Should you need more, kindly review my online portfolio posts. Comments welcome in the box below, thanks.
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