Step 9: Spit and Polish!
Unit 4 | Final Weeks | ePortfolio Digital Track
Goals: Get students to think about their larger site given everything they’ve learned; have them think about the showcase, tangibly.
As the semester wraps up, give students some time to polish their sites. In reality, student’s final websites will likely be dominated by the remix project: and that’s perfectly fine! Think of the remix as the crown jewel that the site hosts; all the other content will likely support that one project. The other components, like the about me, and revision, will serve as supporting pages to the larger project.
In the end, these sites won’t be perfect-- and that’s okay! Students will be approximating an important genre and having to think about and re-contextualize their work!
Preparing for Step 9:
❏ Provide students with the last tutorial resources from the Web Design toolkit.
❏ Give students time to doctor and play with their sites (ideally in groups).
❏ Hype students about showing their work in a class showcase. This will be a good opportunity for them to steal site design ideas from other people, and show off how cool their remix projects are!
Examples of Step 9 in action:
Maria (Video Track): Maria’s students are not excited about the portfolio showcase. They ask why they’re required to go and students share that they worry their work isn’t interesting. Maria reassures them their work has been interesting and will be even more interesting to those in attendance. Maria also reminds them they have something unique to show off!
Maria also emphasizes that they might be able to steal some good website design ideas from other students, and makes them a bonus point ‘challenge’ to complete while they’re there. In the end, their student’s projects end up being quite popular at the showcase: lots of students want to see videos!
Leo (Audio Track): Students begin panicking as the showcase approaches, and Leo spends some time talking his students down. After all, they’ll have cool podcast demos to show off at the showcase! Won’t that be cool?
Several students ask if they need to have headphones for their podcasts at the event, and Leo realizes he has no idea! It will be in a large open room, so hearing each podcast might be difficult. He asks his 533 instructor about this. While preparing for the showcase, a number of students run into technical problems with their sites (one accidentally deletes her entire site). Thankfully, the production teams help each other through it (with some promises of extra credit from Leo).
Tips and Tools:
The showcase is a celebration: Students might get nervous about the showcase, but remember that this is ultimately a celebration of their work; not a review. You have a lot of control over how you want your students to approach it tonally; use your own challenges or assignment if you think they need a new approach.
The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives!: A la George R. R. Martin, if your students have been in groups for this semester, this will be a crucial component of the final unit here (and will make things easier for you!). Putting your students into showcase groups to proof one another's sites will not only improve their work, it’ll make scheduling during the actual event much easier for you. (Note: Because of the pandemic situation, First-Year Writing won't hold a multi-section showcase event; we encourage teachers to find other ways of letting students show their work to peers. Consider pairing with other sections and sharing URLs.)
Back to Step 8.
Next to The End.