Who is this session for?
Anyone who instructs students in WordPress and/or other digital media topics will benefit, as well as anyone interested in creating a portfolio website using WordPress full-site editing.
Session description
This session will describe and analyze the experience of guiding a small class of rising college seniors, majoring in Digital Media, through creating their online portfolios using WordPress full site editing during the spring 2023 semester. These students designed and developed portfolios showcasing their work, including graphic design, website design, photography, video production, podcasting, and illustration. The goal for these websites was (and is) to help them showcase their skills for prospective employers.
Key takeaways
- Audience members will learn a basic curriculum for teaching students to build online portfolios using full site editing in WordPress.
- Audience members will get an insider’s perspective of what obstacles confront students — and instructors — in the process of creating WordPress-based portfolio websites in the context of a college course.
- Audience members can benefit from learning which plugins the class tried and ultimately used for portfolio development and presentation.
- Audience members will see screenshots of the websites in the early stages of development, as well as the actual, finalized websites.
- Audience members will learn what went well in the class, and what the instructor would do differently the next time this class is taught.
Presenter
Rachel Urbanowicz
Rachel Urbanowicz is on the faculty at Keystone College in La Plume, Pennsylvania, as an Assistant Professor in their Communications and Digital Media programs. Prior to her academic career, she spent over 20 years in the corporate sector, working as both an in-house digital designer in larger companies, and as a creative manager/designer/writer in smaller firms.
Rachel’s career path has included designing in Silicon Valley in the during the late 1990s; living and working on the island of Terceira, Azores, Portugal doing web and graphic design for both the U.S. military and for a local outdoor sculpture exhibition; as well as creating myriad websites, emailers, landing pages, trade show graphics, brochures, and more for companies in Chicago and Minneapolis.
In 2015, Rachel became an academic! In her earlier teaching position at Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania, she facilitated award-winning student work for local non-profit organizations; designed graphics for, and presented at, Women’s History Month events; and wrote, directed, and helped produce college theatrical productions. At Keystone, Rachel advises the student arts and literary magazine The Plume, and teaches courses in web design, graphic design, speech communication, and professional practices.
Sessions
- General Lecture Session: A College Case Study: WordPress Portfolio Creation by Undergraduate Digital Media Majors
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