Create. Collate, Curate & Share: Tell Your Story

Take Control of Your Digital Footprint

Digital Portfolio
Development

Create, Collate & Curate
a Powerful & Compelling Portfolio

Cost: 300.00 for Six Units

The ultimate goal and dream for any writer and performing artist is to develop a body of work that can be shared with an audience that respects and appreciates well-crafted words and music. Our goal at The Crafted Word is to help aspiring artists realize that dream by teaching, guiding and mentoring artists to create, collate and curate their best efforts in traditional publications, high quality audio recordings, multi-media digital portfolios, social networks and well-designed websites.

Digital Portfolios & Publishing…

To write well in a sustained and dynamic way, you need to live, think and act like a writer. Writers need to live wise and literate lives that values the development and practicing of sound and timeless writing skills, acquiring a broad and rich vocabulary, and the reading and study of good and enduring literature. Living a literate life needs to be a choice, not a chore; it needs to be a conscious and willing approach to do what writers need to do, and, most importantly, living a literate life should be an unending source of joy, satisfaction, and pride for as long as you live on this small orb spinning slowly wide and barely charted universe.

Many amazing writers are self-motivated, self-taught and self guided, but usually that evolves out of a lack of opportunity to learn and develop with capable and inspiring teachers and enlightened guides. I have taught myself to plumb the pipes and wire the wiring in my house, but I would never presume to call myself a plumber, much less an electrician. I took on those tasks more to save money than to develop a skill. Writing, however, is my passion, my vocation and my avocation. Some people go to the gym. I go to the empty page, and it is there where I find the unmitigated joys and rewards above and beyond an ordinary life with its ordinary days and ordinary pursuits. It is through writing that I see the sublime and occasionally touch it, and, even more occasionally, capture the essence of that sublimeness in the confines of words; and it is through writing that I hope to guide you (my students) and help you experience the rewards of living a literary life.

Writers write best about what they know best. The Digital Portfolio summer course is designed to help you continue writing and to create an awesome and interesting online digital footprint centered around your interests and passions. I hope to guide you in creating, curating, and sustaining an enlightened web presence by developing or continuing to curate a Weebly-based digital portfolio to share and showcase a range of writing pieces and multi-media content–including podcasts, trailers, and video. I will also help you create a published e-book and/ or or print book that, in addition to your blog, will serve as a compelling digital portfolio of your writing pieces, travelogues, artistic endeavors, and personal interests, so when that time comes and someone important asks you what separates you from the rest of the pack, you will have something awesomely compelling to show them! And trust me: that time is coming soon.

The Digital Portfolio summer course will deliver six separate weekly projects to incorporate into your portfolios. Each project will help bring your blog & portfolio website to a deeper, more interactive, and more interesting place. I will give you weekly feedback on the development of your blog as well as regular feedback on your more daily postings. It is not a class; it is a shared experience that is meant to be fun, engaging, and rewarding.

Check out how I took my poem “Thanksgiving” and recreated the poem in video form…

Digital Damnation

Why Your Digital Footprint Matters

As teachers, it is critical that we teach our students how to leverage the power of the web to create, cultivate, and curate positive digital footprints in and out of the classroom; moreover, as mentors and role models, we need to do the same. We need to put into action best practices, wise pedagogy, and a well-rounded understanding of the implications, promises, and potential to show thoughtful leadership and take control and realize the dynamic and transformative possibilities of our presence not the web.

Someone is not just looking for you; they are searching for you, and you are only one one regrettable statement or stupid posting away from your judgement, and hence your character, being questioned by an admissions committee, potential boss, or anyone else casually (or intently) searching your name on the web—and it is going to happen! The irony that the only thing worse than a questionable digital presence is no presence at all. While there is some nobility in being off the grid, there may also be precious little else to set your particular genius and passion apart from the masses that are arrayed beside, before and behind you. A powerful and compelling digital portfolio puts your proverbial best foot forward. Your digital portfolio collated and curated over the course of years makes a powerful statement of who you are, what you value, and what you have accomplished. A digital portfolio shows that you give a damn, and that you have been giving a damn for a long time. And that is a powerful reflection of your inner character, your persistence, and your values.
We must teach our students how to leverage the power of the web to create positive digital footprints. We need to put into action best practices and wise pedagogy, to show thoughtful leadership and an understanding of the pitfalls, promises—and potential of digital classrooms by taking control of our digital footprints (and our student’s digital footprints) and harnessing the transformative possibilities of an engaging, and forward-thinking digital curriculum. I will share how ten years of my teaching using blogging communities, online assessment, and ongoing portfolio creation has transformed a generation of teenage students into eager, confident, and capable writers and readers. In the Digital Portfolio Course we will demonstrate how an online, blog-based curriculum works on a practical and philosophical level to create amazing writing pieces, podcasts, video essays, discussions, and multi-media content, and how students can use blogging platforms, compelling portfolios, and focused social media to avoid digital damnation by creating, collating, and curating an informed, powerful and positive digital footprint in an increasingly connected world.