Creating an ePortfolio and Sharing it in Blackboard

Creating a Digital Portfolio with Padlet

Having a digital portfolio is an excellent way to document your accomplishments as well as possibly to advance your career.  You can develop a digital portfolio easily with several various digital tool.  We will specifically focus on Padlet (http://www.padlet.com ).

To create a digital portfolio with Padlet, you will need to follow these steps:

1. Collect the information you would like to share in your e-portfolio.  This could be documents (in pdf format), hyperlinks to webpages, media files and any other information.  (Now you are ready to create a digital portfolio with Padlet)
2. Go to Padlet (www.padlet.com) and create an account.  You can use either your Facebook account or a Google account for easy sign in, or just use your college email.
3. Create a “New Padlet” You will be given a choice on the format.  Select the format you think will best represent your work.  When in doubt, you should try to keep it simple so your content is best represented.
4. Time to Modify Your Padlet
   1. Name your Padlet – I recommend something obvious like “My e-Portfolio”
   2. Format your Padlet.  On the right you can select a wallpaper.  The less busy, the more professional it will look and the easier it will be able to read.
   3. Hit “Next”
   4. Select Privacy settings:
       a) Keeping it secret allows you to show your Padlet to the people you share the link with and no one else.
       b) If you want everyone to see it, select “public”
       c) You probably want to limit those who see the Padlet to only be able to “read” the Padlet and not to change the content.
       d)  Now Select “Next” – this should save and get your started.  If you want to make changes, just select the sprocket up on the top right.
   5. Now it is time to add Posts.   This is how to make a post -   Click on the plus sign area on the bottom right. This will create a white box.  In this box you can:
   •  Title the box
   • Add a description
   • Select “Add an attachment” . With the Add an attachment feature you can:            
     • share a URL
     • upload a file
     • Use your webcam for a photo  
   Now you may want to develop your portfolio and include: 
   • You contact information.  
   • Add a CV or resume, you can easily attach a document file, and we recommend using the PDF file extension.  It is a standard file format that can easily be viewed and you can save to it from MS Word.
   • Add content, you can choose how to do this from you options
   • Add as many posts as you need
   
   
   Congratulations.  You have completed a Padlet that acts as a digital portfolio. 

Sharing your Padlet

Once you have your ePortfolio Padlet, or any Padlet for that matter, complete, you can share it with others rather easily.

You have two options for sharing – Dynamic presentation and Static presentation. You can do either with Padlet by selecting the Share Feature. For purpose of demonstration let’s see how we can share our Padlet in Blackboard.

Sharing your ePortfolio dynamically has the benefit of harnessing the web and any interactivity it affords.  This dynamic feature usually increases user engagement, which results in people spending more time looking at your ePortfolio.  There are two ways to share your Padlet dynamically.

After we selected the Share/Export/Embed option in Padlet, we can:

Share a link to the ePortfolio.  We can do this by:

1. Selecting “Copy Link to this Padlet.”  This will copy a link to our clipboard. 
2. Go into Blackboard to post.  (You may want to have it already open in a tab)
3. In the editor in Blackboard, click in text field and press Ctrl-V (paste).  This will copy the link as text into the editor.
4. Highlight the text (click down on the button and drag it across the text)
5. Select the Insert/Edit Link button (it looks like a chain on the second row of tools)
6. Copy (Cntl-V) the link into the “Link Path” field and select “Insert”.
7. Provided you gave the post a subject, you are done.  Select “Submit” to post.

A better, or nice looking, way to share your Padlet in Blackboard is to Embed it. You can do this by:

1. Selecting Share/Export/Embed
2. Select “Embed this padlet”
3. Copy the HTML code (the first set)
4. Go to Blackboard and prepare to post
5. Once in the editor, select the HTML button on the bottom right (third row)
6. Paste (Cntl-V) the embed code into the HTML code view window and hit “Upgrade”
7. Select “Submit”

 A static presentation is always good when archiving or when faced with the possibility of not being viewed online.  It would be prudent to add a static presentation as well when sharing your Padlet.

There are two easy ways to do this with Padlet.

First you go to the Share/Export/Embed option.  You then scroll to the export section and either select “Save as image” or “Save as PDF”. Both will give you a static file that you can attach to a Blackboard post as an attachment.  You could even do this to a post that you shared a link or embedded the Padlet with HTML code.

Once you do this, you are done.