Educ 431Dr. Andrew Kitchenham

Defense by: Marian MinarNovember 22, 2007

Music : Zero 7 – “End Theme”

*click to continue

IntroductionThis is the official defense document that

accompanies my e-Portfolio assignment for Educ 431 at UNBC (Fall, 2007)

I would hope that this self-analysis of the e-Portfolio will help me improve it considerably

Onto the defense!(Note: throughout the presentation, please

‘click ahead’ when convenient)

Rationale for a PowerPoint DefenseTo keep with the theme of things, I have

chosen to do a defense of my defense (no more recursions, I promise)

That is, my explanation and support of why I chose to do my defense as a PowerPoint presentation

My rationale for using PowerPoint as my defense medium is …

Rationale for Power Point DefenseTo …

Keep Andrew awake while he analyzes my defense (essentially why we do presentations in this format; to keep the audience engaged)

Be able to point to exact examples of each defense item (by way of screen shots and animations)

Exercise my skills in using and creating Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.

Now, for the defense of my e-Portfolio …

Microsoft Expression Web

My choice of software was “Expression Web” by Microsoft. I chose it because it has most of the editing capabilities of Dreamweaver and the uniform handling of a Microsoft product

I chose to incorporate a Dynamic Web Template so that I could work with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS); these allowed me to change the style (colour, size, font, etc.) of all my pages on the fly

The Beginning

This is the starting point of my webpage,which I have called “My Education, My Profession” (so called because I view my profession as both a learning and teaching experience)

Note that the focal point is surrounded by a sea of uniform color (which comprises the whole viewing area), and that the actual content is much smaller than the boundary of the webpage

This does two things: (1) it keeps the focus on what’s important with minimal eye strain (less re-focusing during page transitions), and (2) the theme to the colors enhances the flow and connection between all of the elements of the webpage

The side image is an autumn scene. I chose this because this is the season I associate school the most with (I can’t be the only one, so this seems appropriate to have as a theme).

The Beginning

It’s all in the details … initially, there was no space above the content and the address bar. My fiancé quickly pointed this out, to her credit, and I made the necessary changes.

Font

Main headings such as “ePortfolio” are <h2> and subheadings such as “Rationale” are <h3>. I chose these because of their nice appearance (size) relative to the normal paragraph font size.

The global font is “Trebuchet”, a standard MS sans-serif font. I chose it in particular because I appreciate the slight contrast between capital ‘i’ and lower-case ‘L’

The Main Navigation

The main links within my webpage appear as fancy buttons – they stand out to attract a visitor’s attention to the main categories in my website. They appear on every page for consistency.

Note the little tiny links to the main topics at the bottom. No, these are not redundant. They are for convenience: some of my pages contain more-lengthy-than-usual content, so for the convenience of anyone who does not want to travel back to the top, they are provided for them when they finish reading that page.

The Side NavigationThe menu on the side is a universal feature of the website. I made the effort of making it context-sensitive while browsing each portion of the webpage, so that the ‘Menu’ is flexible to change depending on where you have navigated. Essentially, this adds to the user-friendliness of the website.

All un-navigated anchors in the webpage are the standard ‘blue’, so that there is some familiarity with other web pages (navigated anchors are the standard purple)

e-Portfolio vs. BCCT StandardsThe BCCT Standards are separated from what I have designated as my e-Portfolio. The section called e-Portfolio is a collection of artifacts that is not structured by the “Standards” but by other professional categories (based on Kilbane & Milman (2003) pg.56)

BCCT StandardsBut not to worry, they are still there!

For visitors that are not familiar with the standards, a convenient link exists inside the main page.

BCCT Standards

Note that each Standard is listed on the side

Let’s navigate inside “Standard 1” and see what awaits …

BCCT Standard 1

This indicates what Standard we are looking at

A quote of the Standard appears here

The support for the Standard is an artifact, so its cell is darker, more pronounced

The rationale and link to the artifact appear here and here, in less pronounced colours (to contrast against the darker shade)

The rationale is a succinct explanation and support for my choice of the artifact. In each Standard (that is developed) the table remains standard for clarity and flow of presentation.

Other MentionablesBut, that’s not all folks…

A developing reference collection for exceptional students awaits you here

A complete ePortfolio (under construction) can be accessed on any web page and …

My personal info, including a developing photo gallery, and a link to my resume are all there!

Thank you for your attention

The end.