online teaching portfolios for teaching, learning & professional development: a mott community...
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ONLINE TEACHING PORTFOLIOS FOR TEACHING, LEARNING & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: A Mott Community College Center for Teaching and Learning Workshop, presented by Dustin M. Price
ONLINE TEACHING PORTFOLIOS DESIGN BASICS
Keep it clean and clutter-free Try to keep everything simplistic or even
minimal with only your most important content spotlighted. Sometimes less really is more.
Do some web design recon Make some mental or actual notes on what
you would like to emulate on your own site.
Put visual hierarchy to use It’s a term that basically means our eyes
pay attention to web space in a certain pattern – a pattern that can help you optimize important content on your site.
Make your text easy to read Make sure your colors work together. Don’t
use uber-tiny font size. Stand by your fonts. Make sure your fonts all the same across your design.
Consider your sites look on Mobile Devices• Does your provider have CSS? How will
your website look on a smart phone?
Images and text from: http://www.wix.com/blog/2014/03/5-web-design-tips-for-a-professional-site/
ONLINE TEACHING PORTFOLIOS DESIGN BASICS
Mobile Devices With nearly two-thirds of American cell
phone owners browsing from smart devices, creating an optimized mobile presence is not a nice extra but an absolute necessity.
The numbers don’t lie: mobile browsing has doubled itself since 2009, and the numbers just keep going up.
A large number of website providing companies now have an automatic mobile viewing feature (which is awesome) Many of these companies even offer tools
to manipulate the way your cite appears on smart phones, tablets, etc.
Images and text from: http://www.wix.com/blog/2014/03/5-web-design-tips-for-a-professional-site/
ONLINE TEACHING PORTFOLIOS DESIGN BASICS
Only use sharp images in focus, not pixelated This is one of the most common mistakes
of beginning web design. If possible use photo editing software to crop and downsize images, save for web, with resolution of 76 PPI (pixels per inch).
Use open source imagery if you cannot create your own.
Easy, clean navigation is a must This is why using the a template is the best
choice for beginning designers. The navigation stays the same on each page only the content changes.
Most online website developers work from the template format. You choose a template then edit the images and content.
Make sure your buttons (navigation) work.
Make your buttons count, consider 4 to 5 buttons: Home, About, CV, Research, Teaching
ONLINE TEACHING PORTFOLIOS DESIGN BASICS
Minimal is often elegant. Choose your colors (text, buttons, backgrounds) wisely Tiling backgrounds, poor color schemes or
added textures can kill the professional quality of a site immediately.
Flashing Gifs are better left in the mid 90’s. Any blinking or flashing elements can become a distraction. Flash is dead.
No Ads
No music
Watch for typos
Familiarize yourself with the “how to videos” provided by your website company These companies are used to dealing with
people with little to no web design backgrounds and are rather user friendly!
ONLINE TEACHING PORTFOLIOS DESIGN BASICS
Minimal is often elegant. Choose your colors (text, buttons, backgrounds) wisely Consider companies that have domain
names included in their basic package.
Website costs anywhere from $5.00 to $25.00 dollars a month are great deals but many of these companies also have “free versions”. Often, in these cases you are allowed a window of time, or you must have their company logo on the site.
I write my website costs off on my taxes. It’s a teaching expense.
Analytics, Reports, Data Very often your website company will have
an area to monitor traffic (consider SEO search engine optimization).
This data could be used in a number of ways.
First and foremost you can see what areas people are viewing, how often, from what type of device, where they live, how long they were on your site etc.
Example from my website, www.dustinmprice.com
ONLINE TEACHING PORTFOLIOS DESIGN BASICS
Let us explore some actual websites demonstrating professional design and some that do not
http://www.angelfire.com/super/badwebs/
http://www.dustinmprice.com/
http://www.miriamposner.com/index.html
http://www.kenrogoff.com/
http://www.jenniferlundstrem.com/
http://www.prosintraining.com/
http://blogs.darden.virginia.edu/deansblog/
http://www.gautammukunda.com/
http://www.cwanderson.org/
ONLINE TEACHING PORTFOLIOS DESIGN BASICS
Let us explore some actual websites demonstrating professional design and some that do not (I apologize, but truly these sites have issues)
http://iws.collin.edu/jbeck/http://iws.collin.edu/ebock/http://iws.collin.edu/dgarrison/http://iws.collin.edu/kennedy/http://www.tammyengert.com/http://brightwoman.com/http://blog.benmcmurry.com/p/online-teaching-portfolios.html
https://sites.google.com/site/meganmonahanportfolio/
http://www.laurengalster.com/http://amyburghardt.wordpress.com/http://www.cgreenhow.org/http://www.kerrygorgone.com/http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/trusts_estates_prof/technology/http://www.ericgoldman.org/ Nearly every faculty site at http://iws.collin.edu/
ONLINE TEACHING PORTFOLIOS DESIGN BASICS
Now let us take a look at some of the companies mentioned in your handouts.
Wix –free
Weebly –free
Squarespace –free
Portfoliobox
Homestead
WordPress –free
Google Sites –free
Edublogs –free
Portfoliogen -free