January 22, 2025 • 40 mins
Listen as host Kelly Driscoll talks with Matthew Gomes, an EDP Systems Analyst at Bunker Hill Community College. They underscore reflective pedagogy and the use of ePortfolios to help students share their academic and personal stories.
Matthew shares his journey to Bunker Hill, his role at the college, and his innovative approaches to making ePortfolios a meaningful tool for students.
See the winners of the 2024 ePortfolio contest: https://bhcc.digication.com/bhcc-eportfolio-contest/2024-winners
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to DigicationScholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Kelly Driscoll.
In this episode, you'll hear PartOne of my conversation with Matthew
Gomes, an EDP Systems Analyst atBunker Hill Community College.
More links and information about today'sconversation can be found on Digication's
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
(00:21):
Full episodes of Digication ScholarsConversations can be found on
YouTube or your favorite podcast app.
Welcome to DigicationScholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Kelly Driscoll, and today Iam so pleased to introduce Matthew Gomes.
He's the EDP System Analyst atBunker Hill Community College.
(00:42):
Welcome, Matthew.
Thank you, Kelly.
Thank you for having me.
This is great.
Yeah, I'm so pleased to talk to youtoday, and I don't know if you're aware
of this, but Bunker Hill CommunityCollege is about to celebrate its 15
year anniversary working with Digication.
I took a peek at the system today andsaw that Some of the early adopters
(01:07):
got started back in January of 2010.
So congratulations for almost 15years of having such extraordinary
ePortfolios created by your community.
And I remember visiting the campus insome of those early days and walk, working
(01:30):
with some of the early adopters there and.
Involved in some of the early facultytrainings as people were getting started
and Your school has really been a veryearly pioneer in using ePortfolios with
such a strong focus on the, the pedagogyaround reflective practice and, uh, really
(01:56):
steadfast focus on students being able touse this kind of technology, not only to
kind of share and showcase their academicpursuits, but to really talk about who
they are and their interests outside ofthe classroom, their kind of personal
missions and passions, and kind of justshare who, who they are as a person.
(02:21):
Um, not only what they might be doingin the class there, um, So, I am just
so pleased to have you on today to kindof talk about how your portfolios are
used at Bunker Hill Community College.
And before we jump into that, I'd love tojust hear a little bit about how you came
to the campus and what your role is there.
(02:45):
Sure.
Thank you.
Uh, yeah, it's great to hearthe, uh, 15 year anniversary.
That's awesome.
I started there.
Sure.
You know, uh, I want to say 2014, ...15.
I have to go back to my LinkedIn.
It's something like that.
So I, I started there,um, as a, as a part-timer.
Um, at the time I think it wasjust a technical assistant.
(03:06):
And, um, our department was different.
It was, um, TLITC, some acronym related.
It's very technology-heavy.
Yeah, yeah.
And so, um, over time, we've generallymade a concerted effort to be more
conscious of like the teachingand learning pedagogy, right, and
strategy that you were referencing.
And so we have a whole other leg toour department now that focuses on
(03:29):
instructional design and all of this.
But, um, but my origin story, um,or the prequel to Bunker Hill, um,
I worked a number of different jobs.
I worked, uh, at a bakery for a while.
I've worked, uh, become supervisorat grocery stores, things like this.
Kind of typical when you're, you know,juggling, uh, going to school at the
(03:50):
same time, I went to, uh, actually wentto Ben Franklin Institute of Technology.
Uh, while I was juggling,um, you know, internships.
I actually had an internshipat uh, MGH for a while.
And I was juggling being a supervisor ata Quincy stop and shop along with that.
So it was very difficult days,especially when you're between 18
(04:11):
and 20, and 21 - challenging time.
Yeah.
And so, um, over time.
Uh, I kind of cut that off to, um, pursue,uh, music related things, which, you know,
you alluded to before our conversation.
Yeah, I saw your guitar in the background.
For sure.
And so I kind of decided, you know,I, I kind of want to pursue, uh,
(04:34):
what I want to do for a while.
And so I kind of turned all ofthat off just to pursue music.
Um, For a few years and I haven'tstopped necessarily, but I dropped
all of the other things I was doingjust to start my band with my brother.
I play guitar and play like rock metaltype stuff and My brother's the drummer
(04:56):
we shuffled through a couple of differentpeople as far as like bass player vocalist
things like this And then over time we,we, we reached a point where I was like,
okay, I need to get, um, a job and landit again and be a little more consistent.
And so that's where I gained a, uh, Ajob working at this bakery, which wasn't
(05:17):
the most pleasant experience, if I'mgoing to be honest, but I learned a lot.
Um, I was only there for maybetwo years and some change.
And, um, I learned a lot aboutmyself, what makes a good
job and not such a good job.
And, um, and working with people,working alongside people with
people and, um, getting along.
(05:38):
And, and so.
After being there for two years,it was kind of mentally draining,
um, on just me through and through.
It even kind of almostkilled my creativity.
Then after that, uh, fast forwarding,I got a job at a senior living facility
where I worked with the elderly.
So I went from a kind of a brutalexperience to a very humbling experience.
(06:02):
I worked with the elderly and youknow, they've have a litany of life
experience, so much life experience.
And the interesting thing is one of the...
...so that's...
I started there at the SeniorLiving Center and then I started
at Bunker Hill part time.
So I started doing those at the same time.
And at the time when I was workingat Uh, Bunker Hill in the TLITC
(06:24):
department, just working like 15 hours.
The ePortfolio was there.
Moodle was there, things like this.
But I was kind of doubling downand, uh, trying to prove that I was,
you know, worthy of being like asupervisor or something at the other
job at the senior living facility.
But it was more exhausting and, um,it was draining, um, physically.
(06:46):
And Bunker Hill, you know, uh, it'sworking at a community college.
You get to sit down, right?
So that's one of the perks of, of.
Uh, that type of job and amongstother things you get to work with
people, people aren't, you know,it's not really a customer service
type thing, or, you know, you're notgetting shouted down necessarily.
And so, um, and so for the most part,and so, um, overall Bunker Hill was
(07:10):
the, the, the, the better, um, placethat I was working, but for whatever
reason, I had a wall in my mind.
I, it didn't occur to me.
And it was one of the, um, Veryintelligent, older gentleman that
worked at the senior living facility.
I was talking to him about my dilemma.
I was like, I really want to get, dowell here and I'm, but I, I'm, I'm
siloing myself into too many silos.
(07:32):
So I have my band, I havethis job, I have this job.
Now I'm like split up.
a little too, um, a little too much.
And so, and I said, I'm trying to maybeleave Bunker Hill and then work at this
place, but I want to get more hours.
I want to be full time, all of this.
And he said, why don't you askBunker Hill if you can do that?
And I'm like, I don't knowwhy that didn't occur to me.
(07:53):
I, I, there was something about it.
I don't know what it was exactly.
Maybe I felt the need, like I had towork hard physically, like physically.
I don't know what it was, but anyway,to cut the story a little bit, I went
to Bunker Hill, um, and I talked with,she's still there now, Grace, about this.
And at the time thedirector, uh, Danielle.
(08:15):
And they were like, yeah, that will, youknow, give us a day or two and we'll,
we'll figure something out for you.
And so, um, along with that, they gaveme, they came with the responsibility of,
okay, we're going to make you the pointperson for ePortfolio along with that.
So I kind of started doing it cause wehad, um, Uh, the previous e portfolio
(08:36):
point person, full time personwas, was on his way out the door.
And so I was kind of passing the batonto me, but I was still part time as a
little, um, kind of a soft pass, butthey were like, you know, we're going to
make you the person, the actual person.
And so I took that and I was like,I don't want to just take it and
shoulder shrug my way through the day.
I want to try.
(08:56):
And so anytime, and I've gotten this.
A comment from many, uh, faculty andstudents, and I've inspired faculty
in the way they teach, the way theyanimate themselves in the classroom.
I've watched it, it's kind of, again,humbling to see them, um, well, so, and
so what I started doing was I was veryanimated because I didn't want to just
(09:17):
be a talking head in the room, right?
If I was going to give a trainingand a professor wanted me to go to
their classroom or they bring theirstudents to our space and we show them
ePortfolio to a class of 20-odd students.
These are students, some of them justout of high school and things like this.
So, you know, uh, they might still befiguring things out with regards to them
being enthusiastic about what things.
(09:38):
Yeah.
And so, you know, I wanted tolike bring some humor to it, be
more of a human, just be a person.
And I found that that seemed toresonate very well with them.
Um, even if the professor, someprofessors were using ePortfolio,
let's say at 15 percent capacity,some use it at 40 percent capacity.
(09:59):
Some just want students to justupload work like documents.
You know, so there was differentlevels, no matter what the level was.
I saw it as sort of a challenge toconvince them and demonstrate to them.
Hey, listen, it's not, yes, you're doingthis for the class, but also these are
the great things that it can do too.
You can post your resume on it.
You can add tabs.
(10:19):
You can be creative.
You can express yourself.
You can make it public.
You can post the link to any portfolioon the social media of your, your
IG, social media, Twitter, Facebook,whatever you have, LinkedIn.
You can do all of these things.
It's not just this thing that'slocked in a bunker hill, like a LMS
or an email account or whatever.
It's, it's meta, it's bigger than that.
(10:40):
And so then there's how to buildthe ePortfolio, like adding
the text boxes and things.
And then there's how should.
How should you build the ePortfolio?
What should you put into it?
What are the best thingsyou could put into it?
Right.
So anyway, that's a little bit ofthe kind of the history of myself and
where I've kind of taken ePortfolio,I think, in the past few years, so.
(11:03):
Yeah, no, I love that.
And thank you so muchfor sharing your story.
And I think it's a story thatprobably resonates a lot with
the community that you're workingwith too, often the students that.
You're providing this initialintroduction to not just the platform,
kind of technical pieces, but how it'ssomething that can support them in the
(11:28):
classroom, but also beyond, um, youknow, being that first person and, you
know, for them to be able to connectwith you, I think is really important.
And again, not just having this talkinghead, but someone that's had some.
Really true life experiences thatI think would resonate with them
as well and have that connectionof balancing life and school and
(11:53):
working and making choices aboutwhat your career path is going to be.
Um, you know, I think it's something that.
You know, when you bring your, youknow, your personality and your history
and your true self into those trainingopportunities, it is a time for you
to be able to kind of create thoseconnections with the students, engage
(12:15):
them in the conversation about theplatform and how it can benefit them
has really led to a lot of success.
I can tell in looking at the studentsportfolios that when you're talking
about, um, you know, being creativeand using it as a place to kind of
(12:36):
tell their story, that that's somethingthat really resonates with them.
You know, each one is very unique,even if it was created from a
beginning template or something thatthey were using in their course.
Most of the students I see arereally going beyond just that.
Initial Template.
(12:57):
Could you talk a little bit maybeabout some of the ideas that you give
students for how they can apply theircreativity, different tools that
they might use, or different kindsof content they might add to their
portfolios that could make it their own?
Sure.
Yeah.
So, um, so I, I, I try to give examples,but it's a tricky thing because, um,
(13:22):
with, wanting, uh, somebody or a partyor your audience to be creative, um, you
have to find the balance of show them anexample, but you know, don't copy this,
but this is what it could look like.
It's a very, uh, tricky line to find.
And it's something I still kindof struggle with a little bit.
(13:45):
So I go through a bit of a spielwith them, uh, when I'm talking about
the career potential or the transferpotential and all of these things.
And so.
Um, what I can, I show them a fewexamples as I, as I mentioned, I might
show them an example of ePortfolios.
I think that, um, you all have inyour, um, help desk site some of the
best ones, like some of the ones fromChattanooga State and things like this.
(14:07):
Um, and then I'll show themePortfolios that won, um, an
ePortfolio contest we held last year.
So I'll show them a coupleof examples of that.
And so I, I, I show them that to, toillustrate that it's not just this.
Uh, you know, simply white and blackpage with a bullet points on it.
It's, um, it's got background color.
(14:28):
So when I'm usually trying to tellthem, I first tell them the files and
the types of actual types of contentyou can add, images, documents,
videos, text boxes, right, and you canmanage backgrounds, broadly speaking.
Obviously it's not limited to that,but generally speaking, these are
the big things that most people thinkof when they're thinking of like
building a portfolio or buildinga site or something like that.
(14:50):
And so with image files I'll run throughthe types, uh, what PNG, there's the,
the usual suspects, uh, videos would,uh, PNG, JPEG, videos would be MOV,
MP4, there's a couple of oddballs thatmight act a little weird, but generally
like the, The mainstay ones work well.
File types aren't limited to, orgenerally not limited to Word docs,
(15:12):
PDFs, Excel sheets, PowerPoints, right?
You can upload them all.
You can make them as bigor as small as you want.
You can move them around.
And as I explain this, I'll have itbehind me, or if it's in a call like
this one, I'll have the screen sharedand I'll show them an example of a
portfolio that obviously did this.
But you have a, and when you paste thedocument on there, it's not just a link.
(15:32):
It's not just a hyperlink, it is, itdisplays the document for your viewers,
for you, but for your viewers, andthey can scroll up and down through it.
These things might sound rudimentaryand kind of elementary, but like, I
find that explaining the things thatare happening on the page, even if
it's just a box, a picture with aface on it, and a text box next to it,
(15:55):
explaining the different things thatare happening on that simple page, um,
helps the lights click on and it's veryhelpful when I'm usually in person.
Um, and obviously faculty haveechoed this post pandemic as well.
It generally is perks and, you know,pros and cons to in person remote,
but obviously when you're teachingpeople, you can see the lights go on.
Um, and I noticed that if Isimply, if I simply explain
(16:18):
ePortfolio at them, It doesn'tquite hit like it's a visual thing.
And that's one of thethings you all say as well.
And it's true.
It is a visual medium of showcasingand presenting things about you,
your career, things you've done,accomplishments, personal life, etc.
It's visual.
So it, I should be visual with it.
(16:39):
I should show them.
Right.
And again, this is one of those thingsthat, you know, kind of goes back
to teaching and learning pedagogyis like, You don't want to have, uh,
just a PowerPoint slide with justwords on it with bullet points, right?
You would want to have actual images,and so I take it a step further than that
personally, and this is my preference.
I like to show them the site.
I don't really use a PowerPoint.
(16:59):
I don't use a slideshow.
I like to show them, here's how I log in.
I'm doing it.
This is how you're going to do it.
You know, instead of just like, itseems, it sometimes it can feel too
separate for students and varying ages,varying demographics, things like this.
Um, I find that the most effectivething is to have the actual
site on the page and explain it.
(17:21):
And then to actually, uh, hit onthe other part of your question,
the types of things I'll show are,um, it's kind of a silly example.
Um, is let's say somebody worked ata stop and shop or a grocery store
on a resume, you could have a bulletpoint on there that says I worked at
a grocery store for five years, right?
And I'll literally sayit like that to them.
Or if you, in addition to that,you could have your ePortfolio.
(17:44):
And if you did the Jimmy Fund oneyear and your friend that was trying
to mess with you, they saw you givingout hot dogs in the front of the store
with the apron, they took a pictureof you and you saw it and you're
like, you know, that's not half bad.
You know, they're just messing withyou, but it's actually a decent picture.
Well, you can take that picture, throw itin your ePortfolio and put a a thing next,
a little text box or something next to it.
(18:04):
That says, I, I, uh, contributed tothe, um, the growth of the Jimmy fund
while working at Stop and Shop, I wasdesignated as the point person to give
out Jimmy fund tickets in order to,you know, and then you can fill in the
rest of the definition for what theJimmy funds initiative are, are, right.
So it's, it's something so, so simple.
(18:25):
Another example I gave was, um,the last couple of weeks with a
couple of other staff members, I wasrunning around, physically running
around the Bunker Hill campus.
Uh, giving out flyers forthe ePortfolio Contest.
Um, and I had some other staffdoing that and staffed out front.
And so one of the things I said to themwas one of the cool things you can do
is if I take a picture of me with myflyer, my handout, handing it to you and
(18:50):
I have my staff member take a picture ofit, for whatever reason, employers And
that's not to disparage employers becauseI've hired people too, we eat that up.
If you see a picture of me handing astudent a flyer and next to it I put
boosted student engagement, uh, whileengaging while creating an atmosphere
(19:10):
for them to You know, contributeto building their ePortfolio, um,
while boosting the initiatives of thecontest and ePortfolio and Digication
Initiative, while also giving them aplatform to do this and this and this.
You can have a little text boxnext to that image as well.
So I kind of give some ofthose examples to them as well.
(19:31):
Other examples I might give are explaininga, like a photography portfolio, right?
So if they, if a student wanted to builda, um, So I usually give them, okay, you
have an about me page, things like this.
That's kind of a typical thing.
I'll show those examples, but thenI'll say it's not just limited to that.
If you want it to, it doesn'thave to be about you per se.
(19:51):
It's kind of one of the big thingsthat it should be about, or,
you know, a lot of times, but itdoesn't necessarily have to be.
And so I opened them up to this idea oflike you can make a photography portfolio.
And so a lot of VMA, uh, VisualMedia Arts classes, will, um, have
their students create ePortfolios,um, with kind of that purpose.
But it'll be a hybrid.
(20:12):
So it'll be about me, so it'll,it'll still have that page.
They'll have their reflective components,and they might have a tab that just
says Photos, or Photography, right?
And it's They have sub pages within therethat showcase different photography.
They took it, taken in different places.
Um, and then there's anotherstudent that took a VMA class and
was a, um, was in a writing class.
(20:35):
And so I think that was one of thewinners of the contest last year.
Um, Cleo.
And so.
She had photography, she had poetry,she had, um, you know, things about her.
And the pages weren't necessarily long.
They weren't really busy.
And when I show students that, youknow, that page is kind of simplistic,
they're like, Oh, is that it?
I'm like, yeah, that's it.
(20:56):
It doesn't have to be this like hugewebsite, like Amazon or Best Buy.
Like you're not doing all that,you know, it's, it can be simpler.
Um, but it, it is one of those things.
Where the more you put into it,and by more I don't mean quantity,
but the more you put into it,the more you can get out of it.
So it transcends just that one classyou're taking where you want to
(21:18):
get an A on your homework, right?
So that's one of the, that's my overall,some of my pitch that I kind of give them.
Yeah, and that's so beneficial becausereally what you're incorporating
into the introduction to the platformand, you know, how to use the various
tools is really these elementsof digital storytelling, right?
(21:42):
You're letting them know these arereally simple ways that you can start
to bring viewers into the ePortfolioin a way that's very different from
someone just reading a resume, right?
You spoke about the kind of bullets thatyou might have in the resume that might
(22:02):
just have a, you know, name of yourposition and the dates that you were
there, and that's a really different.
format than having something like thiswhere you can start to have images
of what you may have done withinthe particular role or, you know,
other forms of, uh, media that maybe incorporated, reflections on the
(22:28):
experience, and That information is veryvaluable to people that may be viewing
your ePortfolio for hiring purposes.
It goes so much deeper than just kindof the, you know, name of your position
and the time that you were there.
For them to see any opportunities youhad for personal growth or leadership
(22:53):
opportunities that you had, communityengagement kinds of opportunities.
These are all showing.
Skills that people at all differentlevels are interested in people having
when they're joining their organization.
So anytime you have achance to highlight that.
So it's wonderful that you'reincorporating that kind of, um,
(23:15):
information into the trainings andsomething that I think You know,
our listeners will really value aswell that it's not just about, you
know, this is where you go to login, you know, that's the first step.
Um, but really how can you usetechnology like this as this kind
(23:36):
of creation space to build this kindof story of who you are and what you
really want people to know about you.
Um, so it's wonderful that you're givingthem these kind of real world examples
and sharing, you know, what some otherstudents at the institution have done.
(23:56):
I was trying to think back how manyyears you've been, um, having this.
showcase where the the students arereally participating in a in a contest
and submitting their ePortfolios forreview and I would love for you to
share a little bit about that too.
(24:17):
I think other institutions would loveto hear about ways that you've been
able to kind of get students excitedabout sharing their portfolios and.
You know, I think the contestprobably lends some additional
kind of peer motivation.
You know, they know other people aregoing to be looking at it and seeing it.
And, um, I believe you even have arubric that you use to go through
(24:41):
and kind of score those submissions.
So Tell us a little bit about that too.
I think it's a wonderful model thatother schools might be interested in.
For sure.
Um, so we had, um, we ran the ePortfoliocontest in the mid 2010s a few times.
Um, I, I wasn't, um, I wasn't theePortfolio person at that time, of course.
(25:02):
Um, we've recently brought it back.
Um, last year was the first time wehad it again since, I don't know,
probably maybe 2016 or something.
So, Um, so it was a little tricky,so, but it was ran a few times.
It was like a spring, fall, spring,fall that they did back then.
But anyway, so last year we,we, um, relaunched it and.
(25:25):
It was a little, um, it, it was notforeign, but it was a little, it was a
little tricky for us at first because,well, if you work anywhere, really,
you, you know, if you working, um, inan industry where you're working in a
factory or you're packaging boxes andAmazon, or you're, you're just trying
to, uh, get your seat, you know, yourboss, it's their coffee for the day.
(25:49):
You're not really thinking in likecontest mode and building enthusiasm and.
Things like this, you know, you're kind ofjust running, you know, you're just kind
of running the cog that is your position.
And so this, this led to a uniquedynamic, I think, for our department
to think and consider, um, how we canengage students to be interested in this.
(26:12):
You know, is it, is it, um, youknow, like I explained a minute ago,
is it we, us running around and wehave as many posters as possible
and as many handouts as possible andwe have people staffed at a table.
Is it talking to specificfaculty who may be interested?
Is it talking to the faculty that arealready using ePortfolio and say, Hey,
(26:33):
just FYI, there's a contest coming up.
Here's the timing of it.
I know you usually like to do yourePortfolio trainings at the end of
the semester, but maybe, you know,you think consider the beginning.
Um, some of that was a little,um, tricky to navigate.
Uh, the, the, the nice thing about,Last year was, it was my first go
at doing it and for the supervisorabove me, Uju as well, it was her
(26:57):
first go, like, really tackling this.
So we were like, you know what, ifwe make a few mistakes and we, you
know, not super perfect, it's okay.
So, and I, overall, Ithink it went fairly well.
Um, so anyways, we, um, So the formatwe went with was, um, we would open
the contest, we used the Digicationcourses, um, the courses in Digication
(27:19):
as the sort of group sign up.
component so that students feel likethey're tangibly signing up and we need
them to anyway, but um, so they're,they're basically clicking that enroll
button to join the course, right?
And that's their way of,of uh, signing up for it.
And so it does a few things.
One, it gets them to sign in.
If they've never logged intoDigication, their account
(27:41):
doesn't necessarily spawn, right?
So they need to log into it, um, andthen it spawns their account, um, which
it exists, but you know what I mean?
And so.
Um, in addition to that,they enroll in the contest.
And so they're signed up.
So they're in the list of the, um,people in the people column, right.
Um, in the actual, um,contest group or course.
(28:02):
Um, and so.
Once that's done, we also hada, we built an ePortfolio page
for the ePortfolio contest.
Um, and so we, um, make created handoutswith QR codes and things like this, and
we would have students scan them andthat would take them to the signup page.
(28:22):
And the signup pageisn't just a signup page.
It goes over, um, what the prizesare, which we, last year and
this year as well, we did two 250prizes, and we did two 100 prizes.
We kind of did two categories,um, for each one of those.
One, we did a, um, Sort of apersonal slash hobby portfolio.
(28:45):
The other one was, uh,professional slash academic.
Um, and they were both 250.
The other prizes of 100,100 were audience choice.
I'll put those aside for, for now.
The two, two 250 prizes are the,obviously the bigger selling
point to get people at least in.
So we have a little descriptionabout the contest and the same
(29:07):
ePortfolio page, we created a video.
And.
Um, I, we have a couple of peoplein our, um, department who are
quite good at making nice videos.
Um, I'm pretty decent myself, butobviously I'm siloed in a number
of, of, I wear a number of hats.
So that's a little challenging forme to get around to do, which is a
shame because I do kind of like it.
I do like doing it, but that's okay.
(29:29):
Um, so anyway, we create videos of howto sign up for the contest, even though
it's a one minute, 30 second video, it'sYou have to create a video because, I
mean, unless, you know, there's otherways you can consider having people
sign up for the contest, but for us,what worked fairly well last year, even
though it seemed, might seem like anumber of steps and a little odd for
(29:50):
students, if you're just with that,there with them, um, they'll sign up.
And when we send out, we send out emailsas well to the whole campus of students
saying, Hey, sign up for the contest.
This is what it is.
Here's the link to sign up.
They sign up, so they're able to doit, and they're able to figure it out.
But the trick to that is you have tolink how to sign up, and in my opinion,
(30:10):
video is the best modality to do that.
Have the video be, youknow, decent quality.
A little music in the background,but it shouldn't be in your face.
And instructional.
So you want to have it go throughlike a normal how to tutorial, right?
An actual how to guide.
Um, and then, That showsthem how to sign up.
Click here, zoom into thebutton, click that, right?
(30:32):
So anyway, we create the videoand it's, you know, great.
We have people sign up.
Um, we outline on the page ourcontest guidelines and that goes
to the rubric that you mentioned.
So the ePortfolio Contest Rubric islinked on our page because that's what
our judges use to judge the ePortfolios.
So, so that's basically the experiencefor the student in the beginning.
(30:54):
So, I want to say like midlate August is when we have
people sign up for the contest.
Um, or we at least open it up for sign up.
I should say we try to promoteas much as possible and then.
The submission phase then comes in.
So we open the contest up for submissionon, um, I want to say it was the end
(31:16):
of September, something like that.
So we give from end of Septemberto the end of October, we
open it up for submission.
And, There's a few reasons wedid this because we could have,
we could have opened it upfor signup and for submission.
The reason we didn't do that wasbecause we wanted to open it up for so
students could submit multiple timesin case they submitted by accident.
(31:39):
Right.
So, and, but the trick was, if we did thattoo early, we opened up the submissions
too early, some students might have 30submissions and it might get a little,
it might be a bit of a lot, right?
It might be a lot for them.
And so what we decided was, okay,that month period makes sense.
Um, and we wanted the, um, the languageof what we were saying to people to
(32:04):
be different in different phases.
Sign up for the portfolio contest,sign up, sign up, sign up.
And then.
Attention students, now it's time, nowthat you've worked on your ePortfolios
and you've been working on them,ePortfolios are now open for submission.
You can submit, join the aidlab, or drop in with us, and
you can drop in for submission.
Right, so we wanted to also staggerit in turn, uh, for the students to
(32:29):
get used to the concept of logging in,signing up, and then making a portfolio.
Like, that's kind of A lot for brandnew students as it is like they're this
is sort of a bond to add it on to theircourses That they're already taking
their math courses English course etc.
So it's it's extra Um, and you know, weare open to help them But you know, and
obviously not all students are goingto drop in for help every step of the
(32:52):
way so We'd find that staggering the,um, release phases was more effective.
Um, I think, and so we did the samething this year, um, about a month for
submission, but they can also like newpeople can still sign up, so you can
still sign up for the submission phase.
You can sign up even the last day, uh,October 29 or whatever it was, they
(33:14):
could sign up and still submit as well.
Work with us for anhour if they wanted to.
Right.
Um, and then we have it.
A month period for our judges.
So we, um, pay, uh, at this semester.
Last year, I think we did six, butthis year we're doing five judges.
And so we're, we reached out to somefaculty, reached out to some staff, um,
(33:35):
and we tried to be nuanced in our choices.
So I try to have one staff, onefaculty member from the MA, one
from, uh, ELL, that's, um, uh, ESL,the English Second Language faculty.
One from business, onefrom, uh, sociology, right?
Just different, um, types anddifferent perspectives to be
(33:56):
able to judge the contest.
You don't want to silo allthe way into just VMA people.
You don't want to be all English faculty.
So it seemed like the right move,I don't know, to have different
faculty from these different areas.
And so we've done that and wegive them about a month to judge.
So we just actually, maybe last weekeven, um, turned off the submissions.
(34:17):
So Submissions are done, but now it'sturned over to the faculty, which again,
we made a video for them and instructionalmaterial for them on how to judge.
So that was the next piece of this.
So we had to make materials forthe students on how to do things.
But then we had to make things forour faculty on how to do things
for the contest so that theycan navigate it and not be lost.
(34:39):
And, and we want it to bea good experience for them.
Like that's one of the other things too,that I was mentioning, um, earlier with a
different topic is that I didn't want tojust shoulder shrug my way through this.
I want.
If, even if they're, you know,judging 20, 30, 40, 50 ePortfolios,
I want it to be like fun for them,or I want it to be, um, unique.
(35:02):
And I want, so one of our staffmembers, he made a, uh, a judge video.
Maybe I'll send it to you after this.
Absolutely hilarious.
It's in the style of like old 1940s,50s, Mickey Mouse, and it's really a
silly video, but it's instructional.
It's so funny.
And I, I just saw it last weekand I was like, Cam, you're
ridiculous, but it's great.
(35:23):
I was like that, that I didn'teven have to tell you to do this.
You already knew, um, that this iswhat I, what we were shooting for.
So I want it to be a special thing,not just this obligatory thing
where you're, you know, doing it,grading students, getting paid.
That's it.
Nah, that's fine.
But While you're doing it,let's have, you know, enjoy it
a little or have fun with it.
And, um, really for us have that, thataid stamp, like you worked with our
(35:48):
department aid and it was a uniqueexperience from other experiences and
it was ePortfolio, different experience.
That's not like other experiencesworking with other things, right?
So we wanted it to be as, as pleasantand as fun as possible for them.
Right.
And so, yeah, they get a month to judgeand then we'll announce the winners.
Um, I think we have December 3rd.
(36:09):
I have it pulled up on the side here,December 3rd to, um, announce the exact.
The winners of the two 250 prizes,then we'll have a contest, uh, sort
of celebration in person event.
Um, we're still working throughthe logistics of that now,
but that will be December 10.
Again, we're trying to balancenot too close to finals, but when
(36:31):
people are freaking out, you know,again, that's another tricky thing.
It's very tricky balancingthese things, right?
And so, um, so we're having thatevent and I think it'll be fun.
We'll have pizza, Jenga.
Uh, we're going to makeit, we did it last year.
It was kind of lastminute, but it went well.
And I was like, I want to actnow that we have time to plan it.
I want to do it better.
(36:51):
So we're going to havegiant Jenga, maybe giant.
Cornhole connect for whatever,just silly things going on while
people, uh, come into our area ormaybe we'll have it in the hallway.
If we can reserve it.
I don't know.
Um, Love pizza, snacks, but thecatch is, uh, students come in there
and the point of it is to vote onthe audience choice ePortfolio.
(37:13):
So we'll send out an email forthe audience choice and we'll
determine the winner that day.
So we'll probably choose, I'll go backa tiny bit, but so the audience choice
ePortfolios will acquire the candidatesfrom the maybe top six or top seven.
Okay.
Yeah.
I was curious on all the submissions, howmany kind of move on to that next level?
(37:37):
Exactly.
So the two grand prize winners will be thetwo that were highest rated by the judges.
But then we'll have a bunchof honorable mentions, right?
We'll have some really good ePortfoliosand it's like, oh, it's a shame.
We can't do anything with them.
They didn't win anything.
Well, we can do something with them.
We can nominate them.
So that's one level of, um, I don'tknow, honoring them or promoting them.
(37:58):
And then in addition to that, we cansay, these are the seven or six or five
ePortfolios, not the grand prize winners.
Um, that we will choosefor the audience choice.
And so we'll make a form or we'llmake some kind of polling thing.
I think we did a form last yearand we'll have the little, the
links to each of the portfolios.
We'll send out an email and say tothe entire campus, Hey, everybody,
(38:20):
the audience choice has opened up.
Vote.
Vote, vote, vote for your favoriteePortfolio out of the, you
know, five or six of them here.
And the top two winners aregoing to get a $100 prize.
Um, and so, you know, in thesedays, you know, obviously more
money better, but hey, a hundreddollars is a hundred dollars, right?
Two 50; two 50.
Yeah.
You know?
Um, and so it, it billed incentives.
(38:43):
And so that's how we acquire them.
And we'll have a combination of anemail sent out to find out the audience
choice winner, and we'll have thatDecember 10th event to have people vote.
And by maybe 3:34, we'll havethe actual announcement for who
the audience choice winner is.
So it'll be a sort of a doublewhammy event or triple whammy event.
(39:04):
I like to view it as finalexclamation point for end of semester.
You did it students.
We're aid come hang out with usand check out these ePortfolios.
What's ePortfolio?
You know, some people might not have heardof the contest or whatever, so we can show
them and we have festivities, balloons,uh, shiny things, whatever, food, pizza,
and then the third thing would be.
Actual winner, right?
(39:25):
We get an actual couple of winnersand the voting out of that too.
So a triple whammy kind of event thatwe, uh, hoping to put on and I think
it'll be better this year than thanlast year too, so it should be fun.
Here's a preview of what'scoming up next In part two of my
conversation with Matthew Gomes.
An ADP Systems Analyst atBunker Hill Community College.
(39:45):
We had one student that wasn't,um, I guess when they found out
they weren't, they didn't win,they weren't super thrilled.
Um, but on that same token, we hadstudents who were like, Oh, uh, this
makes me motivated to try next year.
Or when are you doing it again?
I was, that was another one thatsurprised me, where students were like,
when are you going to run it again?
(40:06):
Even faculty were like, Oh, if I knew, oh,and I'm like, sent out a million emails.
Welcome to DigicationScholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Kelly Driscoll.
In this episode, you'll hear PartOne of my conversation with Matthew
Gomes, an EDP Systems Analyst atBunker Hill Community College.
More links and information about today'sconversation can be found on Digication's
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
(00:21):
Full episodes of Digication ScholarsConversations can be found on
YouTube or your favorite podcast app.
Welcome to DigicationScholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Kelly Driscoll, and today Iam so pleased to introduce Matthew Gomes.
He's the EDP System Analyst atBunker Hill Community College.
(00:42):
Welcome, Matthew.
Thank you, Kelly.
Thank you for having me.
This is great.
Yeah, I'm so pleased to talk to youtoday, and I don't know if you're aware
of this, but Bunker Hill CommunityCollege is about to celebrate its 15
year anniversary working with Digication.
I took a peek at the system today andsaw that Some of the early adopters
(01:07):
got started back in January of 2010.
So congratulations for almost 15years of having such extraordinary
ePortfolios created by your community.
And I remember visiting the campus insome of those early days and walk, working
(01:30):
with some of the early adopters there and.
Involved in some of the early facultytrainings as people were getting started
and Your school has really been a veryearly pioneer in using ePortfolios with
such a strong focus on the, the pedagogyaround reflective practice and, uh, really
(01:56):
steadfast focus on students being able touse this kind of technology, not only to
kind of share and showcase their academicpursuits, but to really talk about who
they are and their interests outside ofthe classroom, their kind of personal
missions and passions, and kind of justshare who, who they are as a person.
(02:21):
Um, not only what they might be doingin the class there, um, So, I am just
so pleased to have you on today to kindof talk about how your portfolios are
used at Bunker Hill Community College.
And before we jump into that, I'd love tojust hear a little bit about how you came
to the campus and what your role is there.
(02:45):
Sure.
Thank you.
Uh, yeah, it's great to hearthe, uh, 15 year anniversary.
That's awesome.
I started there.
Sure.
You know, uh, I want to say 2014, ...15.
I have to go back to my LinkedIn.
It's something like that.
So I, I started there,um, as a, as a part-timer.
Um, at the time I think it wasjust a technical assistant.
(03:06):
And, um, our department was different.
It was, um, TLITC, some acronym related.
It's very technology-heavy.
Yeah, yeah.
And so, um, over time, we've generallymade a concerted effort to be more
conscious of like the teachingand learning pedagogy, right, and
strategy that you were referencing.
And so we have a whole other leg toour department now that focuses on
(03:29):
instructional design and all of this.
But, um, but my origin story, um,or the prequel to Bunker Hill, um,
I worked a number of different jobs.
I worked, uh, at a bakery for a while.
I've worked, uh, become supervisorat grocery stores, things like this.
Kind of typical when you're, you know,juggling, uh, going to school at the
(03:50):
same time, I went to, uh, actually wentto Ben Franklin Institute of Technology.
Uh, while I was juggling,um, you know, internships.
I actually had an internshipat uh, MGH for a while.
And I was juggling being a supervisor ata Quincy stop and shop along with that.
So it was very difficult days,especially when you're between 18
(04:11):
and 20, and 21 - challenging time.
Yeah.
And so, um, over time.
Uh, I kind of cut that off to, um, pursue,uh, music related things, which, you know,
you alluded to before our conversation.
Yeah, I saw your guitar in the background.
For sure.
And so I kind of decided, you know,I, I kind of want to pursue, uh,
(04:34):
what I want to do for a while.
And so I kind of turned all ofthat off just to pursue music.
Um, For a few years and I haven'tstopped necessarily, but I dropped
all of the other things I was doingjust to start my band with my brother.
I play guitar and play like rock metaltype stuff and My brother's the drummer
(04:56):
we shuffled through a couple of differentpeople as far as like bass player vocalist
things like this And then over time we,we, we reached a point where I was like,
okay, I need to get, um, a job and landit again and be a little more consistent.
And so that's where I gained a, uh, Ajob working at this bakery, which wasn't
(05:17):
the most pleasant experience, if I'mgoing to be honest, but I learned a lot.
Um, I was only there for maybetwo years and some change.
And, um, I learned a lot aboutmyself, what makes a good
job and not such a good job.
And, um, and working with people,working alongside people with
people and, um, getting along.
(05:38):
And, and so.
After being there for two years,it was kind of mentally draining,
um, on just me through and through.
It even kind of almostkilled my creativity.
Then after that, uh, fast forwarding,I got a job at a senior living facility
where I worked with the elderly.
So I went from a kind of a brutalexperience to a very humbling experience.
(06:02):
I worked with the elderly and youknow, they've have a litany of life
experience, so much life experience.
And the interesting thing is one of the...
...so that's...
I started there at the SeniorLiving Center and then I started
at Bunker Hill part time.
So I started doing those at the same time.
And at the time when I was workingat Uh, Bunker Hill in the TLITC
(06:24):
department, just working like 15 hours.
The ePortfolio was there.
Moodle was there, things like this.
But I was kind of doubling downand, uh, trying to prove that I was,
you know, worthy of being like asupervisor or something at the other
job at the senior living facility.
But it was more exhausting and, um,it was draining, um, physically.
(06:46):
And Bunker Hill, you know, uh, it'sworking at a community college.
You get to sit down, right?
So that's one of the perks of, of.
Uh, that type of job and amongstother things you get to work with
people, people aren't, you know,it's not really a customer service
type thing, or, you know, you're notgetting shouted down necessarily.
And so, um, and so for the most part,and so, um, overall Bunker Hill was
(07:10):
the, the, the, the better, um, placethat I was working, but for whatever
reason, I had a wall in my mind.
I, it didn't occur to me.
And it was one of the, um, Veryintelligent, older gentleman that
worked at the senior living facility.
I was talking to him about my dilemma.
I was like, I really want to get, dowell here and I'm, but I, I'm, I'm
siloing myself into too many silos.
(07:32):
So I have my band, I havethis job, I have this job.
Now I'm like split up.
a little too, um, a little too much.
And so, and I said, I'm trying to maybeleave Bunker Hill and then work at this
place, but I want to get more hours.
I want to be full time, all of this.
And he said, why don't you askBunker Hill if you can do that?
And I'm like, I don't knowwhy that didn't occur to me.
(07:53):
I, I, there was something about it.
I don't know what it was exactly.
Maybe I felt the need, like I had towork hard physically, like physically.
I don't know what it was, but anyway,to cut the story a little bit, I went
to Bunker Hill, um, and I talked with,she's still there now, Grace, about this.
And at the time thedirector, uh, Danielle.
(08:15):
And they were like, yeah, that will, youknow, give us a day or two and we'll,
we'll figure something out for you.
And so, um, along with that, they gaveme, they came with the responsibility of,
okay, we're going to make you the pointperson for ePortfolio along with that.
So I kind of started doing it cause wehad, um, Uh, the previous e portfolio
(08:36):
point person, full time personwas, was on his way out the door.
And so I was kind of passing the batonto me, but I was still part time as a
little, um, kind of a soft pass, butthey were like, you know, we're going to
make you the person, the actual person.
And so I took that and I was like,I don't want to just take it and
shoulder shrug my way through the day.
I want to try.
(08:56):
And so anytime, and I've gotten this.
A comment from many, uh, faculty andstudents, and I've inspired faculty
in the way they teach, the way theyanimate themselves in the classroom.
I've watched it, it's kind of, again,humbling to see them, um, well, so, and
so what I started doing was I was veryanimated because I didn't want to just
(09:17):
be a talking head in the room, right?
If I was going to give a trainingand a professor wanted me to go to
their classroom or they bring theirstudents to our space and we show them
ePortfolio to a class of 20-odd students.
These are students, some of them justout of high school and things like this.
So, you know, uh, they might still befiguring things out with regards to them
being enthusiastic about what things.
(09:38):
Yeah.
And so, you know, I wanted tolike bring some humor to it, be
more of a human, just be a person.
And I found that that seemed toresonate very well with them.
Um, even if the professor, someprofessors were using ePortfolio,
let's say at 15 percent capacity,some use it at 40 percent capacity.
(09:59):
Some just want students to justupload work like documents.
You know, so there was differentlevels, no matter what the level was.
I saw it as sort of a challenge toconvince them and demonstrate to them.
Hey, listen, it's not, yes, you're doingthis for the class, but also these are
the great things that it can do too.
You can post your resume on it.
You can add tabs.
(10:19):
You can be creative.
You can express yourself.
You can make it public.
You can post the link to any portfolioon the social media of your, your
IG, social media, Twitter, Facebook,whatever you have, LinkedIn.
You can do all of these things.
It's not just this thing that'slocked in a bunker hill, like a LMS
or an email account or whatever.
It's, it's meta, it's bigger than that.
(10:40):
And so then there's how to buildthe ePortfolio, like adding
the text boxes and things.
And then there's how should.
How should you build the ePortfolio?
What should you put into it?
What are the best thingsyou could put into it?
Right.
So anyway, that's a little bit ofthe kind of the history of myself and
where I've kind of taken ePortfolio,I think, in the past few years, so.
(11:03):
Yeah, no, I love that.
And thank you so muchfor sharing your story.
And I think it's a story thatprobably resonates a lot with
the community that you're workingwith too, often the students that.
You're providing this initialintroduction to not just the platform,
kind of technical pieces, but how it'ssomething that can support them in the
(11:28):
classroom, but also beyond, um, youknow, being that first person and, you
know, for them to be able to connectwith you, I think is really important.
And again, not just having this talkinghead, but someone that's had some.
Really true life experiences thatI think would resonate with them
as well and have that connectionof balancing life and school and
(11:53):
working and making choices aboutwhat your career path is going to be.
Um, you know, I think it's something that.
You know, when you bring your, youknow, your personality and your history
and your true self into those trainingopportunities, it is a time for you
to be able to kind of create thoseconnections with the students, engage
(12:15):
them in the conversation about theplatform and how it can benefit them
has really led to a lot of success.
I can tell in looking at the studentsportfolios that when you're talking
about, um, you know, being creativeand using it as a place to kind of
(12:36):
tell their story, that that's somethingthat really resonates with them.
You know, each one is very unique,even if it was created from a
beginning template or something thatthey were using in their course.
Most of the students I see arereally going beyond just that.
Initial Template.
(12:57):
Could you talk a little bit maybeabout some of the ideas that you give
students for how they can apply theircreativity, different tools that
they might use, or different kindsof content they might add to their
portfolios that could make it their own?
Sure.
Yeah.
So, um, so I, I, I try to give examples,but it's a tricky thing because, um,
(13:22):
with, wanting, uh, somebody or a partyor your audience to be creative, um, you
have to find the balance of show them anexample, but you know, don't copy this,
but this is what it could look like.
It's a very, uh, tricky line to find.
And it's something I still kindof struggle with a little bit.
(13:45):
So I go through a bit of a spielwith them, uh, when I'm talking about
the career potential or the transferpotential and all of these things.
And so.
Um, what I can, I show them a fewexamples as I, as I mentioned, I might
show them an example of ePortfolios.
I think that, um, you all have inyour, um, help desk site some of the
best ones, like some of the ones fromChattanooga State and things like this.
(14:07):
Um, and then I'll show themePortfolios that won, um, an
ePortfolio contest we held last year.
So I'll show them a coupleof examples of that.
And so I, I, I show them that to, toillustrate that it's not just this.
Uh, you know, simply white and blackpage with a bullet points on it.
It's, um, it's got background color.
(14:28):
So when I'm usually trying to tellthem, I first tell them the files and
the types of actual types of contentyou can add, images, documents,
videos, text boxes, right, and you canmanage backgrounds, broadly speaking.
Obviously it's not limited to that,but generally speaking, these are
the big things that most people thinkof when they're thinking of like
building a portfolio or buildinga site or something like that.
(14:50):
And so with image files I'll run throughthe types, uh, what PNG, there's the,
the usual suspects, uh, videos would,uh, PNG, JPEG, videos would be MOV,
MP4, there's a couple of oddballs thatmight act a little weird, but generally
like the, The mainstay ones work well.
File types aren't limited to, orgenerally not limited to Word docs,
(15:12):
PDFs, Excel sheets, PowerPoints, right?
You can upload them all.
You can make them as bigor as small as you want.
You can move them around.
And as I explain this, I'll have itbehind me, or if it's in a call like
this one, I'll have the screen sharedand I'll show them an example of a
portfolio that obviously did this.
But you have a, and when you paste thedocument on there, it's not just a link.
(15:32):
It's not just a hyperlink, it is, itdisplays the document for your viewers,
for you, but for your viewers, andthey can scroll up and down through it.
These things might sound rudimentaryand kind of elementary, but like, I
find that explaining the things thatare happening on the page, even if
it's just a box, a picture with aface on it, and a text box next to it,
(15:55):
explaining the different things thatare happening on that simple page, um,
helps the lights click on and it's veryhelpful when I'm usually in person.
Um, and obviously faculty haveechoed this post pandemic as well.
It generally is perks and, you know,pros and cons to in person remote,
but obviously when you're teachingpeople, you can see the lights go on.
Um, and I noticed that if Isimply, if I simply explain
(16:18):
ePortfolio at them, It doesn'tquite hit like it's a visual thing.
And that's one of thethings you all say as well.
And it's true.
It is a visual medium of showcasingand presenting things about you,
your career, things you've done,accomplishments, personal life, etc.
It's visual.
So it, I should be visual with it.
(16:39):
I should show them.
Right.
And again, this is one of those thingsthat, you know, kind of goes back
to teaching and learning pedagogyis like, You don't want to have, uh,
just a PowerPoint slide with justwords on it with bullet points, right?
You would want to have actual images,and so I take it a step further than that
personally, and this is my preference.
I like to show them the site.
I don't really use a PowerPoint.
(16:59):
I don't use a slideshow.
I like to show them, here's how I log in.
I'm doing it.
This is how you're going to do it.
You know, instead of just like, itseems, it sometimes it can feel too
separate for students and varying ages,varying demographics, things like this.
Um, I find that the most effectivething is to have the actual
site on the page and explain it.
(17:21):
And then to actually, uh, hit onthe other part of your question,
the types of things I'll show are,um, it's kind of a silly example.
Um, is let's say somebody worked ata stop and shop or a grocery store
on a resume, you could have a bulletpoint on there that says I worked at
a grocery store for five years, right?
And I'll literally sayit like that to them.
Or if you, in addition to that,you could have your ePortfolio.
(17:44):
And if you did the Jimmy Fund oneyear and your friend that was trying
to mess with you, they saw you givingout hot dogs in the front of the store
with the apron, they took a pictureof you and you saw it and you're
like, you know, that's not half bad.
You know, they're just messing withyou, but it's actually a decent picture.
Well, you can take that picture, throw itin your ePortfolio and put a a thing next,
a little text box or something next to it.
(18:04):
That says, I, I, uh, contributed tothe, um, the growth of the Jimmy fund
while working at Stop and Shop, I wasdesignated as the point person to give
out Jimmy fund tickets in order to,you know, and then you can fill in the
rest of the definition for what theJimmy funds initiative are, are, right.
So it's, it's something so, so simple.
(18:25):
Another example I gave was, um,the last couple of weeks with a
couple of other staff members, I wasrunning around, physically running
around the Bunker Hill campus.
Uh, giving out flyers forthe ePortfolio Contest.
Um, and I had some other staffdoing that and staffed out front.
And so one of the things I said to themwas one of the cool things you can do
is if I take a picture of me with myflyer, my handout, handing it to you and
(18:50):
I have my staff member take a picture ofit, for whatever reason, employers And
that's not to disparage employers becauseI've hired people too, we eat that up.
If you see a picture of me handing astudent a flyer and next to it I put
boosted student engagement, uh, whileengaging while creating an atmosphere
(19:10):
for them to You know, contributeto building their ePortfolio, um,
while boosting the initiatives of thecontest and ePortfolio and Digication
Initiative, while also giving them aplatform to do this and this and this.
You can have a little text boxnext to that image as well.
So I kind of give some ofthose examples to them as well.
(19:31):
Other examples I might give are explaininga, like a photography portfolio, right?
So if they, if a student wanted to builda, um, So I usually give them, okay, you
have an about me page, things like this.
That's kind of a typical thing.
I'll show those examples, but thenI'll say it's not just limited to that.
If you want it to, it doesn'thave to be about you per se.
(19:51):
It's kind of one of the big thingsthat it should be about, or,
you know, a lot of times, but itdoesn't necessarily have to be.
And so I opened them up to this idea oflike you can make a photography portfolio.
And so a lot of VMA, uh, VisualMedia Arts classes, will, um, have
their students create ePortfolios,um, with kind of that purpose.
But it'll be a hybrid.
(20:12):
So it'll be about me, so it'll,it'll still have that page.
They'll have their reflective components,and they might have a tab that just
says Photos, or Photography, right?
And it's They have sub pages within therethat showcase different photography.
They took it, taken in different places.
Um, and then there's anotherstudent that took a VMA class and
was a, um, was in a writing class.
(20:35):
And so I think that was one of thewinners of the contest last year.
Um, Cleo.
And so.
She had photography, she had poetry,she had, um, you know, things about her.
And the pages weren't necessarily long.
They weren't really busy.
And when I show students that, youknow, that page is kind of simplistic,
they're like, Oh, is that it?
I'm like, yeah, that's it.
(20:56):
It doesn't have to be this like hugewebsite, like Amazon or Best Buy.
Like you're not doing all that,you know, it's, it can be simpler.
Um, but it, it is one of those things.
Where the more you put into it,and by more I don't mean quantity,
but the more you put into it,the more you can get out of it.
So it transcends just that one classyou're taking where you want to
(21:18):
get an A on your homework, right?
So that's one of the, that's my overall,some of my pitch that I kind of give them.
Yeah, and that's so beneficial becausereally what you're incorporating
into the introduction to the platformand, you know, how to use the various
tools is really these elementsof digital storytelling, right?
(21:42):
You're letting them know these arereally simple ways that you can start
to bring viewers into the ePortfolioin a way that's very different from
someone just reading a resume, right?
You spoke about the kind of bullets thatyou might have in the resume that might
(22:02):
just have a, you know, name of yourposition and the dates that you were
there, and that's a really different.
format than having something like thiswhere you can start to have images
of what you may have done withinthe particular role or, you know,
other forms of, uh, media that maybe incorporated, reflections on the
(22:28):
experience, and That information is veryvaluable to people that may be viewing
your ePortfolio for hiring purposes.
It goes so much deeper than just kindof the, you know, name of your position
and the time that you were there.
For them to see any opportunities youhad for personal growth or leadership
(22:53):
opportunities that you had, communityengagement kinds of opportunities.
These are all showing.
Skills that people at all differentlevels are interested in people having
when they're joining their organization.
So anytime you have achance to highlight that.
So it's wonderful that you'reincorporating that kind of, um,
(23:15):
information into the trainings andsomething that I think You know,
our listeners will really value aswell that it's not just about, you
know, this is where you go to login, you know, that's the first step.
Um, but really how can you usetechnology like this as this kind
(23:36):
of creation space to build this kindof story of who you are and what you
really want people to know about you.
Um, so it's wonderful that you're givingthem these kind of real world examples
and sharing, you know, what some otherstudents at the institution have done.
(23:56):
I was trying to think back how manyyears you've been, um, having this.
showcase where the the students arereally participating in a in a contest
and submitting their ePortfolios forreview and I would love for you to
share a little bit about that too.
(24:17):
I think other institutions would loveto hear about ways that you've been
able to kind of get students excitedabout sharing their portfolios and.
You know, I think the contestprobably lends some additional
kind of peer motivation.
You know, they know other people aregoing to be looking at it and seeing it.
And, um, I believe you even have arubric that you use to go through
(24:41):
and kind of score those submissions.
So Tell us a little bit about that too.
I think it's a wonderful model thatother schools might be interested in.
For sure.
Um, so we had, um, we ran the ePortfoliocontest in the mid 2010s a few times.
Um, I, I wasn't, um, I wasn't theePortfolio person at that time, of course.
(25:02):
Um, we've recently brought it back.
Um, last year was the first time wehad it again since, I don't know,
probably maybe 2016 or something.
So, Um, so it was a little tricky,so, but it was ran a few times.
It was like a spring, fall, spring,fall that they did back then.
But anyway, so last year we,we, um, relaunched it and.
(25:25):
It was a little, um, it, it was notforeign, but it was a little, it was a
little tricky for us at first because,well, if you work anywhere, really,
you, you know, if you working, um, inan industry where you're working in a
factory or you're packaging boxes andAmazon, or you're, you're just trying
to, uh, get your seat, you know, yourboss, it's their coffee for the day.
(25:49):
You're not really thinking in likecontest mode and building enthusiasm and.
Things like this, you know, you're kind ofjust running, you know, you're just kind
of running the cog that is your position.
And so this, this led to a uniquedynamic, I think, for our department
to think and consider, um, how we canengage students to be interested in this.
(26:12):
You know, is it, is it, um, youknow, like I explained a minute ago,
is it we, us running around and wehave as many posters as possible
and as many handouts as possible andwe have people staffed at a table.
Is it talking to specificfaculty who may be interested?
Is it talking to the faculty that arealready using ePortfolio and say, Hey,
(26:33):
just FYI, there's a contest coming up.
Here's the timing of it.
I know you usually like to do yourePortfolio trainings at the end of
the semester, but maybe, you know,you think consider the beginning.
Um, some of that was a little,um, tricky to navigate.
Uh, the, the, the nice thing about,Last year was, it was my first go
at doing it and for the supervisorabove me, Uju as well, it was her
(26:57):
first go, like, really tackling this.
So we were like, you know what, ifwe make a few mistakes and we, you
know, not super perfect, it's okay.
So, and I, overall, Ithink it went fairly well.
Um, so anyways, we, um, So the formatwe went with was, um, we would open
the contest, we used the Digicationcourses, um, the courses in Digication
(27:19):
as the sort of group sign up.
component so that students feel likethey're tangibly signing up and we need
them to anyway, but um, so they're,they're basically clicking that enroll
button to join the course, right?
And that's their way of,of uh, signing up for it.
And so it does a few things.
One, it gets them to sign in.
If they've never logged intoDigication, their account
(27:41):
doesn't necessarily spawn, right?
So they need to log into it, um, andthen it spawns their account, um, which
it exists, but you know what I mean?
And so.
Um, in addition to that,they enroll in the contest.
And so they're signed up.
So they're in the list of the, um,people in the people column, right.
Um, in the actual, um,contest group or course.
(28:02):
Um, and so.
Once that's done, we also hada, we built an ePortfolio page
for the ePortfolio contest.
Um, and so we, um, make created handoutswith QR codes and things like this, and
we would have students scan them andthat would take them to the signup page.
(28:22):
And the signup pageisn't just a signup page.
It goes over, um, what the prizesare, which we, last year and
this year as well, we did two 250prizes, and we did two 100 prizes.
We kind of did two categories,um, for each one of those.
One, we did a, um, Sort of apersonal slash hobby portfolio.
(28:45):
The other one was, uh,professional slash academic.
Um, and they were both 250.
The other prizes of 100,100 were audience choice.
I'll put those aside for, for now.
The two, two 250 prizes are the,obviously the bigger selling
point to get people at least in.
So we have a little descriptionabout the contest and the same
(29:07):
ePortfolio page, we created a video.
And.
Um, I, we have a couple of peoplein our, um, department who are
quite good at making nice videos.
Um, I'm pretty decent myself, butobviously I'm siloed in a number
of, of, I wear a number of hats.
So that's a little challenging forme to get around to do, which is a
shame because I do kind of like it.
I do like doing it, but that's okay.
(29:29):
Um, so anyway, we create videos of howto sign up for the contest, even though
it's a one minute, 30 second video, it'sYou have to create a video because, I
mean, unless, you know, there's otherways you can consider having people
sign up for the contest, but for us,what worked fairly well last year, even
though it seemed, might seem like anumber of steps and a little odd for
(29:50):
students, if you're just with that,there with them, um, they'll sign up.
And when we send out, we send out emailsas well to the whole campus of students
saying, Hey, sign up for the contest.
This is what it is.
Here's the link to sign up.
They sign up, so they're able to doit, and they're able to figure it out.
But the trick to that is you have tolink how to sign up, and in my opinion,
(30:10):
video is the best modality to do that.
Have the video be, youknow, decent quality.
A little music in the background,but it shouldn't be in your face.
And instructional.
So you want to have it go throughlike a normal how to tutorial, right?
An actual how to guide.
Um, and then, That showsthem how to sign up.
Click here, zoom into thebutton, click that, right?
(30:32):
So anyway, we create the videoand it's, you know, great.
We have people sign up.
Um, we outline on the page ourcontest guidelines and that goes
to the rubric that you mentioned.
So the ePortfolio Contest Rubric islinked on our page because that's what
our judges use to judge the ePortfolios.
So, so that's basically the experiencefor the student in the beginning.
(30:54):
So, I want to say like midlate August is when we have
people sign up for the contest.
Um, or we at least open it up for sign up.
I should say we try to promoteas much as possible and then.
The submission phase then comes in.
So we open the contest up for submissionon, um, I want to say it was the end
(31:16):
of September, something like that.
So we give from end of Septemberto the end of October, we
open it up for submission.
And, There's a few reasons wedid this because we could have,
we could have opened it upfor signup and for submission.
The reason we didn't do that wasbecause we wanted to open it up for so
students could submit multiple timesin case they submitted by accident.
(31:39):
Right.
So, and, but the trick was, if we did thattoo early, we opened up the submissions
too early, some students might have 30submissions and it might get a little,
it might be a bit of a lot, right?
It might be a lot for them.
And so what we decided was, okay,that month period makes sense.
Um, and we wanted the, um, the languageof what we were saying to people to
(32:04):
be different in different phases.
Sign up for the portfolio contest,sign up, sign up, sign up.
And then.
Attention students, now it's time, nowthat you've worked on your ePortfolios
and you've been working on them,ePortfolios are now open for submission.
You can submit, join the aidlab, or drop in with us, and
you can drop in for submission.
Right, so we wanted to also staggerit in turn, uh, for the students to
(32:29):
get used to the concept of logging in,signing up, and then making a portfolio.
Like, that's kind of A lot for brandnew students as it is like they're this
is sort of a bond to add it on to theircourses That they're already taking
their math courses English course etc.
So it's it's extra Um, and you know, weare open to help them But you know, and
obviously not all students are goingto drop in for help every step of the
(32:52):
way so We'd find that staggering the,um, release phases was more effective.
Um, I think, and so we did the samething this year, um, about a month for
submission, but they can also like newpeople can still sign up, so you can
still sign up for the submission phase.
You can sign up even the last day, uh,October 29 or whatever it was, they
(33:14):
could sign up and still submit as well.
Work with us for anhour if they wanted to.
Right.
Um, and then we have it.
A month period for our judges.
So we, um, pay, uh, at this semester.
Last year, I think we did six, butthis year we're doing five judges.
And so we're, we reached out to somefaculty, reached out to some staff, um,
(33:35):
and we tried to be nuanced in our choices.
So I try to have one staff, onefaculty member from the MA, one
from, uh, ELL, that's, um, uh, ESL,the English Second Language faculty.
One from business, onefrom, uh, sociology, right?
Just different, um, types anddifferent perspectives to be
(33:56):
able to judge the contest.
You don't want to silo allthe way into just VMA people.
You don't want to be all English faculty.
So it seemed like the right move,I don't know, to have different
faculty from these different areas.
And so we've done that and wegive them about a month to judge.
So we just actually, maybe last weekeven, um, turned off the submissions.
(34:17):
So Submissions are done, but now it'sturned over to the faculty, which again,
we made a video for them and instructionalmaterial for them on how to judge.
So that was the next piece of this.
So we had to make materials forthe students on how to do things.
But then we had to make things forour faculty on how to do things
for the contest so that theycan navigate it and not be lost.
(34:39):
And, and we want it to bea good experience for them.
Like that's one of the other things too,that I was mentioning, um, earlier with a
different topic is that I didn't want tojust shoulder shrug my way through this.
I want.
If, even if they're, you know,judging 20, 30, 40, 50 ePortfolios,
I want it to be like fun for them,or I want it to be, um, unique.
(35:02):
And I want, so one of our staffmembers, he made a, uh, a judge video.
Maybe I'll send it to you after this.
Absolutely hilarious.
It's in the style of like old 1940s,50s, Mickey Mouse, and it's really a
silly video, but it's instructional.
It's so funny.
And I, I just saw it last weekand I was like, Cam, you're
ridiculous, but it's great.
(35:23):
I was like that, that I didn'teven have to tell you to do this.
You already knew, um, that this iswhat I, what we were shooting for.
So I want it to be a special thing,not just this obligatory thing
where you're, you know, doing it,grading students, getting paid.
That's it.
Nah, that's fine.
But While you're doing it,let's have, you know, enjoy it
a little or have fun with it.
And, um, really for us have that, thataid stamp, like you worked with our
(35:48):
department aid and it was a uniqueexperience from other experiences and
it was ePortfolio, different experience.
That's not like other experiencesworking with other things, right?
So we wanted it to be as, as pleasantand as fun as possible for them.
Right.
And so, yeah, they get a month to judgeand then we'll announce the winners.
Um, I think we have December 3rd.
(36:09):
I have it pulled up on the side here,December 3rd to, um, announce the exact.
The winners of the two 250 prizes,then we'll have a contest, uh, sort
of celebration in person event.
Um, we're still working throughthe logistics of that now,
but that will be December 10.
Again, we're trying to balancenot too close to finals, but when
(36:31):
people are freaking out, you know,again, that's another tricky thing.
It's very tricky balancingthese things, right?
And so, um, so we're having thatevent and I think it'll be fun.
We'll have pizza, Jenga.
Uh, we're going to makeit, we did it last year.
It was kind of lastminute, but it went well.
And I was like, I want to actnow that we have time to plan it.
I want to do it better.
(36:51):
So we're going to havegiant Jenga, maybe giant.
Cornhole connect for whatever,just silly things going on while
people, uh, come into our area ormaybe we'll have it in the hallway.
If we can reserve it.
I don't know.
Um, Love pizza, snacks, but thecatch is, uh, students come in there
and the point of it is to vote onthe audience choice ePortfolio.
(37:13):
So we'll send out an email forthe audience choice and we'll
determine the winner that day.
So we'll probably choose, I'll go backa tiny bit, but so the audience choice
ePortfolios will acquire the candidatesfrom the maybe top six or top seven.
Okay.
Yeah.
I was curious on all the submissions, howmany kind of move on to that next level?
(37:37):
Exactly.
So the two grand prize winners will be thetwo that were highest rated by the judges.
But then we'll have a bunchof honorable mentions, right?
We'll have some really good ePortfoliosand it's like, oh, it's a shame.
We can't do anything with them.
They didn't win anything.
Well, we can do something with them.
We can nominate them.
So that's one level of, um, I don'tknow, honoring them or promoting them.
(37:58):
And then in addition to that, we cansay, these are the seven or six or five
ePortfolios, not the grand prize winners.
Um, that we will choosefor the audience choice.
And so we'll make a form or we'llmake some kind of polling thing.
I think we did a form last yearand we'll have the little, the
links to each of the portfolios.
We'll send out an email and say tothe entire campus, Hey, everybody,
(38:20):
the audience choice has opened up.
Vote.
Vote, vote, vote for your favoriteePortfolio out of the, you
know, five or six of them here.
And the top two winners aregoing to get a $100 prize.
Um, and so, you know, in thesedays, you know, obviously more
money better, but hey, a hundreddollars is a hundred dollars, right?
Two 50; two 50.
Yeah.
You know?
Um, and so it, it billed incentives.
(38:43):
And so that's how we acquire them.
And we'll have a combination of anemail sent out to find out the audience
choice winner, and we'll have thatDecember 10th event to have people vote.
And by maybe 3:34, we'll havethe actual announcement for who
the audience choice winner is.
So it'll be a sort of a doublewhammy event or triple whammy event.
(39:04):
I like to view it as finalexclamation point for end of semester.
You did it students.
We're aid come hang out with usand check out these ePortfolios.
What's ePortfolio?
You know, some people might not have heardof the contest or whatever, so we can show
them and we have festivities, balloons,uh, shiny things, whatever, food, pizza,
and then the third thing would be.
Actual winner, right?
(39:25):
We get an actual couple of winnersand the voting out of that too.
So a triple whammy kind of event thatwe, uh, hoping to put on and I think
it'll be better this year than thanlast year too, so it should be fun.
Here's a preview of what'scoming up next In part two of my
conversation with Matthew Gomes.
An ADP Systems Analyst atBunker Hill Community College.
(39:45):
We had one student that wasn't,um, I guess when they found out
they weren't, they didn't win,they weren't super thrilled.
Um, but on that same token, we hadstudents who were like, Oh, uh, this
makes me motivated to try next year.
Or when are you doing it again?
I was, that was another one thatsurprised me, where students were like,
when are you going to run it again?
(40:06):
Even faculty were like, Oh, if I knew, oh,and I'm like, sent out a million emails.
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