Portfolio - Preparing for intership or move to freelance work.

There is a great thread over on the LinkedIn "Instructional Designers Group".

There quite a few threads here about the technicalities of creating a Portfolio, such as this one, however - one of the questions most often asked is "How do I create a Portfolio"?

I do not often recycle the posts of others, however, I will make an exception in the case of Patricia LeClaire. With her permission I wanted to post this, as I felt it to be elegant and helpful advice.

Bruce

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For those in transition and thinking about creating a "sample" ID portfolio for that first job or internship, I strongly suggest that you create a description of the instructional context for EACH resource you include ( a "case study") - otherwise it's a portfolio of multimedia proficiency and not a demonstration of complete instructional design thinking.

To get started, consider how your findings to the following very basic questions might determine your design strategy:

What was your analysis of the learners (age, gender, culture, language skills, technical proficiencies, disabilities)? Would you design differently if you knew that your resource was going to be translated into several different languages?

What was your analysis of the context in which their learning will occur (at work, at home, or anywhere, with a fast and reliable Internet connection, in a cohort that will work together in class, online or alone)? Would you design the resource differently if you knew that it had to be accessible on a smartphone, laptop, iPad and desktop computer?

Is the media resource (such as still graphic, animation, audio, video, or simulation) a standalone resource, or will it be embedded within a larger instructional unit and, if so, how and for what purpose?

What instructional objective does your resource support ( "after completing x, the learner will demonstrate x, by performing x") and what is it providing in support?

How will assessment occur - within the resource, such as a quiz, by completing an assignment, or by on-the-job performance?