Friday 28 September 2012

3 Tips to make a great looking portfolio.

Students should customize their ePortfolios so that they reflect who they are as learners. This post covers some of the ways you can customize your Google Site and have it look great.

1. Choose a color scheme (and stick to it).
To change the color scheme of your site to to the "More" button and select "Manage site"
Then, select "Colors and Fonts" to change the background color, font, etc. for each of the areas of the site (header, body content area, background, etc)


Several sites exist that help you select colors that look good together. Some of our favorites are:
What's your favorite? Share them in the comments below.
CRAB poster by Noah Katz



2. Use C.R.A.B. to design your site.

C.R.A.B. stands for Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Balance.  By applying these principles consistently to your design, you will make a visually appealing design. 


3. Make a custom header.
Custom headers are an easy way to express yourself on your site. Several sites like Picmonkey allow you to create headers to a size you specify and then upload them into your site.  

You can also make custom header images using tools on your Mac like Pages, and the screenshot utility. ePortfolio assets including the UWCSEA logos are found in this shared Google Drive folder.  This video show how that's done. PDF instructions


Once you've created a header, you need to add that to your site.
Click on the "More" button and select "Edit site layout" NEW!
Click on the top of the site in the header area and the header editor will open.

Tick on Height - Use logo size

Tick on Custom Logo and then "Choose File"
to select the your custom header image.

You'll also find it helpful to go to "More" and "Manage site" and then "General" and untick display site name on every page.

Thursday 27 September 2012

Creating your ePortfolio Google Site

The first step in setting up your Google Site that will house your ePortfolio is to log in to your "gapps" account and select "sites" from the Google tool options.

Once you've done that, press the red "create" button.

After that, you have to click on the "browse the template gallery" link and search for the word "white." The MS Portfolio Template - White should come up.  That's the one you need to select.









Once you've selected this template, you need to give your site a name.
Important: your site name & URL must be your gapps username (last name and numbers)

 See this example -->


Once you've done that, press "create" again at the top of the page and you've made your site!

Note: the site is just a template of the portfolio site, you should customize the look and feel to make it reflect who you are. There are some specific bits of information on the site template about how what is expected to be in your portfolio. Please keep that information until your portfolio is nearly complete and you're sure it is set-up properly with everything that your mentor teacher expects.