TED Talks and Essays and Projects, Oh My!

I really don’t think I have much of a choice of what to include in my E-Portfolio.  Some of my papers and projects stand out as rather good and others are, well… terrible.  Really bad.  So here’s what I plan on including because it doesn’t suck:

  • Either my advocacy project or my persuasive essay, whichever turns out better. I’m rather proud of my essay (not just because I got an A on it, but because it’s probably the most heartfelt and thorough paper I’ve ever written.)  I’d like to include my advocacy project (a video on fracking) if I like it.  So far it’s not quite what I was hoping for, but I’m trying to improve it.  Since they are both on the same subject, I feel like it’s either one or the other.
  • My four best Passion Blog posts.  I like my passion blog a lot and I feel like that’s where I get to express my personality more than other projects.  I’m not sure exactly what four I’ll use yet, but I think some of my recent ones were pretty good.  I’ll add a tag like “best” to them and link to that tag page to show them off.
  • My four Civic Issues posts.  They’re about fracking like the persuasive essay, but they come at it from different angles and have more of my personality in them than my paper did.  Since this is more for future employers than anything, I’d like them to be able to see an example of me when I’m serious (the paper) and me when I’m passionate about something (the Civic Issues blog.)
  • My TED Talk.  It’s about the environment and how a lot of supposedly green products are really olive drab at best.  This way the audience will be able to see what I’m like as well and establish a bit of a more personal connection than reading a paper can do.
  • My This I Believe.  While it touches on religion (a generally sticky topic for employer/employee relationships or any other relationships for that matter), this one really builds ethos.  It’s all about being a good person and stuff, which is probably a good characteristic in an employee.

I’ll link to my blogs (like this) through a separate tab for Passion and Civic Issues posts.  They’ll each just have a short description of the blogs and a link.  I’m not quite sure how I’m gonna do the TED talk or the This I Believe yet, but they’ll probably have their own tabs, descriptions, and either links or embedded multimedia.  Finally, my paper will just be under a tab with a quick description.

All righty, that’s it.  Last WIP post.  Ever.  Woo!

And here’s my link to my advocacy project: http://youtu.be/3UThi0Ri4vA

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3 Responses to TED Talks and Essays and Projects, Oh My!

  1. Lindsay Zavislak says:

    I haven’t seen your advocacy project video yet but I think it would be effective to include it in conjunction with your persuasive essay. It shows that you are able to go beyond writing and call people to action with a different medium than a paper. You mentioned that you want to show people you can be passionate. Making a video on the issue shows that you are passionate about it! I like Sarah’s idea that your TIB can be incorporated into your sustainability theme by applying sustainability to yourself. In your intro for your TIB, you might mention that it fits into the theme in that way. It’s creative and builds ethos, like you said! Good luck.

  2. Timothy Gleason says:

    Honestly, the This I Believe really does stick out. It has a very different theme than the others. I like the idea of sustainability in all aspects of life. Maybe I’ll stick that in there. (We need beliefs that can change with the times or something like that.)

  3. Sarah Summers says:

    Tim,
    This sounds great! (And nothing you did for this class was terrible.)

    There’s definitely an environmental theme working here, and I think you can really showcase that as your passion and as something you’re able to communicate through a variety of media (I like your explanation of the difference between your paper and your CI blog, for example.) How might your TIB fit into this larger theme? I’m thinking about something like creating sustainable relationships with others? Or sustainable attitudes towards difference? Think on that a little bit.

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