On the last day of class during the final exam period, students enrolled in my Costume Design and Construction course are allotted thirty minutes to get into costume, hair and makeup before formally presenting their looks to the class and posing for a photoshoot. Each student’s best photo is posted, with permission, in an album on the CC Theater Department’s Facebook page, which typically garners between 800 to 1300 views, making it one of the department’s most popular annual postings. These photos, however, only convey a fraction of each students’ journey through the design and construction process, and fail to adequately shed light on the weeks each student spends researching, designing, and constructing their fabulous, conceptually-driven looks.
Enter digital portfolio applications.
My goal this semester is to find an affordable and user-friendly digital portfolio application that will allow students to showcase their visual research, sketches, process shots, and final photos in a visually sleek way. After investigating several options, I plan on sharing my top three choices with students so they can weigh in on which portfolio application(s) they think will work best for them. To keep the class on track, it will be crucial for me to regularly set aside class time for students to photograph and upload images onto their DELI iPads, walk them through the portfolio curating process, and help them with general troubleshooting issues as needed. I’m looking forward to this challenge and am currently investigating the following applications:
Before the break, I revealed to my students that I wanted to add a portfolio component to the final project and they responded very favorably. Many even expressed an interest in including their previously completed costume renderings for Sarah Ruhl’s, Eurydice in their portfolios as well. I am very open to this idea, but will not include it as a requirement. Instead, I will heed the advice given to me by the leaders of the Technology Fellows program and take it slow, especially during the introductory phase of this experiment – wish me luck!
I look forward to learning more about which three portfolio options you choose and which work best for the students. If you report back, maybe comment on how much time in class you spend on this and how much time they spend on it out of class. Do you have them journal or include text in these?
Hi Leo, I look forward to reporting back on my findings soon. Ideally, there will be some light journaling incorporated into this assignment, but I need to be careful not to overwhelm students with too many project requirements. I do plan on asking them to write a few words next to each research image explaining the relevance of the image to their design approach/journey. I’ll keep you posted!