Welcome to Digication Scholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Kelly Driscoll.
In this episode, you'll hear Part One of my conversation with Matthew
Gomes, an EDP Systems Analyst at Bunker Hill Community College.
More links and information about today's conversation can be found on Digication's
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Full episodes of Digication Scholars Conversations can be found on
YouTube or your favorite podcast app.
Welcome to Digication Scholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Kelly Driscoll, and today I am so pleased to introduce Matthew Gomes.
He's the EDP System Analyst at Bunker Hill Community College.
Welcome, Matthew.
Thank you, Kelly.
Thank you for having me.
This is great.
Yeah, I'm so pleased to talk to you today, and I don't know if you're aware
of this, but Bunker Hill Community College is about to celebrate its 15
year anniversary working with Digication.
I took a peek at the system today and saw that Some of the early adopters
got started back in January of 2010.
So congratulations for almost 15 years of having such extraordinary
ePortfolios created by your community.
And I remember visiting the campus in some of those early days and walk, working
with some of the early adopters there and.
Involved in some of the early faculty trainings as people were getting started
and Your school has really been a very early pioneer in using ePortfolios with
such a strong focus on the, the pedagogy around reflective practice and, uh, really
steadfast focus on students being able to use this kind of technology, not only to
kind of share and showcase their academic pursuits, but to really talk about who
they are and their interests outside of the classroom, their kind of personal
missions and passions, and kind of just share who, who they are as a person.
Um, not only what they might be doing in the class there, um, So, I am just
so pleased to have you on today to kind of talk about how your portfolios are
used at Bunker Hill Community College.
And before we jump into that, I'd love to just hear a little bit about how you came
to the campus and what your role is there.
Sure.
Thank you.
Uh, yeah, it's great to hear the, 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 was just a technical assistant.
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 generally made a concerted effort to be more
conscious of like the teaching and learning pedagogy, right, and
strategy that you were referencing.
And so we have a whole other leg to our department now that focuses on
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 supervisor at grocery stores, things like this.
Kind of typical when you're, you know, juggling, uh, going to school at the
same time, I went to, uh, actually went to Ben Franklin Institute of Technology.
Uh, while I was juggling, um, you know, internships.
I actually had an internship at uh, MGH for a while.
And I was juggling being a supervisor at a Quincy stop and shop along with that.
So it was very difficult days, especially when you're between 18
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,
what I want to do for a while.
And so I kind of turned all of that off just to pursue music.
Um, For a few years and I haven't stopped necessarily, but I dropped
all of the other things I was doing just to start my band with my brother.
I play guitar and play like rock metal type stuff and My brother's the drummer
we shuffled through a couple of different people 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 land it again and be a little more consistent.
And so that's where I gained a, uh, A job working at this bakery, which wasn't
the most pleasant experience, if I'm going to be honest, but I learned a lot.
Um, I was only there for maybe two years and some change.
And, um, I learned a lot about myself, 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.
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 almost killed 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 brutal experience to a very humbling experience.
I worked with the elderly and you know, 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 Senior Living 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 working at Uh, Bunker Hill in the TLITC
department, just working like 15 hours.
The ePortfolio was there.
Moodle was there, things like this.
But I was kind of doubling down and, uh, trying to prove that I was,
you know, worthy of being like a supervisor or something at the other
job at the senior living facility.
But it was more exhausting and, um, it was draining, um, physically.
And Bunker Hill, you know, uh, it's working 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 amongst other 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 not getting shouted down necessarily.
And so, um, and so for the most part, and so, um, overall Bunker Hill was
the, the, the, the better, um, place that 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, Very intelligent, 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, do well here and I'm, but I, I'm, I'm
siloing myself into too many silos.
So I have my band, I have this 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 maybe leave 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 ask Bunker Hill if you can do that?
And I'm like, I don't know why that didn't occur to me.
I, I, there was something about it.
I don't know what it was exactly.
Maybe I felt the need, like I had to work 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 the director, uh, Danielle.
And they were like, yeah, that will, you know, give us a day or two and we'll,
we'll figure something out for you.
And so, um, along with that, they gave me, they came with the responsibility of,
okay, we're going to make you the point person for ePortfolio along with that.
So I kind of started doing it cause we had, um, Uh, the previous e portfolio
point person, full time person was, was on his way out the door.
And so I was kind of passing the baton to me, but I was still part time as a
little, um, kind of a soft pass, but they 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.
And so anytime, and I've gotten this.
A comment from many, uh, faculty and students, and I've inspired faculty
in the way they teach, the way they animate 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 very animated because I didn't want to just
be a talking head in the room, right?
If I was going to give a training and a professor wanted me to go to
their classroom or they bring their students to our space and we show them
ePortfolio to a class of 20-odd students.
These are students, some of them just out of high school and things like this.
So, you know, uh, they might still be figuring things out with regards to them
being enthusiastic about what things.
Yeah.
And so, you know, I wanted to like bring some humor to it, be
more of a human, just be a person.
And I found that that seemed to resonate very well with them.
Um, even if the professor, some professors were using ePortfolio,
let's say at 15 percent capacity, some use it at 40 percent capacity.
Some just want students to just upload work like documents.
You know, so there was different levels, no matter what the level was.
I saw it as sort of a challenge to convince them and demonstrate to them.
Hey, listen, it's not, yes, you're doing this 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.
You can be creative.
You can express yourself.
You can make it public.
You can post the link to any portfolio on 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's locked in a bunker hill, like a LMS
or an email account or whatever.
It's, it's meta, it's bigger than that.
And so then there's how to build the 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 things you could put into it?
Right.
So anyway, that's a little bit of the kind of the history of myself and
where I've kind of taken ePortfolio, I think, in the past few years, so.
Yeah, no, I love that.
And thank you so much for sharing your story.
And I think it's a story that probably resonates a lot with
the community that you're working with too, often the students that.
You're providing this initial introduction to not just the platform,
kind of technical pieces, but how it's something that can support them in the
classroom, but also beyond, um, you know, being that first person and, you
know, for them to be able to connect with you, I think is really important.
And again, not just having this talking head, but someone that's had some.
Really true life experiences that I think would resonate with them
as well and have that connection of balancing life and school and
working and making choices about what your career path is going to be.
Um, you know, I think it's something that.
You know, when you bring your, you know, your personality and your history
and your true self into those training opportunities, it is a time for you
to be able to kind of create those connections with the students, engage
them in the conversation about the platform and how it can benefit them
has really led to a lot of success.
I can tell in looking at the students portfolios that when you're talking
about, um, you know, being creative and using it as a place to kind of
tell their story, that that's something that really resonates with them.
You know, each one is very unique, even if it was created from a
beginning template or something that they were using in their course.
Most of the students I see are really going beyond just that.
Initial Template.
Could you talk a little bit maybe about some of the ideas that you give
students for how they can apply their creativity, different tools that
they might use, or different kinds of 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,
with, wanting, uh, somebody or a party or your audience to be creative, um, you
have to find the balance of show them an example, 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 kind of struggle with a little bit.
So I go through a bit of a spiel with them, uh, when I'm talking about
the career potential or the transfer potential and all of these things.
And so.
Um, what I can, I show them a few examples as I, as I mentioned, I might
show them an example of ePortfolios.
I think that, um, you all have in your, um, help desk site some of the
best ones, like some of the ones from Chattanooga State and things like this.
Um, and then I'll show them ePortfolios that won, um, an
ePortfolio contest we held last year.
So I'll show them a couple of examples of that.
And so I, I, I show them that to, to illustrate that it's not just this.
Uh, you know, simply white and black page with a bullet points on it.
It's, um, it's got background color.
So when I'm usually trying to tell them, I first tell them the files and
the types of actual types of content you can add, images, documents,
videos, text boxes, right, and you can manage backgrounds, broadly speaking.
Obviously it's not limited to that, but generally speaking, these are
the big things that most people think of when they're thinking of like
building a portfolio or building a site or something like that.
And so with image files I'll run through the 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 that might act a little weird, but generally
like the, The mainstay ones work well.
File types aren't limited to, or generally not limited to Word docs,
PDFs, Excel sheets, PowerPoints, right?
You can upload them all.
You can make them as big or as small as you want.
You can move them around.
And as I explain this, I'll have it behind me, or if it's in a call like
this one, I'll have the screen shared and I'll show them an example of a
portfolio that obviously did this.
But you have a, and when you paste the document on there, it's not just a link.
It's not just a hyperlink, it is, it displays the document for your viewers,
for you, but for your viewers, and they can scroll up and down through it.
These things might sound rudimentary and kind of elementary, but like, I
find that explaining the things that are happening on the page, even if
it's just a box, a picture with a face on it, and a text box next to it,
explaining the different things that are happening on that simple page, um,
helps the lights click on and it's very helpful when I'm usually in person.
Um, and obviously faculty have echoed this post pandemic as well.
It generally is perks and, you know, pros and cons to in person remote,
but obviously when you're teaching people, you can see the lights go on.
Um, and I noticed that if I simply, if I simply explain
ePortfolio at them, It doesn't quite hit like it's a visual thing.
And that's one of the things you all say as well.
And it's true.
It is a visual medium of showcasing and 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.
I should show them.
Right.
And again, this is one of those things that, you know, kind of goes back
to teaching and learning pedagogy is like, You don't want to have, uh,
just a PowerPoint slide with just words 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.
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, it seems, it sometimes it can feel too
separate for students and varying ages, varying demographics, things like this.
Um, I find that the most effective thing is to have the actual
site on the page and explain it.
And then to actually, uh, hit on the 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 at a stop and shop or a grocery store
on a resume, you could have a bullet point on there that says I worked at
a grocery store for five years, right?
And I'll literally say it like that to them.
Or if you, in addition to that, you could have your ePortfolio.
And if you did the Jimmy Fund one year and your friend that was trying
to mess with you, they saw you giving out hot dogs in the front of the store
with the apron, they took a picture of you and you saw it and you're
like, you know, that's not half bad.
You know, they're just messing with you, but it's actually a decent picture.
Well, you can take that picture, throw it in your ePortfolio and put a a thing next,
a little text box or something next to it.
That says, I, I, uh, contributed to the, um, the growth of the Jimmy fund
while working at Stop and Shop, I was designated 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 the Jimmy funds initiative are, are, right.
So it's, it's something so, so simple.
Another example I gave was, um, the last couple of weeks with a
couple of other staff members, I was running around, physically running
around the Bunker Hill campus.
Uh, giving out flyers for the ePortfolio Contest.
Um, and I had some other staff doing that and staffed out front.
And so one of the things I said to them was one of the cool things you can do
is if I take a picture of me with my flyer, my handout, handing it to you and
I have my staff member take a picture of it, for whatever reason, employers And
that's not to disparage employers because I've hired people too, we eat that up.
If you see a picture of me handing a student a flyer and next to it I put
boosted student engagement, uh, while engaging while creating an atmosphere
for them to You know, contribute to building their ePortfolio, um,
while boosting the initiatives of the contest and ePortfolio and Digication
Initiative, while also giving them a platform to do this and this and this.
You can have a little text box next to that image as well.
So I kind of give some of those examples to them as well.
Other examples I might give are explaining a, like a photography portfolio, right?
So if they, if a student wanted to build a, 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 then I'll say it's not just limited to that.
If you want it to, it doesn't have to be about you per se.
It's kind of one of the big things that it should be about, or,
you know, a lot of times, but it doesn't necessarily have to be.
And so I opened them up to this idea of like you can make a photography portfolio.
And so a lot of VMA, uh, Visual Media Arts classes, will, um, have
their students create ePortfolios, um, with kind of that purpose.
But it'll be a hybrid.
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 there that showcase different photography.
They took it, taken in different places.
Um, and then there's another student that took a VMA class and
was a, um, was in a writing class.
And so I think that was one of the winners 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, you know, that page is kind of simplistic,
they're like, Oh, is that it?
I'm like, yeah, that's it.
It doesn't have to be this like huge website, 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 class you're taking where you want to
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 because really what you're incorporating
into the introduction to the platform and, you know, how to use the various
tools is really these elements of digital storytelling, right?
You're letting them know these are really simple ways that you can start
to bring viewers into the ePortfolio in a way that's very different from
someone just reading a resume, right?
You spoke about the kind of bullets that you might have in the resume that might
just have a, you know, name of your position and the dates that you were
there, and that's a really different.
format than having something like this where you can start to have images
of what you may have done within the particular role or, you know,
other forms of, uh, media that may be incorporated, reflections on the
experience, and That information is very valuable to people that may be viewing
your ePortfolio for hiring purposes.
It goes so much deeper than just kind of the, you know, name of your position
and the time that you were there.
For them to see any opportunities you had for personal growth or leadership
opportunities that you had, community engagement kinds of opportunities.
These are all showing.
Skills that people at all different levels are interested in people having
when they're joining their organization.
So anytime you have a chance to highlight that.
So it's wonderful that you're incorporating that kind of, um,
information into the trainings and something that I think You know,
our listeners will really value as well that it's not just about, you
know, this is where you go to log in, you know, that's the first step.
Um, but really how can you use technology like this as this kind
of creation space to build this kind of story of who you are and what you
really want people to know about you.
Um, so it's wonderful that you're giving them these kind of real world examples
and sharing, you know, what some other students at the institution have done.
I was trying to think back how many years you've been, um, having this.
showcase where the the students are really participating in a in a contest
and submitting their ePortfolios for review and I would love for you to
share a little bit about that too.
I think other institutions would love to hear about ways that you've been
able to kind of get students excited about sharing their portfolios and.
You know, I think the contest probably lends some additional
kind of peer motivation.
You know, they know other people are going to be looking at it and seeing it.
And, um, I believe you even have a rubric that you use to go through
and kind of score those submissions.
So Tell us a little bit about that too.
I think it's a wonderful model that other schools might be interested in.
For sure.
Um, so we had, um, we ran the ePortfolio contest in the mid 2010s a few times.
Um, I, I wasn't, um, I wasn't the ePortfolio person at that time, of course.
Um, we've recently brought it back.
Um, last year was the first time we had 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.
It was a little, um, it, it was not foreign, 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, in an industry where you're working in a
factory or you're packaging boxes and Amazon, or you're, you're just trying
to, uh, get your seat, you know, your boss, it's their coffee for the day.
You're not really thinking in like contest mode and building enthusiasm and.
Things like this, you know, you're kind of just running, you know, you're just kind
of running the cog that is your position.
And so this, this led to a unique dynamic, I think, for our department
to think and consider, um, how we can engage students to be interested in this.
You know, is it, is it, um, you know, like I explained a minute ago,
is it we, us running around and we have as many posters as possible
and as many handouts as possible and we have people staffed at a table.
Is it talking to specific faculty who may be interested?
Is it talking to the faculty that are already using ePortfolio and say, Hey,
just FYI, there's a contest coming up.
Here's the timing of it.
I know you usually like to do your ePortfolio 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 supervisor above me, Uju as well, it was her
first go, like, really tackling this.
So we were like, you know what, if we make a few mistakes and we, you
know, not super perfect, it's okay.
So, and I, overall, I think it went fairly well.
Um, so anyways, we, um, So the format we went with was, um, we would open
the contest, we used the Digication courses, um, the courses in Digication
as the sort of group sign up.
component so that students feel like they'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 into Digication, their account
doesn't necessarily spawn, right?
So they need to log into it, um, and then 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.
Um, and so.
Once that's done, we also had a, we built an ePortfolio page
for the ePortfolio contest.
Um, and so we, um, make created handouts with QR codes and things like this, and
we would have students scan them and that would take them to the signup page.
And the signup page isn't just a signup page.
It goes over, um, what the prizes are, which we, last year and
this year as well, we did two 250 prizes, 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 a personal slash hobby portfolio.
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 description about the contest and the same
ePortfolio page, we created a video.
And.
Um, I, we have a couple of people in our, um, department who are
quite good at making nice videos.
Um, I'm pretty decent myself, but obviously I'm siloed in a number
of, of, I wear a number of hats.
So that's a little challenging for me 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.
Um, so anyway, we create videos of how to sign up for the contest, even though
it's a one minute, 30 second video, it's You have to create a video because, I
mean, unless, you know, there's other ways 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 a number of steps and a little odd for
students, if you're just with that, there with them, um, they'll sign up.
And when we send out, we send out emails as 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 do it, and they're able to figure it out.
But the trick to that is you have to link how to sign up, and in my opinion,
video is the best modality to do that.
Have the video be, you know, 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 through like a normal how to tutorial, right?
An actual how to guide.
Um, and then, That shows them how to sign up.
Click here, zoom into the button, click that, right?
So anyway, we create the video and it's, you know, great.
We have people sign up.
Um, we outline on the page our contest guidelines and that goes
to the rubric that you mentioned.
So the ePortfolio Contest Rubric is linked on our page because that's what
our judges use to judge the ePortfolios.
So, so that's basically the experience for the student in the beginning.
So, I want to say like mid late 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 promote as much as possible and then.
The submission phase then comes in.
So we open the contest up for submission on, um, I want to say it was the end
of September, something like that.
So we give from end of September to the end of October, we
open it up for submission.
And, There's a few reasons we did this because we could have,
we could have opened it up for signup and for submission.
The reason we didn't do that was because we wanted to open it up for so
students could submit multiple times in case they submitted by accident.
Right.
So, and, but the trick was, if we did that too early, we opened up the submissions
too early, some students might have 30 submissions 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 language of what we were saying to people to
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, now that you've worked on your ePortfolios
and you've been working on them, ePortfolios are now open for submission.
You can submit, join the aid lab, or drop in with us, and
you can drop in for submission.
Right, so we wanted to also stagger it in turn, uh, for the students to
get used to the concept of logging in, signing up, and then making a portfolio.
Like, that's kind of A lot for brand new students as it is like they're this
is sort of a bond to add it on to their courses That they're already taking
their math courses English course etc.
So it's it's extra Um, and you know, we are open to help them But you know, and
obviously not all students are going to drop in for help every step of the
way so We'd find that staggering the, um, release phases was more effective.
Um, I think, and so we did the same thing this year, um, about a month for
submission, but they can also like new people 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
could sign up and still submit as well.
Work with us for an hour 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, but this year we're doing five judges.
And so we're, we reached out to some faculty, reached out to some staff, um,
and we tried to be nuanced in our choices.
So I try to have one staff, one faculty member from the MA, one
from, uh, ELL, that's, um, uh, ESL, the English Second Language faculty.
One from business, one from, uh, sociology, right?
Just different, um, types and different perspectives to be
able to judge the contest.
You don't want to silo all the 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 we give them about a month to judge.
So we just actually, maybe last week even, um, turned off the submissions.
So Submissions are done, but now it's turned over to the faculty, which again,
we made a video for them and instructional material for them on how to judge.
So that was the next piece of this.
So we had to make materials for the students on how to do things.
But then we had to make things for our faculty on how to do things
for the contest so that they can navigate it and not be lost.
And, and we want it to be a 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 to just 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.
And I want, so one of our staff members, 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 week and I was like, Cam, you're
ridiculous, but it's great.
I was like that, that I didn't even have to tell you to do this.
You already knew, um, that this is what 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, that aid stamp, like you worked with our
department aid and it was a unique experience from other experiences and
it was ePortfolio, different experience.
That's not like other experiences working with other things, right?
So we wanted it to be as, as pleasant and as fun as possible for them.
Right.
And so, yeah, they get a month to judge and then we'll announce the winners.
Um, I think we have December 3rd.
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 through the logistics of that now,
but that will be December 10.
Again, we're trying to balance not too close to finals, but when
people are freaking out, you know, again, that's another tricky thing.
It's very tricky balancing these things, right?
And so, um, so we're having that event and I think it'll be fun.
We'll have pizza, Jenga.
Uh, we're going to make it, we did it last year.
It was kind of last minute, but it went well.
And I was like, I want to act now that we have time to plan it.
I want to do it better.
So we're going to have giant Jenga, maybe giant.
Cornhole connect for whatever, just silly things going on while
people, uh, come into our area or maybe we'll have it in the hallway.
If we can reserve it.
I don't know.
Um, Love pizza, snacks, but the catch is, uh, students come in there
and the point of it is to vote on the audience choice ePortfolio.
So we'll send out an email for the audience choice and we'll
determine the winner that day.
So we'll probably choose, I'll go back a tiny bit, but so the audience choice
ePortfolios will acquire the candidates from the maybe top six or top seven.
Okay.
Yeah.
I was curious on all the submissions, how many kind of move on to that next level?
Exactly.
So the two grand prize winners will be the two that were highest rated by the judges.
But then we'll have a bunch of honorable mentions, right?
We'll have some really good ePortfolios and 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't know, honoring them or promoting them.
And then in addition to that, we can say, these are the seven or six or five
ePortfolios, not the grand prize winners.
Um, that we will choose for the audience choice.
And so we'll make a form or we'll make some kind of polling thing.
I think we did a form last year and we'll have the little, the
links to each of the portfolios.
We'll send out an email and say to the entire campus, Hey, everybody,
the audience choice has opened up.
Vote.
Vote, vote, vote for your favorite ePortfolio out of the, you
know, five or six of them here.
And the top two winners are going to get a $100 prize.
Um, and so, you know, in these days, you know, obviously more
money better, but hey, a hundred dollars is a hundred dollars, right?
Two 50; two 50.
Yeah.
You know?
Um, and so it, it billed incentives.
And so that's how we acquire them.
And we'll have a combination of an email sent out to find out the audience
choice winner, and we'll have that December 10th event to have people vote.
And by maybe 3:34, we'll have the actual announcement for who
the audience choice winner is.
So it'll be a sort of a double whammy event or triple whammy event.
I like to view it as final exclamation point for end of semester.
You did it students.
We're aid come hang out with us and check out these ePortfolios.
What's ePortfolio?
You know, some people might not have heard of 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?
We get an actual couple of winners and the voting out of that too.
So a triple whammy kind of event that we, uh, hoping to put on and I think
it'll be better this year than than last year too, so it should be fun.
Here's a preview of what's coming up next In part two of my
conversation with Matthew Gomes.
An ADP Systems Analyst at Bunker Hill Community College.
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 had students 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 that surprised me, where students were like,
when are you going to run it again?
Even faculty were like, Oh, if I knew, oh, and I'm like, sent out a million emails.