How is a writing project different from a “paper?” 

This writing project is particularly different from a traditional paper essay, because it shines significance on how far you allow your ideas to take you. This project also gives me the ability to expand my ideas farther I get to expand and think outside the box, I could create a billion tabs of different topics (well up to Task Stream's limit) and expand within each topic where as in a regular paper, those ideas would be paragraphs that would contribute to a page limit or word requirement assigned along with the work. With Task Stream I am able to express the answer to a question with a video or an image or a poem, I have immense freedom with Task Stream and it allows me to add substance within my writing.

What are it’s benefits and its drawbacks to writing and learning? 

The benefits of this method of making a project are the options and choices I have towards trying to express my point, I can use an infinite list of tools and visuals. The negative side to this form of making a project is that as you are able to create many tabs, a person can get carried away and try to over exaggerate certain topics that pull away from the actual idea. I myself had gotten to a point mid-way into the project where I began to veer away from my theme and then ended up looking like I had very diverse topics. Luckily my peers were able to point that out and I was able to catch it early.

How has the “method of delivery” (that is, the task stream eportfolio) affected the planning, drafting, and polishing of this writing project? 

This method of being able to sign into Task Stream and add to my E-portfolio from where ever I had internet access is truly very accesible and manageable for me, I can easily work on it when ever an idea pops into my head. I think having the ability to constantly go back edit, add, exchange and move around certain parts of my E-portfolio is extremely beneficial to my project. I believe this method of delivery helped improve my process of polishing my E-Portfolio that much more.

What has it allowed you to do that more conventional delivery methods have not? 

This allows me to edit my work more frequently, have more of my peers edit what I put up when I request them and overall it just allows me to have more contact with how other people see my work as I am developing it. I enjoy having the ability to be able to pull this E-portfolio out for a possible job or even just to brag to other students what I'm doing in my Intro to Writing while others are off trying to express themselves on blank sheets of paper, with that one slanted staple on the side.

What does it “open up”?  What might it limit? 

This E-Portfolio accessibility opens up the ability to experiment with different ideas as well as see how my finished product looks like as I am creating each piece. I think it can open the possibilities of grander ideas and more creativity. I believe it limits the ability to easily get a particular assignment done at a set time, because just as this allows more ideas to flow it also extends how long you would be working on this one topic, so it limits the amounts of other projects.

Has creating an eportfolio helped you as a writer?  How or how not? 

Creating an E-Portfolio has gone beyond helping me as a writer, it has made me into a true inspired writer, I am choosing what to write about, I decide what to put on what tabs and what main topics to make more substancial in the E-portfolio. Task Stream allows me to go back and re-read something I wrote weeks ago, so in case I begin to veer off topic I am able to see what my perspetive was when I had begun writing my E-portfolio and what had been the idea that I had begun with. I have become a better writer with Task Stream within organization, structure within ideas, expansion within main topics, the ability to retrace my steps when I get lost, stay focused within one centralized thought....etc. I have definitely benefitted from beign able to work with Task Stream.

Even if you were to never create another eportfolio again, what lessons can you take away from creating this one, and how might you apply those lessons to your future writing/learning? 

I learned to have more creativity within my writing and different techniques to be able to pull other topics to talk about from one other idea. I can apply this to my future writing when I have to fulfill a lengthy page limit. I remember when I had to write a research paper of 20 pages during a college course in the summer and it was nearly impossible for me to compile enough data, and topics to be able to even get close to that. With this E-Portfolio by its set up in general of a main tab that branches off into smaller branches allows me to that with my ideas and serves almost as an outline. For any future research papers, I know I will be able to expand within topics.

What do you think Freire would have to say about the kinds of texts that you are creating?  Why? 

I believe Freire would be supportive and excited to see his theories of allowing creativity and teacher and student transfer of knowledge to take place. This project allows the professor and student to ask each other questions and to provide each others with suggestions and answers to better improve and understand the material at hand. Freire began his essay by showing how the standard class lesson was executed....the narrator would lecture the subjects, and the subjects recorded and stored information for later use. No creativity, no freedom is involved within that structure, with these kinds of texts we are able to expand beyond that with different forms of expression.

How about Bartholomae and Petrosky in the Introduction to WOR? 

I believe they would be amazed about how far we can go with one idea and how individual and diverse any one topic can go with the kinds of texts we are being able to use. I myself have made sure I use images, videos, and even quotes to express opinion. With the different areas of concern with students and their ways of reading Bartholomae and Petrosky acknowledge in the introduction, I believe they would see how many different perspectives are given to the reader now.

And return to the quotation from the syllabus that you wrote about during the first week:  how might you use that to frame some thinking about eportfolio writing and making and learning?

My quotation was “Our first writing, clearly, was our own tracks, our footprints, our handprints in mud or ash pressed upon the rock.” (Abram 30). I believe I can use this quote to frame my understanding of writing and learning through the E-Portfolio site because it allows me to show my difference and portray how I do have my own mold, because I am able to add my creativity onto the E-Porfolio, instead of having an almost identical sounding essay, I have a unique and personal E-Portfolio.