Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
utilization of the Web portfolio are an increase in the knowledge worker to act
as a freelancer or independent contractor. The knowledge worker will be
competing with the old school worker left over from the industrial and post
industrial era where status quo was enough to maintain employment. This new
era of knowledge will be a time where knowledge workers gain opportunities
through traditional networking, but maintain fruitful relationships and add new
ones through the use of Web portfolios which serve as knowledge portals. Web
portfolios will become more and more vital to the bottom line of everyone and
therefore the content and design parameters will increase dramatically. Knowl-
edge workers will provide valuable information (training, specifications, and
samples) on their Web portfolios in order to have a value added experience for
the user and to enhance their respective credibility to the work for hire and
social publics.
To extend the notion of a value added Web portfolio, Alan Kay contributed to
the 2002 edited topic by Packer and Jordan titled
Multimedia, from Wagner
to virtual reality
. Kay wrote an essay in 1989 titled “User Interface, A
Personal View” and in the text he affirms McLuhan's notion that the computer
is a medium and not simply a tool. The networked computer as a medium acts
as a communication platform via e-mail, Web sites of all types, and of course,
Web portfolios from people of all types. Kay goes on to synthesize the
“computer as something to communicate with our selves, our tools, our
colleagues and others, and our agents” (Packer & Jordan, 2002, p.130). Kay,
when writing the piece in 1989, saw the computer as a communication medium
that concentrated most frequently on communicating with our tools and
ourselves. What I believe he means is that we spend time using computers for
purposes that do not communicate to the public in a valuable way. Examples
such as over chatting and downloading music come to mind. Kay contends that
society, academic or others need to “extend everything we do as a grand
collaboration — with one's self, ones tools, other humans, and, increasingly,
with agents: computer processes that act as guide, coach, and amanuensis”
(Packer & Jordan, 2002, p. 130). Kay reminds us that the translation of
personal visions and knowledge as represented by tangible evidence of
experiences in the Web portfolio will be useful only if the author pays attention
to interface design. The key to having communication succeed is to eliminate
and overcome barriers. The Web portfolio interface design needs to address
those problems that might exist in communicating the messages delivered by the
Web portfolio.
