Greetings.

My name is Connor Yoder.
In this post I will introduce myself, as well as give several assessments of the electronic portfolios from past classes and how I plan to use those assessments in the creation of my electronic portfolio.

I will start out with the assessments of past portfolios in a list format, including whose portfolio was assessed and what semester and class for which the portfolio was produced.

Jacob Charneski, Geography 390, Spring 2017:
Browsing through Jacob's portfolio, there are a couple things I thought he did well, and several things I think could be improved upon.
First, he did an adequate job describing the environments and the process of the data collection. Entries were descriptive, and included informative and applicable images relating to the lab and data.
Some things could also be improved upon as well. For instance, it would be helpful for pictures to have labels to help improve the descriptiveness and tie the image to a certain aspect of the lab. Another thing I noticed were spelling and grammatical errors. Lastly, the alternative links on the portfolio page were void of content, and included the, in my opinion, unprofessional and distracting comment box.

Eli Fredrickson, Geography 390, Spring 2017:
Similar to Jacob's portfolio Eli described the labs decently well, but I thought there could have been more content and descriptions in the results are of some of the entries. Unlike Jacob's, this portfolio included descriptions on each of the images, although the first images themselves were not of the best quality, and of those taken with a still camera, the angles were skewed and awkward.
Of the overall portfolio, I would have hoped to have seen more neutral colors that to me seem more professional, instead of the pale yellows and rust oranges that were prominent.

Ryan Ferguson, AT 409, Fall 2018:
Ryan's portfolio was formatted differently than the other portfolios I have viewed so far. I like the tile aspect of Ryan's portfolio because not every entry is displayed simultaneously. You can pick and choose which entry you want to view at a time, and each entry has an associated image beside it. The layout gives the portfolio a more professional look in my opinion, due to it being less cluttered and more streamlined.

Evan Hockridge, AT 409, Fall 2018:
With Evan's portfolio, I like that he actually utilized the figures and maps tab. Most of the other portfolios I have viewed have left that page blank. Not only did Evan fill that tab, he added extra tabs beyond the normal, such as unmanned system experience, software experience, and other interests. I like that he did this because it adds more to his portfolio than just the labs for class. It gives interested parties more information to gather about Evan's experiences as well as interests.

Ian Wiley, AT 409, Fall 208:
Ian's portfolio entries I thought were adequate. Each post had a representative title about the lab, and each post included relevant imagery to add to the context of each post. The thing I am not super fond of on Ian's portfolio page is the large image of him at the top. I think an image of Ian is acceptable in the right spot, for instance, the about me or contact info page, but the image is distracting from the content and I feel like the image detracts from the overall quality of the portfolio.

In summary, for my portfolio, I think I want something similar to Ryan Ferguson, in more of a tile format for each entry with a relevant image as the thumbnail. Also, with the others, I want each post to include an acceptable quantity of relevant imagery to complete the context of each lab. I will be sure to fill my secondary pages with the figures from each post, as I thought several of the portfolios were lacking in that. Also, I think an image of myself is not a bad idea, so in the contact info page, I will most likely include a small image of myself. As for the overall design, I want to try to stick to more neutral or earth colors, simply to keep the portfolio looking as professional as I can. I see E-portfolios becoming more and more important in the ever-evolving digital age in which we currently live, and as technology and sensors improve, I also see the UAS curriculum evolving in that way to reflect and adapt to the technology.

Finally, a bit about me. My background with Unmanned Aerial Systems extends a little before high school. Naturally, I jumped on the "toy" drone aspect when unmanned systems started gaining popularity. While unmanned systems are definitely not toys by any means, this was how they were portrayed when I entered the hobby. Since then, I started at Purdue in Professional Flight, but began Unmanned Aerial Systems as a minor to continue and expand my knowledge of unmanned systems, although by now, I had an acceptable level of understanding of flight characteristics as well as components and a small amount of flight experience with regards to aerial imagery and videography. I cannot pinpoint one particular moment that led to an interest in unmanned systems, but I would say a combination of interest in manned aviation and unmanned aviation culminated into the interest I have today. As far as a career in unmanned systems, if I chose to pursue a career in unmanned systems, I would love to work with a film group, for example, Copterkids, LLC. That would be my ideal career in unmanned systems is with the film industry, although I know there are a lot of fields in the industry that are growing that will need educated and qualified individuals to fill the positions.