Student Portfolio Feedback: Fill & Download for Free

I completely agree on the suggestion of finding a class. Forums tend to be either "Thanks for posting", "Great capture" or "Total crap", "Get a new hobby" neither of which is of any use.Engaging a photographer as mentor is very difficult. Most established shooters who would be helpful, are burned out. While I refuse to discuss a student's portfolio I am always glad to answer a direct question.There is no such thing as the perfect photograph. Every one has dozens of ways it can be improved, including every shot I have ever taken. When I did review portfolios, I was always as positive and reassuring as I could be. However, a pattern emerged. Almost no one was interested in learning—they simply wanted my affirmation that they were brilliant. A truly thankless task and a total waste of my time—and that of the student.

The edtech startup accelerator Imagine K12 has had 7 cohorts before it merged with Y Combinator. The startups from those 7 cohorts are:Summer 2011 cohort:BloomBoard - Professional development marketplace. Previously known as Formative Learning.BrainNook - Social learning games.Claco - Github for teachers.ClassDojo - Realtime behavior management tools.Educreations - iPad-based video lesson creator.Eduvant - Data analytics and intelligence tools for schools.ElevenLearning - Community-powered textbooks. No longer operating.Goalbook - Individualized education plan management system.remind101 - Private text messaging platform for teachers and students.Tutorcloud - Online marketplace to find and collaborate with tutors. No longer operating.Winter 2012 cohort:BrainGenie - Online STEM exercises with gamification. Acquired by CK-12.edshelf - Edtech discovery engine.Hapara - Google Apps-based teacher dashboard.instaGrok - Search engine for learners.LearningJar - Informal online learning management.LearnSprout - API for school systems.Socrative - Realtime assessments and exercises.TapToLearn - Educational games on iOS. First startup to go through YC and IK12 simultaneously.TeachBoost - Teacher evaluations and assessments.Summer 2012 cohort:Chalk - Digitizes paperwork for efficiency.CodeHS - Teaches high school students how to program.DigitWhiz - Game-based learning for foundational math skills.Blendspace - Multimedia online lesson plan creator. Previously known as EdCanvas.Tryumph - Collaborative study groups through existing social networks.NoRedInk - Adaptive learning lessons for grammar and writing skills.Raise - Allows HS students to earn micro-scholarships for college.Securly - Cloud-based web content filter.SmarterCookie - Video-based coaching for teachers.StudyRoom - 3D online study group.Tioki - LinkedIn for teachers.Winter 2013 cohort:Kaizena - Voice feedback from teachers to students.Accredible - Portfolios of knowledge for learners.MommaZoo - Private Facebook for classrooms and parents.Padlet - Easy-to-make online "walls" for any kind of content. Second startup to go through YC and IK12 simultaneously.Plickers - Realtime assessments using simple printouts instead of devices.Literably - Automatically scores oral reading assessments.Showbie - Platform to enable paperless classrooms.GigaBryte - Teaches programming through wearable electronics.VideoNot.es - Note-taking for videos.Fall 2013 cohort:Cellabus - Mobile device management platform.Class Central - Comprehensive MOOC aggregator.ClassroomIQ - Open response grading platform.Classwork - Realtime tablet-based whiteboards for students.DealsList - Gradebook for soft skills.Edoome - Edmodo for Latin America.EDpuzzle - Turn online videos into interactive lessons.Front Row - Differentiated, adaptive, and gamified math practice.geddit - Realtime confidence tracker for students.Kaymbu - Classroom documentation system for teachers and parents.Kodable - Early programming skills for K-2 students.Panorama Education - Data analytics and feedback surveys.SchoolMint - School admissions management platform.Fall 2014 cohort:AdmitSee - Repository of higher ed applications and advice.BrightLoop Learning - Real-time student observation tracking.Chesscademy - Adaptive learning tool for improving chess play.Educents - Marketplace for parents and educators.Edusight - Gradebook with built-in student learning portfolios.Eduvee - High school exam practice with machine learning.Formative - Real-time formative assessment & classroom response system.Leada - Data science & analytics online courses with instructor support.MathChat - Collaboration platform through drawing, typing, and messaging.Mission 100% - Video library of observation clips from real K-12 classrooms.Mosa Mack Science - Short animated inquiry-based science mysteries.Peekapak - K-3 curricula and storybooks aligned to the Common Core.Picolab - Meeting and collaboration platform for teams.ReadWorks - Research-based reading comprehension instructional materials.TeachMe - Educational math games and apps.Tickle - Programming lessons for Arduino, drones, robots, connected toys, and smart home devices.Trinket - Programming lessons delivered via a browser.Fall 2015 cohort:allcancode - Teaches K-12 students how to code through building games.answer.ky - Automatic grading of handwritten answers via scanning.Codevolve - Teaches anyone how to code using an AI-powered platform.DeZyre - Learn job skills by taking interactive online sessions.KickUp - Analytics to help professional development teams support teachers.Rumie - Free digital education to underprivileged children around the world through low-cost tablets and volunteer educators.Sense - Evaluates open-ended assignments using AI to provide personalized feedback.Sesame - Multimedia student portfolios that teachers can evaluate using rubrics, checklists, or rating scales.Sown To Grow - Students set their own learning goals, scores, and evaluations.Swing Education - Marketplace for schools to find substitute teachers.Source: All Imagine K12 StartupsDisclosure: I am the cofounder of a startup from the 2nd cohort, edshelf.Fellow IK12ers: Feel free to edit the description I've written here, in case I misrepresented you.P. S. For more information about YC’s edtech startups, there are a few listed on the YC for edtech page.

Warning: I am a hard portfolio critic. Read at your own peril.First ImpressionsAlready not feeling encouraged at this front page.“Design” applies to anything that conveys feedback to or takes input from a user, and you need to show that on the first impression. All black text on that busy of a background is a huge no-no. The buttons fare slightly better but get a bit lost.I really recommend just ditching the splash page entirely, these don’t tend to fare well with recruiters or reviewers. The thing you really want to show is the gallery, and you’re asking them to take an extra click to do it … for what, showmanship? This isn’t a stage play, this is a portfolio and resume. Straight to the point, waste the user’s time as little as possible.Gallery PageThe gallery is way better in terms of layout. Scales so nicely with my screen. If you just opened right on that page and gave it a decent banner at the top — not a complicated one, not a busy one, just something clean with your name and contact info, I’d be so pleased. I would advise making the proportions of your screenshots all consistent rather than having the heights vary the way they do, but otherwise on a technical level this looks okay.This gallery page is the dead limit of what I as a recruiter am going to look at if I’ve got a dozen applicants to look through. The drop-down next to the “Gallery” tab is way too subtle and the categories are unhelpful. If you’re applying for game design I really just want to see game design-related things; if you’re applying for art I really just want to see art. Have a tab that says “Game Design,” and one that says “Art,” and I’m good. If you feel the need to sub-categorize, use headers on each of those pages rather than giving them whole separate pages to themselves. The way you’ve got these categorized right now is confusing.I keep hitting “Home” and it keeps navigating me back to the awful splash page.No Resume page or link to a PDF of your Resume. I’m wary of hitting any of the social media links because those usually imply that you want to share to those social media sites, not that you want to navigate to the user’s social media page.Content ReviewIn terms of content, some of your best work is on the Real Time Renders page. The gas mask is especially good. Your armored suit guy isn’t gallery-worthy, though. Drop him.On the Unreal renders page, I’d ditch the black hole from Interstellar and whatever that mass of red indistinct fleshy stuff is supposed to be. It’s a nice texture study but it isn’t an environment with a good composition or sense of atmosphere.As a general rule, you need to get your screenshots from gameplay, at high definition. Unreal has a screenshot command and rendering utility you can use. Don’t go the lazy route and just do screencaps of the editor window, and try to get bigger renders than these.Ironically the screenshots you share from your game are the weakest stuff. I’d ditch those in favor of just having a video of gameplay. The “Alien Blitzkrieg” title shot is especially cringeworthy. You need to put some professional time and effort into creating a logo screen like this. As it stands, it looks horribly amateurish, so much so that you’re better off dropping that shot completely.You need to improve the one with the big open green plains, too — you’ve got the mountains down, but there’s no rocks or foliage or other kinds of meshes integrated into the environment, so it’s just kind of a landscape sculpting study.The maze looks like it could be promising — like something out of Myst — but you need to do another revision on it. The modern architecture house has a similar vibe, though you could get better composition on the shots from the outside and they could all stand to be higher def. The screenshot of the solar panel house in what looks like El Paso is much closer to the mark, in addition to being a really reasonable environment image.Ditch the tunnel until you find something worth doing with it other than just showing a screenshot and going, “hey… tunnel.” I have some similar feelings about the subway.Ditch the taxi cab until you have a scene to put it in. Maybe add it to the tunnel.Found the Alien Blitzkrieg preview video. Just still shots? No gameplay?Where is the resume? I want to see it. If I can’t locate it inside of fifteen seconds then I can’t save it to my folder o’ resumes. You’re just begging to be forgotten.ConclusionsThis looks to me like what I’d expect to see from a second or third-year student specializing in environment art. No game design whatsoever. Nothing giving me the slightest indication that you’ve worked on a game project other than screenshots from what looks like a mobile game, which I can’t see any video of.For game design, finished games or polished demos of games are king. I don’t need to play it, but video is preferable, and some people will prefer to play it. Design documents are useful in demonstrating to me your process and communication skills. I need to see that you’ve designed game systems or rules, built functioning levels with a well thought-out level flow, something. Frankly that’s a hard skill set to come by as a student, as student projects tend to deflate the minute a grade isn’t counting on them, losing momentum when your knowledge base for the design is finally starting to come together.For environment art? Weed a few of the bad apples and spruce up the more borderline pieces and I would call this a reasonably competent environment art student portfolio. A top-brass environment artist is liable to have a lot more to say about your work than I am, as I’m mainly in technical design and programming, but I could see myself sending out an environment art test to you for a small to mid-sized project leaning towards the indie end of the spectrum. I think you have a ways to go, in that many of these could use additional detail. You need to get a better command of post-processing and atmosphere — I know vanilla UE4 with no post-processing when I see it. But, this is in a certain realm of “good enough” that I’m reasonably convinced you could adapt to a project and give me enough assets to create a workable environment.Hope that helps, and good luck!