Mahara thoughts
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Mahara eportfolios
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Some thoughts, opinions, links and examples of Mahara
Transcript of Mahara thoughts
Mahara eportfolios
Eportfolios at Perins School
• Used to assess Transform courses through PLTS• Used as “evidence sites” for ICT Fitness• Used with new Flipped course in Science• Used in BTEC IT Units
Some Portfolio Examples from around the Web…
View One
View Two
View Three
View Four
View Five
View Six
View Seven
Moodle Integration
Moodle Integration
• Integration of Portfolios through Moodle– Video explaining this from Mark Drechsler
• Portfolios Assignments – Grading of portfolios in Moodle through Outcomes
(transferrable to Mahara) – Grading of portfolios through Rubrics in Moodle (not
transferrable)• Transferring of resources from Moodle to Mahara
via– Forums (including grades and comments)– Glossary (including grades and comments)
Good Links…
Recommended links
• Great examples– https://mahara.org/newsletter
• E-portfolios explained at Solent– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOFSrV3QOWM– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGTFDY1Cf64
Recommended links
• Official Mahara Website (need username)– https://mahara.org
• MoodleFairy talks about her use in school– http://www.moodleblog.net/2011/10/01/2-flavours-o
f-mahara-at-our-ladys-preston/
• MaharaUK Conference 2012- http://maharauk.org/
Pros and Cons (IMHO)…
Pros of Mahara
• Looks like Facebook – good buy in• Students have personal and professional page• Personalised learning – students design page
and choose best way to show evidence• Fairly easy to develop• Superb for peer evaluation• Great assessment features – eg star feature• Pages can be shared anonymously
Pros of Mahara
• Can embed HTML – great for YouTube videos and Web 2.0 products
• Encourages good planning and having sense of audience / what makes effective presentation
• Not age dependant• Assignment links to Moodle (and Forums and
Glossary – am sure more to come!)• Can be used in any subject and for other work
eg CV, professional portfolio etc
Pros of Mahara
• Can link pages through navigation menus• Open source – great community support• Good pedagogy! Encourages more
independent learning and HOTS• Links to Google Docs (not sure Google Forms
though?)• Single sign in with Moodle and can be used
independently of VLE
Cons of Mahara
• Front end looks a little old fashioned and clunky compared to Web 2.0 GUIs
• Navigation to different parts can tricky• Some processes not hugely intuitive eg file
uploads, page creation by dragging blocks, sharing page (or maybe its me!)
• Page creation needs clear explanation• Doesn’t like Office 2010 files
Cons of Mahara
• Students need to be good planners and have sense of effective presentation
• Limited support and guidance for schools and few schools actually using it
• Some issues with assignments that need developing (bugs with 1.4)
• Adding images to site can be a pain (although encourages good IT skills)
• Resizing of images/video to fit page layout
Cons of Mahara
• Like all things, there is a process/method to be followed which sometime students don’t eg like giving titles to text/image boxes!
What’s new in v1.5?
Important New Stuff for v1.5
• New themes for v1.5 including Primary• Drop down menu for navigation• Reusable text boxes• Better embedded support for voki, glogster,
prezi etc• Multiple file uploads• Lots of bug fixes…
Get in touch…
Get in touch?
Gideon WilliamsDirector of e-learning
Perins School
E-mail: [email protected]: @moodlegideon @gideonwilliams
