23 May 2011, 0:10

Hi I am not sure if this is the right place for my thoughts on 1.4 so far, sorry if it isn't. My interest is mainly in usability from a pedagogical point of view. This cuts across technical issues too, but only in as much as I often wish there was a 'button to click'. I am and I expect will continue to be an avid fan of Mahara, but I also feel usability issues have been responsible for a lower acceptance than might otherwise have been expected. Navigation was not intuitive or meaningful, and to a large extent I think that has been addressed in 1.4. At first glance I am really excited about the new terms (such as View > page), Profile > content).

I have been doing a lot of research into our Mahara users, and I am getting the impression that there are some widely held misconceptions about ePortfolio use. For example 'portfolios are for reflection'. Well they may be, but the vast majority of our users use portfolios as a showcase. If they were mainly for reflection, well surely a blog would be fine. I don't mean to debate this here (happy to another time) so can I just use this assumption as the basis of talking about 1.4.

In the post Web 2.0 world, SoMe and Mobile is set to be king. I was searching for ePortfolio courses online and couldn't find any. Search for SoMe or Mobile and there are lots. And it occured to me (surely I should be thinking of better things when going to sleep than Mahara!!) that Mahara is in fact a fantastic SoMe platform. A place to mashup, and pull all that SoMe together. Sure you can do that elsewhere (I love Storify) but Mahara also has such great access control. The issue of private until shared so important in terms of  personal identity management. Groups are also an essential part of SoMe and I welcome their further development. 

I am just throwing a few thoughts out there I guess. I have a few comments on my first look at 1.4 on my blog, and you will see I have probably made some wrong calls (such as no Secret URL – I missed it first time through). I was thinking about it in terms of a SoMe platform. 1.4 is largely around navigation and it looks great. Well on the way there. In terms of plugging in SoMe there is still a long way to go. We use the embed.ly and Google apps blocks Gregor created which allows for a lot, and I understand security issues, but as a user I want to be able to plug in pretty much ANYTHING. Particularly iframes etc. My one biggest single gripe (and has been for ages) is the inability to upload photos on the fly. I constantly get complaints from students and staff about this and I can't think of any other similar program where you still need to do this. I am convinced it was easier for Facebook to kill off MySpace because of easier usability.

Teachers continue to instruct students to create 'a portfolio' using Mahara, having never used it themselves (you would not believe the number of such complaints I receive from students). One staff member at my own University (well perhaps my own) introduced Mahara in week 8 (of a 12 week course) and wondered why there was widespread confusion. Mahara was obviously no good!!

The path ahead is exciting, and Mahara is still very young. While it is usually branded as an ePortfolio platform, I just wanted to share my thoughts that it is, and can be, a lot more. I am currently collaborating with like minds from around the world to write a creative commons undergrad social media marketing course using a Mahara group, and of course the resources will ultimately be hosted on Mahara. I have also been reading a lot lately on the demise of the walled garden LMS in favour of open platforms like......

23 May 2011, 17:19

Great read Ian thank-you and I'm pleased you like the general direction. Usability has improved and its an area of constant vigilance with an open source project and features can grow like topsy. Can you please point to some good information on SoMe? That spelling doesn't lend itself to good google ratings.

thank-you

Richard

23 May 2011, 18:33

Hi Richard,

I have a collection of articles, information and links here you are welcome to share http://foliospaces.posterous.com/

Please do note that this is just a personal space that I use for myself so it is ecclectic and in no particular order but there is some great information there on Social Media for Learning (and some SoMe Marketing). Anyone is welcome to share, but I do not use it as a blog, but rather as a repository. It is also an example of usability. The reason I use Posterous (which is a blog host) is because I just email the posts to it. This is where apps will also come into there own with Mahara in the future.

CHeers, Ian

23 May 2011, 20:47

Aha, thanks. Now I'm with you. I'd never seen it abbreviated before ;-)

23 May 2011, 21:34

My mistake Richard, I should not use an acronym without defining it first, it is poor practice and it annoys me when others do it (SoMe = Social Media). Still it caught your interest which is good. Cheers, Ian

25 October 2011, 22:02

Hi, we're about to introduce 1.4 after 2 years of playing with older versions. We now have five course leaders using eportfolio as assessment. I'm excited about the chance to develop collections and for markers to be posting feedback on each page of such a collection plus adding marking sheets. (I've tried pasting part of a rubric, and that works well too). I'm working my way through literature on eportfolio for assessment at university levels and planning to publish on our approach at some point.

In the meantime, we have just decided not to add Google apps until we're happy about security. Have you had any concerns about SoMe in this regard?

26 October 2011, 0:10

We have had Google apps installed ever since Gregor made the first blocktype available. I personally think it is essential, as it allows for seemless integration. I have been running a course this semester using Google+, Mahara and Moodle, and the student response has been fantastic. I think the key has been that they were logged into Google anyway and discussion has just been much more vibrant than I have experienced in the past. I then had links in + through to Mahara as well when needed.