23 March 2009, 7:23

Hi everyone,

Who here uses Mahara in a School environment? In this case, "school" meany any usage with children from 5 to 17 years old.

If you do use it, what are one or two things you like and don't like about using Mahara in a school environment? Is there any particular feature or change you would like to see to make Mahara better for school-aged usage?

23 March 2009, 9:19

Hi Nigel!

I want to implement Mahara next September in our highschool. I am currently doing a research on eportfolio theory and practice with a year-leave grant for the implementation of eportfolio in highschools in Catalonia, Spain.

My tests with Mahara have been really exciting and I find excellent features:

-  Site views controlled by owner

-  User friendly, drag-n-drop editing.

-  Web 2.0 tools supported 

-  File uploading and sharing made simple

-  Podcast support (as a foreign languages teacher, I find this feature amazing!)

- Column design

 Some elements I am not so sure about  yet:

- Backing up: Data back-up is essential for the transfer of portfolios as a life-long learning tool. 

- Upgrade: We have Mahara integrated in our Moodle platform. When upgrading the moodle version, we had some problems with the Mahara integration. I fear this might be a problem in the future upgrades of Moodle or Mahara... how to upgrade safely without losing part of the content.

- Interface personalisation: Teenagers need to feel they own this space and one way is the possibility to design personalized views. Any possibility of providing varied templates (like blogger, for example) and facilitating the change of logo image? 

- RSS syndication has given me some errors. Hope they can be solved soon.

- HTML embedding.  Embedding HTML code from available applications in web 2.0 is not always possible.

- The dashboard of views is not easy to understand at first glance, in particular,  I imagine for the younger ones. The different options to edit  are a bit confusing at the beginning... perhaps tabs with different names like presentation, privacy... would guide first-users better.

- The social networking site is a wonderful option yet for digital natives the interface might not look attractive enough, compared to the social sites they live in like facebook or myspace... We'll see what students have to say and what they make of it... They always surprise me!

THANKS NIGEL AND ALL THE MAHARA TEAM! Great work, congrats!

23 March 2009, 19:57

Hi Sonia - thanks for that feedback - it's very helpful!

If I can elaborate a bit on some of those things - we're doing Import and Export support in Mahara right now, which will allow students to take their portfolios with them. This feature will be in Mahara 1.2, which we aim to release in the middle of 2009.

Regarding upgrades - we always test as much as we can to make sure upgrades are OK, and offer instructions and support here if they don't - I hope you don't run into any more problems in future.

You're right about the dashboard of Views - we're planning some usability work after 1.2 that should hopefully help in this area

Thanks again for that feedback - it's good to hear that schools are able to use Mahara effectively

16 April 2009, 18:54

Wow Sonia - you have done a great job of expressing some of our concerns and aha moments also.

This looks like a great program and I hope it will work for us.  I would like to be able to also use it as an eLocker for students - uploading of multiple files / directories would be needed to make this work smoothly.

Sharon

10 July 2009, 15:53

excellent outline Sonia. thanks.

I will very interested to see your summary of research if you are so kind as to make it available.

best 

24 March 2009, 10:10

Hi Nigel

I plan to use it in the UK with students in the 14-19 age group,particularly those who are accessing new curriculum opportunities which meansthey are students of more than one institution. The portfolio will be linked toa subject based Moodle. I’m in a very rural area and we are aiming to createsubject communities for learners that cut across geographic barriers.  

I see it having great potential for students showcasing their achievementsin and out of school and in particular providing evidence of soft skills suchas team working, reflective learning and independent enquiry.

Early feedback is around worries about how social networking tools could bedistractions. I would like the ability to turn some of these off initially –like the wall and perhaps limiting groups that can be created. I see this as anopportunity to teach youngsters about building a net reputation and encouragethem to see Mahara as similar to LinkedIn, Viadeo and iProspects rather than aFacebook or My Space type application.

On the layout I find some of the menus a bit obscure and would like easiernavigation. Also have been trying (unsuccessfully) to find guidance on the typeof files that can be embedded. 

24 March 2009, 17:57

Hi - thanks for that

There are a few patterns emerging among the feedback we're getting. A common query is whether group creation can be restricted - I've heard stories of students creating silly groups, or using group types to exclude others. We'll definitely have to look into this.

Also, disabling the wall is a common request. We definitely need to make it easier for plugins to be uninstalled.

Regarding the menus - we're going to be revisiting the navigation as part of our next usability sprint, probably aiming for a pulldown menu based system.

As for the types of files that can be embedded - most standard music and video formats should be supported. From looking at the code, I can see mp3, swf, flv, quicktime, wmv, mpeg, avi and mp4 look like they're supported.

25 March 2009, 17:47

avi for embedding? We've not managed to embed avi on ours - offer for download yes but not embed. I wonder if we're doing something wrong

25 March 2009, 19:05

Hi - this is a bug - well, there's a bug in Mahara to do with the internalmedia blocktype having issues working properly, and then there's a bug in the default media player that ships with firefox on windows. Between them, it could be difficult to embed AVI just now.

26 March 2009, 6:56

Hi Nigel

As you will be aware we (CLEO) are currently running a pilot of Mahara with around 13 schools in the UK. Dan Poltawski (LUNS) has mentioned that you are interested in our findings and we will of course make them available to you as the pilot goes on and at the end when we have collated all the feedback. Currently the schools are at an early stage but have got their users in, and are working out how Mahara can meet specific agendas within school. Initial feedback has been very constructive , and in general feelings are that for primary school children there needs to be the ability to have less functionality  - - simply a "My portfolio" tab would suffice for many younger pupils...

 Anyway, from a personal point of view I think its great....will keep in touch, as I am sure Dan will...