26 September 2009, 3:53

Hi Nigel

Just wondering what the latest position (Mahara 1.1.6) is regarding turning off the social networking tools?

I work at a College of Further and Higher Education in the UK and we are just starting to pilot Mahara with two categories of student:

1) National Diploma in eMedia year 1 (16 - 17 year olds)

2) FdEng in Network Computing year 2 (18 +++)

The FdEng students got the hang of Mahara in next to no time :)

My concern is with the younger age group on the National Diploma. Currently the College disables student access to social networking sites such as facebook, myspace etc.

Is it possible to turn off the social networking features (including mail) in Mahara 1.1.6 for younger students, but retain this valuable facility for older students ?

If not, is this feature planned in Mahara 1.20 ??

Thanks very much

Clive

Clive Gould

(HE PAL ICT @ Bromley)

27 September 2009, 16:30

Hi Clive,
We're happy to build this feature in but would need a sponsor to do so - most of the feature developoment work is funded this way ;-). I'm also keen to have controlled social networking - i.e. School A can social network with School B but not School C. We'd also have to think about how to build it in on an age basis from what you are saying.

cheers
Richard

27 September 2009, 17:48

Hi - adding to Richard's reply a bit. In 1.2, it'll be possible to disable many plugins, e.g. the resume, blogs and the wall. But that is on a site-wide level only, so it wouldn't help out your situation sadly.

Seems interesting that you want to turn of mail - what particular aspects of mail are you concerned about? 

27 September 2009, 17:58

Hi Clive  There are some social networking settings that a user can control under Settings > Preferences (see the following)  so this shouldn't be difficult to implement at an institute level.
Friends control	Nobody may add me as a friend New friends require my authorisation New friends are automatically authorised
HTML editor	On Off
Messages from other users	Do not allow anyone to send me messages Allow people on my Friends list to send me messages Allow anyone to send me messages

17 December 2009, 16:05

Hi Nigel,

 We are in the process of a major role out of Mahara as our institutions e-portfolio system.  As such it will be used in a number of different ways including program and institutional assessment.  Our accrediting agencies (for example our state education's teacher certification program) often have a long list of standards that students must show proof of achieving.  These standards often have sub-standards as well.

 What we are doing is using the template tool to create a template for each standard.  These are then set to allow copying and made available to all logged in users.  The number of templates, however, is becoming quite large.

 So, I have the following questions:

Would it make sense to make each program it's own institution under our larger University instance of Mahara?  If so, would that then limit the individuals access to things in the general university system?

When we create a template of a particular standard, we then add containers (files to download) to the view and these are labeled by the criteria students need to meet.  Using the "files to download" container does not allow us, however, to put in sub-topics, so in cases where the criteria has an "a." and a "b." etc, we can only use a text-box.  That allows us to name the textbox with the criteria, and then add "a" and "b" etc into the textbox itself.    I undertand that students can then drag and drop objects beneath that text-box, but it does not indent these objects, and it can then become difficult to see that these objects are associated with the particular citeria under which they are located.  (I hope all of this makes sense).  Do you have any suggestions?  Is this the best way for us to do this?  

 Thanks,

Ellen

20 December 2009, 15:37

Hi Ellen,

I am just responding to the latter part of your posting about using empty containers in templates.  We used a similar approach and it worked fine except for those who were not very comfortable with using technology.  By using the text box we were able to provide a suggested format as you describe. Our templates were however only guidelines and the students could chose a totally different form of presentation if they chose.

Here is a link to the template: http://myportfolio.ac.nz/view/view.php?id=7143

Kind regards

Hasmeeta

29 December 2009, 23:04

12 August 2010, 19:18

Mahara is being supported in New Zealand schools by the Ministry of Education, part of their support is to

• help improve usabilty mainly around creating views
• providing guidelines for how eportfolios can be used to enhance teaching
• and case studies of the use of mahara in schools.

For this we would like you to tell us your experiences, how you could improve usability for school children.

The resources developed will be fed back into mahara community for everyone to benefit from.

For a background on eportfolios in New Zealand and how this is being supported see this report

Thanks in anticipation of your support

Craig

12 August 2010, 21:02

Craig, thanks for this. Is it possible to post the document on what sort of work the Ministry, Flexible and Catalyst hope to have done before Christmas. I am sure this group will be interested and I could then cross-post to the MLE Group.

I am pleased to be able to assist by investing in some of the usability/work flow improvements that the wider community require.

Paul.

12 August 2010, 23:13

No problems Paul

I have uploaded the initial ideas to help improve usability on the mahara wiki http://wiki.mahara.org/Roadmap/Usability_Upgrade_Version_1.4 .

Comments on this are welcome either on the wiki or in the various forums.

If you want to edit the wiki you will need to register on mahara.org

regards

Craig