Monday, August 24, 2009

Mahara

Research recently completed by the Queensland University of Technology (2008), has shown that the use and interest of ePortfoloios within higher education has great potential in providing students with the skills to become life long learners both personally and professionally, it also endeavours to explicitly develop their skills.

Furthermore, the Australian learning and Teaching Council (2008) states that; 'by reflecting on their own learning and achievement, learners are encouraged to plan for their personal, academic and career development'.

According to CQUniversity (2009),the CQU ePortfolio site is based on Mahara, a fully featured electronic portfolio, weblog, resume builder and social networking system, connecting users and creating online communities. Mahara provides you with the tools to set up a personal learning and development environment.

Although I did watch the video supplied on the Universities site it wasn't until I had created my account and played around on it that I realised how easy it is to use. I have uploaded files, photos and videos. I have posted some of my blog from my other account and was able to set up some views also.

It is easy to see why this type of technology would enhance the lives and skills of students and users alike. By creating the opportunity for pupils to utilise this tool within the classroom would enable them to have access to resources and be able to see first hand comments from others which would enable them to reflect on their thoughts and those of others.

Hospitality/Home Ec students could be assigned a wiki via this site. They could follow and comment on their progression and experiences throughout the journey in the blog section, upload their coursework to the file bank and monitor their peers progress also. All of the students practical assessment pieces (cooking and sewing tasks) could be photographed and uploaded and stored within this site also. These pieces could be attached to their portfolio and used as evidence for job applications.




References

CQUniversity. (2009). Open source e-portfolios. Retrieved August 2009, from, http://cqu-mahara.netspot.com.au/

Queensland university of Technology. (2009). ePortfolio Report, 2009. Retrieved August 24, from,
http://www.eportfoliopractice.qut.edu.au/information/report/index.jsp

Australian Learning and Teaching Council. (2009). Final report. Retrieved August 24, from,
http://www.eportfoliopractice.qut.edu.au/docs/Aep_Final_Report/prelims.pdf

No comments:

Post a Comment