Mahara

I was fortunate to have created a NetSpot account and to have had a little play with Mahara during residential school, but oh, do I find this program a challenge! I don't know how many hours I spent watching those You Tube videos (the most painful thing was waiting for them to download!) again and again, while at the same time doing the steps in Mahara. I have created a bit of a view with which I am nowhere near happy, however, I think I know now how to change that; but I also know that I still have much to learn.

Mahara seems to be a very comprehensive tool. It is a networking system and an electronic portfolio, excellent for keeping one's resume and all those other documents, all in one place. A whole lot of different types of files can be stored in Mahara, and they can be made available in separate views for different audiences.

I can see potential use of it in schools, perhaps not so much by the younger children, but definitely by students from grade 3 or 4 onwards. Setting it up would be a good learning experience in itself and I imagine students would enjoy the process. Children could use Mahara to store their work in. This would be an incentive to produce work of a high standard. A view of a selection of their work including word documents, power point presentations, photos and wikis can be made available to others. I can just imagine the joy on grandparent's faces when viewing high quality work in their little darling's e-portfolios.