With regret I was unable to attend this year’s iMoot but thankfully through the medium of recorded sessions, I could catch up on a few presentations I’d had my eye on.
There is an ever-growing interest in Mahara and it has not gone unnoticed by those interested that the release of Mahara 1.4 promises to take the ePortfolio to the next level. With this in mind Kristina Hoeppner’s presentation (Using Mahara for your ePortfolio – New features in version 1.4) topped of my list of missed iMoots to catch up on!
Mahara 1.4 is due for release in May you will be excited to hear, generously giving enough time for schools and universities in the Northern Hemisphere to test the upgrade before going live in the new school year. Here is a quick recap of the Mahara features and functionality covered in Kristina’s presentation:
Navigation
There have been a number of improvements to the navigation in Mahara 1.4, with a renaming and reshuffling of tabs to make navigation more intuitive.
Creating Portfolios
Creating portfolios has also been made easier with all the required functionality now being found on one screen in the top navigation bar, saving a lot of to-ing and fro-ing. The various options when choosing the number of columns to use can also be found on one page for quick and easy editing.
Share Tab
The addition of the ‘Share’ tab within the Portfolio tab allows you to quickly see all the pages you’ve created in your Portfolio and who has access to which pages.
When sharing pages the user has the ability to give access to collections of pages, setting the same restrictions for each page. This will save a lot of time having to go through the same process for a number of individual pages.
Shared Pages
Found under the ‘Groups’ tab, the Shared Pages is a full collection of pages that have been shared with the user. Within the screen will be included comments and a search option.
Topics Tab
Also within the Groups tab, this feature makes it easier to:
- See in which forums discussions are going on
- How many posts have already been made
- View the beginning of the latest post
Maharadroid
Acessibility for android phones comes within the core code of Mahara 1.4 allowing the site administrator to easily faciliate the mobile sharing of artefacts and the upload of files directly from the mobile phone (visit http://code.google.com/p/maharadroid to try it out)
Plugins
There are a number of new (and existing) plugins available to extend the functionality of Mahara, which fall under the headings of Authentication, Sharing and Aggregation
Authentication
Single Sign On and connection with Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Google etc. is possible via the Janrain plugin. The Shibboleth plugin will also work with Mahara 1.4.
Share
Users will be able to embed Twitter ‘Tweet’ and Facebook ‘Like’ buttons on their Portfolio Pages.
Aggregation
Google Apps and Windows Live continue to be available for integration with Mahara.
Kristina also touched on a few of the plans for Mahara 1.5:
- Skin Support allowing individual students to create their own themes for their portfolios
- Additional plugins (Flickr and Picasa for external slideshows)
- Compatibility with the Walled Garden Plugin allowing one to maintain a large scale Mahara installation which incorporates a number of individual institutions
- Support for even more external media (Wiki Educator, Glogster)
- Extended Mobile Support for other platforms
- Improved search functionality
So there you have it. Some very exciting new additions to Mahara are on their way, I’m sure you’ll agree. Thank you very much to Kristina for an informative and flowing presentation.
If you have any questions about Mahara or would like to get your ePortfolio up and running please feel free to give us a call on +44 (0) 28 9028 8830 or email joel.kerr@synergy-learning.com.
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