Mahara ePortfolios: Beginner’s Guide电子书

Mahara ePortfolios Beginner's Guide

Table of Contents

Mahara ePortfolios Beginner's Guide

Credits

About the Authors

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more

Why Subscribe?

Free Access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Time for action — heading

What just happened?

Pop quiz — heading

Have a go hero — heading

Reader feedback

Customer support

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. What can Mahara do for you?

Portfolios go electronic

Towards an ePortfolio-enabled future

Why Mahara?

Personalized learning

Reflective learning

Collaborative learning

Pop quiz — what is important to you in an ePortfolio?

Ways of using Mahara

Case study one: Punam from Pennytown Primary

Case study two: Janet Norman from Pharmaceuticals International Inc. (PI Inc.)

Case study three: Neil from Training for Work

Case study four: Christophe from Silverworks University

Join the Mahara community

Time for action — join mahara.org and explore

What just happened?

Pop quiz — learning about http://mahara.org

Mahara sites in the wild

Time for action — looking at some real-life Maharas

What just happened?

Have a go hero — pressing the buttons till it hurts

Summary

2. Getting Started with Mahara

Registering with a Mahara site

Time for action — registering to the Mahara for Beginners' demo site

What just happened?

Logging in for the first time

Time for action — logging in

What just happened?

Mahara's user interface — finding your way around

A word on Mahara themes

The main menu and submenus

Side blocks

The footer

A workflow for building your portfolio

Setting up your own profile

Profile information

Editing your profile

Time for action — editing your profile

What just happened?

Profile pictures

Time for action — uploading your profile pictures

What just happened?

Editing your résumé

Time for action — editing your résumé, goals, and skills

What just happened?

Pop quiz — understanding your profile information

Have a go hero — doing more with your profile information

Your profile page

Time for action — viewing and investigating your profile page

What just happened?

The profile page wall

Some more profile page examples

Adding a text box to your profile page

Time for action — creating a text box for your profile page

What just happened?

Options in the text editor

Time for action — editing a text box by adding a hyperlink

What just happened?

Taking the formatting and editing one step further

Time for action — adding an image to your text box

What just happened?

Your dashboard page

Time for action — viewing and investigating your dashboard page

What just happened?

Settings

Time for action — changing your settings

What just happened?

Changing username and password

HTML editor

Notifications

Time for action — open up your notifications inbox

What just happened?

Summary

3. Create and Collect Content

Putting your files online

Mahara replaces the USB stick

Time for action — adding some folders and files to your portfolio

What just happened?

Giving structure to your folder tree and branches

Copyright

Upload limit

Moving and deleting files

Uploading more than one file

Time for action — zip, upload, and unzip

What just happened?

Using tags to organize your files and search for them

Pop quiz — files, folders, and tagging

Have a go hero — start setting up your files, folders, and tags

Writing in your journal

What is a journal in Mahara?

Time for action — creating your first Mahara journal

What just happened?

Embedding an image in your journal entry

Pop quiz — writing a journal in Mahara

Have a go hero — go on... get reflecting...

Make a plan and set some tasks

Time for action — make a plan and set some tasks

What just happened?

Notes

Time for action — exploring notes

What just happened?

Linking to files, folders, plans, and journals on your dashboard page

Time for action — linking to files, folders, plans, and journals on your dashboard pages

What just happened?

Summary

4. Organize and Showcase your Portfolio

What are pages in Mahara?

Time for action — create a page and edit the content

What just happened?

A word on small page headers

Without small page headers

With small page headers

Adding/removing columns from your page

Time for action — editing your page layout

What just happened?

Time for action — adding page details

What just happened?

Page access

Time for action — editing your page access

What just happened?

Deciding who can access your page

Time limiting access

Making a page copyable

Secret URLs

Time for action — create a secret URL

What just happened?

Pop quiz — creating a page

Editing your page once you have created it

Have a go hero — edit your page

Blocks

Copying pages

Time for action — copying a page

What just happened?

Pop quiz — copying pages

Page feedback

Time for action — feeding back on a page's content

What just happened?

Collections — linking pages together

Time for action — create a collection

What just happened?

Have a go hero — add a navigation block to your collection

Assessing the quality of your page/collection

Page quality checklist

Content

Aesthetics

Have a go hero — make a top quality page

Exporting your portfolio

Time for action — exporting your portfolio

What just happened?

HTML export

Leap2A export

Pop quiz — export

Have a go hero — show off your portfolio by exporting to an HTML website

Summary

5. Share and Network in Groups

Groups

Time for action — creating a group

What just happened?

Membership

Open membership groups

Request membership groups

Friend invitations and recommendations

Navigating your new group

Time for action — opening up and navigating around your group

What just happened?

The groups shortcut side block

Have a go hero — set up some new groups and create their About pages

Joining an open membership group

Time for action — joining a group in Mahara for Beginners

What just happened?

Managing your group members

Time for action — managing group members and changing roles

What just happened?

Pop quiz — creating Mahara groups

Group forums

Time for action — creating a forum

What just happened?

Forum moderation

Forum topic expansion

Managing your forum

Forum topics

Forum discussion frameworks

Time for action — adding a discussion topic

What just happened?

Naming forums and their topic subjects

Posting to a topic

Time for action — replying to a topic post

What just happened?

Pop quiz — group forums

Group pages

Group files

Finding groups

Time for action — finding and joining a group

What just happened?

Joining a request membership group

Time for action — requesting to join a group

What just happened?

Accepting/denying requests to join a group

Making friends!

Time for action — finding friends and adding them to your list

What just happened?

Responding to a friend request

Managing your friends

Time for action — filtering and removing friends

What just happened?

Summary

6. Course Groups and Other Roles in Mahara

Less learner-driven aspects of Mahara

Institutions

What is an institution?

Administering an institution

Time for action — adding users to your institution

What just happened?

Bulk uploading users to your institution

Time for action — adding institution users by CSV

What just happened?

Approving pending users

Editing user account settings

Time for action — finding and suspending a user

What just happened?

Switching user roles in your institution

Time for action — creating institution staff and institution administrators

What just happened?

Masquerading as another user

Configuring your institution's settings

Dealing with admin notifications

Institution pages

Institution files

Pop quiz — managing your institution

Controlled membership groups

Course group roles

Create a controlled membership group and allow course roles

Time for action — setting up a controlled membership group with course roles

What just happened?

Publicly viewable groups

Tutors

Time for action — adding a tutor to your controlled group with course roles

What just happened?

Have a go hero — set up some tutors in controlled or request groups

Submitting work for assessment

Time for action — submitting a page to a course group for assessment

What just happened?

Time for action — releasing a page submitted for assessment

What just happened?

Putting it all together into an assessment process

Time for action — an example assessment process with Mahara

What just happened?

Pop quiz — course groups, staff members, and tutors

Summary

7. Mahara Extensions

Extending Mahara

Mahara extensions list

Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

Time for action — create a list of CPD activities

What just happened?

My Learning

Multiple intelligences

Time for action — determine multiple intelligences and display them

What just happened?

Learning styles

Time for action — determine your learning styles and display them

What just happened?

Embedly

Time for action — embed some content using Embedly

What just happened?

Mixcloud

SchoolTube

Social sharing — Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn

Time for action — add a Twitter Tweet button to a Mahara page

What just happened?

Should you go social?

Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

LinkedIn profile

Time for action — embed your LinkedIn profile in a page

What just happened?

Summary

A. Mahara Implementation Pre-Planner

What's involved with a Mahara implementation?

Analysis and Specification

Deciding if Mahara is right for you

Understanding your own specific needs and working conditions

Choosing between a Mahara-partner supported site or your own install

Scoping out your implementation plan

Deciding on your implementation timeframe

Ensuring you have staff commitment

Drafting out your initial Mahara content, site structure, visual design, and staff roles

Drafting out your Mahara-specific policies

Starting to embed Mahara use into wider institutional and program priorities

Planning, Design, and Implementation

Creating a Buzz!

Getting some quick wins in first!

Continuously involving your users in the planning and design process

Keep going despite adversity!

People can be implementation resistors:

Situational response tactics

Situational response tactic 1 — Big Bombs

Situational response tactic 2 — Sniper Fire

Evaluation and Continuation

Reviewing and re-evaluating

Changing and embedding

Summary

B. Installing Mahara

What will you need?

Can I install Mahara on Windows?

What about installation on other operating systems?

Downloading Mahara

Time for action — downloading Mahara

What just happened?

Using the command line

Time for action — creating your Mahara file structure

What Just Happened?

Creating the database

Time for action — creating the Mahara database

What just happened?

Have a go hero — using the command line to create your database

Setting up the data directory

Time for action — setting up the data directory

What just happened?

Time for action — creating the config.php file

What just happened?

Running the installer

Time for action — running the installer

What just happened?

The last step — setting up a cron process

What is a Mahara Partner and what can they do for me?

Finding a Mahara Partner

C. Pop quiz — Answers

Chapter 1

Learning about http://mahara.org

Chapter 2

Understanding your profile information

Chapter 3

Files, folders, and tagging

Writing a journal in Mahara

Chapter 4

Creating a page

Copying pages

Export

Chapter 5

Creating Mahara groups

Group forums

Chapter 6

Managing your institution

Course groups, staff members, and tutors

Index