MAHARA

Personally I have found the Mahara e-portfolio a little hard to understand and use. I know that I won't learn everything over night, and also understand that as I use it more for our group assessment, that I will gain more confidence. As stated in our notes in week four, mahara is a fully featured electronic portfolio, weblog (blog), resume builder and social networking system, connecting users and creating on-line communities, which will allow it's users to build presentations for specific purposes. Mahara allows its users to invite other people and friends, find friends, create your own community, aswell as create blogs, store files, change certain column's, add pictures, add text boxes. Mahara is specifically designed to store examples of your professional practise and display views to specific audiences. Also your mahara views could be used to make prospective principles aware of your skill sets and improve your liklehood of future employment. Mahara has so many positives to you on a personal level aswell as with group work. The amount of benifits this e-portfolio has is tremendous. I am definately going to use mahara to my benifit when it comes time for me to find employment in my chosen profession of being a learning manager. I know I am a long way off using mahara to it's fullest potential, but as I said earlier I am keen to learn.
The educational benifits for using it in a classroom is great, although I do think that this would only work well in higher primary school, and high schools. Prensky (2001) states that 'the single most biggest problem facing education today is that digital immigrant instructors speak an outdated language (that of pre-digital age) are struggleing to teach a population that speaks an entirely new launguage. Todays teachers have to learn to communicate in the launguage and style of their students.' This is why I think it is so good that I have the opportunity to experience these technologies, and gain confidence in using them. So when I am a learning manager in this 21st century, I will be able to teach my students the way they deserve to be taught.


On the Horizon (MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001)
© 2001 Marc Prensky
"engage me or enrage me"Marc Prensky 2005
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