mahara

Mahara.

You know it’s good when staff tell you it’s saving them time.
You know it’s good when staff tell you they are ‘having fun’ using it.
You know it’s good when students are contributing content to classroom activities.
You know it’s good when classes that would otherwise never meet, are interacting with each other.

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Listen to what Lizzie said about her first steps with Mahara.

As our Mahara portfolio pilot continues to gain momentum, it’s clear that most users are getting quite comfortable with the product. What has been really surprising is that so little support has been required through this process. Whether the support is in product functionality, or in coaching users through the cultural challenges associated with a new facilities, there is usually a considerable amount of supporting activity going on. In my experience, this particularly low demand for support is almost unheard of when introducing a new product.

Of course, I’m really pleased that the uptake has been so swift and the response so positive. It really has encouraged me to continue promoting Mahara to other staff as a product that we could work with in the longer term.

Today, one of the teachers assisting with the pilot let me know that her group had been making screen casts using Screenr. It was communicated to me as a practice exercise – a first attempt. But hang on, I’ve watched these videos – and they are really good!

What’s great about watching these tutorials is observing the immediately obvious differences between the media I have already produced, and these new tutorials produced by our students. Each student (or group of students) has used their own initiative with the tools available, taking a different creative approaches. I’m looking forward to sharing some of these tutorials – made by students for students – in the Mahara Guide blog we have established to support our pilot.

A video from Luke and Sophie demonstrates how the contributions of two students can be used to enhance the content. This really is their first effort, but I think with a little more work, they could be on to something good. More dialogue between the two narrators would take the tutorial to a new level – each contributing to the overall message, but also adding their own commentary or opinion. Overall, the content is very good and really does illustrate just how easy it is for anyone to create materials of this quality. Take a look at their tutorial on uploading files to Mahara.

One thing that Katie did was to move a small Screenr capture window around the screen to provide more focus than would otherwise be found with a fixed aspect (and therefore a clearer image too). You have to be careful with this approach though – too much movement and you might lose your viewer (or nauseate them). Check out Katie’s first video about creating a blog.

I hope the next steps for the students in our pilot groups is to produce more materials like this, broadening the subject content and in doing so extending their own understanding of Mahara. Engaging these same students in producing more video materials could be really beneficial, and will support some of the objectives of our learning model. There is just as much opportunity for reflective thought, feedback, discussion and commentary in video material as there is in written content.