Book Image

Mahara 1.4 Cookbook

Book Image

Mahara 1.4 Cookbook

Overview of this book

Mahara is an e-portfolio system that allows you to build dynamic and engaging portfolios in no time. Use Mahara when applying for jobs, creating portfolios for certification and accreditation, for classroom projects, book reviews, to create your own social network and much more. This book will show you the many different ways in which you can use Mahara, and how to exploit the various components of Mahara. The Mahara 1.4 Cookbook will introduce you to features you probably have not explored, and show you how to use them in ways you probably had not considered. The book also provides guidance in the use of Gimp, Picasa, Audacity, Word and other programs that can be used to create artifacts. It will provide you with techniques for creating everything from dynamic and engaging web pages to complete projects, interactive groups, educational templates, and professional resume packages. By exploring the recipes in this book, you will learn how to use each of the various blocks and content areas including the resume sections, Journals, and plans. You will learn how to archive a portfolio, and set access levels. We will build an art gallery, a newspaper, use groups for collaboration and assessment, and use the Collections feature to build complex layered portfolios. You will also find recipes for building templates for standards-based report cards and teacher certification. The book is packed with ideas from the simple to the extremely advanced, but each idea is supported with step-by-step instructions that will make all of them seem easy.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Mahara 1.4 Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgement
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface

Creating a group newspaper using newsfeeds from student journals


Collaborative authentic writing is the goal of this recipe. Students will be publishing their work as journalists, while participating in a group activity to create a dynamic site set up similar to a newspaper.. This site will be publically accessible. Featured "columnists" are the members of the group. The current stories are actually fed from their individual journals; every time the columnist posts to their journal, the paper is updated. This allows students to keep these artifacts (journal posts) in their personal portfolio, while contributing to the group; readers can subscribe and post comments. The following screenshot is one example of a group Newspage. This is the Science Club's work. Each student picked a topic they would write about with regularity. I have a little column about happenings in the club itself.

Getting ready

Create your group and add the members. If this is going to be a course group, change the...