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

The Art Portfolio and The Common Application: Art Supplement


Nearly all programs for Schools of Art, whether they are Music, Theatre, Dance, Fine Arts, or Graphic Arts, require the submission of a portfolio. They almost always request the applicant to put the portfolio on a CD or DVD and mail it in. However, CDs and DVDs are rather old technologies and, when schools dispose of them, they contribute to the accumulation of waste. Creating a portfolio that can be viewed on the Web makes much more sense. Reviewers can zoom in on images and/or stream video. This is why using Mahara to create your portfolio is a very good idea. If the school still insists on a DVD, you can export your entire portfolio from Mahara. You can then burn it on to a CD or DVD, and it will be well-formatted.

This is a basic recipe for a Fine Arts portfolio. Though the portfolio we will be building is that of a student in the Studio Arts, this recipe can be used for some of the other arts as well. If this recipe is not...