Can anyone share their experience of using Mahara in Secondary schools?
As network Manager for a large secondary school in Gloucestershire we are currently hosting our own Moodle / VLE which has proved very popular. Our Moodle Site is also fully integrated with the school MIS system, with all classes / timetables being automatically populated with staff and students.
I have now also setup Maraha and understand how this also be can be integrated with Moodle. I have a few members of staff looking at the possibilities of Mahara. The presentation of e-portfolios for reflection and assessment looks superb!
It does however strike me that in terms of the social networking elements there is a contradiction with typical school policies on the use of messaging / social sites etc. It could be that we need to revist current policy and challange current thinking. The obvious concerns are the cyberbulling issues, where technically we are providing a platform to facilitate this.
I can see how there may be huge educational opportunities adoptiong the 'social network culture' after all its what our students are doing online when they're not in school! I am interested to hear from those who have successfully implemented Mahara. Any insight appreciated.
Does your question revolve around the academic efficacy of the Moodle/Mahara union or your fear that the communications channels you are establishing enable anti-social behaviour?
If it is the latter then I believe your fears are mistaken. It’s akin to a knife manufacturer worrying about the use of their product or a producer of cushions bothered about smothering issues. That way madness lies.
I remember the predictions in the early1960s that then next generation would all become deaf due to the invention of the transistor radio used with ear pieces.
If there are 50 ways to kill a lover then there must be an increasing number of ways of misusing communications channels. All we have to do is help to create a culture that removes the need to bully or provides a sound basis of evidence when it is revealed.
Our educational establishments are microcosms of society. It’s probably better that we address these issues within the safe environment of the school rather than allow them to develop elsewhere.
Agree
If the school is providing the Mahara, it cannot dictate exactly what the users will do with it, but it can make policy on its use and has powers to enforce compliance with that policy. In so far as this is a safety matter, the local authority director of Children's Services has a statutory responsibility for the safety of young people within the school, so it would be very sensible if the school's policy were made consistent with that of the LSCB. If there are significant inconsistencies between school and LSCB policy, the school risks creating for itself a considerable amount of administrative grief. Some or all of the LSCB policy framework on social networking might effectively write the policy for the school and in the case of Gloucestershire, SWGfL's leading work on e-safety may be of assistance.
We use Drupal and have a few thousand learners blogging projects. What we have found in the last few years is
Very few children actually abuse the system. I have had to freeze only 3 accounts in all that time out of thousands and then those involved e-mailed apologies and were reinstated. (We can also e-mail the school to notify them of such instances and vice versa)
The biggest problem is frivolous posts to blogs when learners first get access. Showing off and using a blog entry like a chat or instant messaging service. Sort of look at me I'm on line. This is not too surprising really but it is an opportunity to teach about audience and bring in the National Curricululm. If you want a chat with your friends go to the forums, if you want to present work or serious commentary use your blog. This has to be learnt, it is not just a given to most children.
We give pretty free access to the community site. Anyone is free to use it yet we haven't had any major issues - without wanting to tempt fate and of course with a million users we might have different stats - what seems to be a small risk is worth it for the benefit to learning. Of course we have some safe guards, a simple acceptable use policy, many teachers effectively supervising, and we can delete any entries brought to our attention that break the terms of agreement and we can block accounts. There are links to explain issues of e-safety and that is part of the assessment of the qualifications in any case.
So whether it is Moodle, Mahara, Drupal or indeed any VLE, put learning first. Why is it important for learners to use these environments? Is the environment going to help the learner increase their capacity to use such tools safely? That is a rather different issue from making the tools 100% safe which is impossible anyway.
We use Moodle too so if you want a free courses on Open Source and Open Systems
http://theingots.org/courses/course/view.php?id=9
http://theingots.org/courses/course/view.php?id=5
http://theingots.org/courses/course/view.php?id=4
All copyleft so if you don't like bits but can use any of the info just take it. You need to make an account to do quizzes but otherwise you can just use guest. Setting up an account is free.
TDM host over 30 Mahara sites and we have not heard major complaints about inappropriate behaviour in the groups. (We have only had one such complaint reported on Moodle).
Monitoring of social appropriacy is obviously easier on an open online platform such as Mahara because you can access database records to investigate what happened, when. (you would have much less concrete evidence to investigate if the inappropriate behaviour reported to you had occurred in a classroom or playground).
Mahara offers a "Report objectionable material" facility as an element of a view feedback. A tutor may also "Add View to watchlist" should (for example) they feel suspicious of content particular learner might add. This would allow the teacher to see what a learner was adding to their view pages:
Derrin.
Derrin Kent
Trainer / Manager / Linguist / Geek
derrin [at] tdm [dot] info