December 10, 2024 • 19 mins
In this episode, podcast host and Mahara Project Lead Kristina Hoeppner, MA, from Catalyst IT shares some insights from her trip to the Northern hemisphere in October and November 2024 where she's met with portfolio enthusiasts and Mahara community members to talk about portfolios.
Connect with Kristina
Resources
- AAEEBL retreat, October 2024
- AAEEBL Digital Ethics Task Force
- Mahara community site and demo of Mahara
- MoodleMoot Global 2024 recordings
- Kristina's presentation 'Mahara y Moodle: Una combinación perfecta para los estudiantes'
- How to add Mahara to Moodle
- Université de Lorraine project Pléiades, programme Trajectoires
- Université de Lorraine project template and competency template
- ESUP Portail
- Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg's project DiKuLe
- Planungs- und Entscheidungshilfe für den Einsatz von Portfolios vom Projekt DiKuLe
- Planning and decision-making guide for portfolios created by Project DiKuLe
- Portfolio starter kit from Projekt Dreiklang (in German) with lots of case studies and tutorials (enter using the guest login)
- Mahara UX review 2024: Wireframes
Related episodes
- Dr Leticia Britos Cavagnaro: Make learning visible
- Dr Helen L. Chen: Reflect through conversation to tell your story
- Mike Joiner-Hill: Represent yourself through a portfolio
- Dr Ruth Cox & Dr Kevin Kelly: Grow and nurture the portfolio through the framework of ePorticulture
- Dr Ricardo Elizalde: See the whole student and their learning journey
Subscribe to the monthly newsletter about Mahara and portfolios.
Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Welcome to 'Create. Share.
Engage.' This is the podcastabout portfolios for learning
and more for educators, learningdesigners, and managers keen on
integrating portfolios withtheir education and professional
development practices. 'Create.
Share. Engage.' is brought toyou by the Mahara team at
(00:25):
Catalyst IT. My name is KristinaHoeppner.
Today I'd like to tell you a bitabout my recent trip to the
Northern hemisphere where I'vehad the chance to meet a lot of
community members in manydifferent countries and listen
to how they use portfolios, whatthey'd like to be able to do
with Mahara, and where there areareas for us to have more
(00:46):
conversations on how to createan experience for learners and
educators alike to work moreeasily with portfolios.
I started off my trip in the SanFrancisco Bay Area where I met
five of my podcast interviees inperson. Amongst them was Dr
Leticia Britos Cavagnaro fromthe Hasso Plattner Institute of
(01:08):
Design, commonly known asd.school. She's the creator of
the reflection bot Riff. Riff isone of the artificial
intelligence experiments thatshe has running. I think there's
a potential for really tightintegration with portfolio tools
because Riff makes it easy tostep through a reflective
framework such as 'What? Sowhat? Now what?' Instead of
(01:33):
staying in the 'What?' phase,which is summarising a learning
event as that is the easiest ofthe three phases, students are
encouraged through continuousquestioning from the AI to
actually voice their opinionsand get deeper into the
reflection. I'm grateful toLeticia to hear my feedback
after having experimented withRiff myself, and I also now have
(01:56):
a better understanding of whereshe's coming from with her
experiment.
Riff has now been availablesince about April of last year,
2023, and its availability andfurther development depend on
what those that have beenexploring it want to do with it
going forward, and also whetherthat means that the tool can be
(02:17):
turned into a product. To thateffect, Leticia sent a survey to
everyone who has an account, andI'm eager to learn about the
results because I think it wouldbe wonderful if we had it
available for everyone usingportfolios and could also
integrate it more tightly withMahara.
Now, the second reason for myvisit in the Bay Area was the
(02:38):
first ever AAEEBL ePortfolioRetreat that Dr Helen Chen from
Stanford University, ChristinaMayes from Dominican University
of California, and I organised,with the support of several
other people. We held the eventon Christina's campus at
Dominican in San Rafael, and itwas the perfect setting, I
(02:58):
think, for our one day event onFriday when students didn't have
classes. Imagine driving throughSilicon Valley with its
multi-lane freeways and concreteeverywhere. As soon as you then
cross the Golden Gate Bridge,the scenery opens up and little
towns take over. Sure there'sstill the freeway, but it
(03:20):
actually turns more into ahighway and there are fewer cars
- maybe we also just didn't hitrush hour. When we then drove
through pretty sleepy San Rafaeland ended up on the hill of the
beautiful campus of DominicanUniversity of California, amidst
a redwood forest away from thehassle and bustle of the city,
(03:40):
it was a spectacular site and anamazing setting for our retreat.
So Dominican University has theFletcher Jones ePortfolio Lab in
the Mary B. Marcy StudentSuccess Center, and it's a
fantastic open space wherestudents can learn, collaborate,
and also seek support. In thefirst part of the Retreat, we
(04:01):
learned how Dominican usesportfolios in many different
areas to encourage students totell their learning stories and
learning journeys, talk aboutthemselves, their aspirations,
and also goals. We then venturedoutside and held a session in an
outdoor classroom where treestumps formed the seats. The
fragrance of the redwood trees,wood chips on the ground, and
(04:24):
nearby flowers provided a verydifferent learning setting from
the air conditioned indoors.
Members of the AAEEBL communityshared how they have been using
portfolios successfully fortheir classes. You can find some
of those stories shared here,right on the podcast, for
example, by Dr Helen Chen, DrKevin Kelly, and Dr Ricardo
Elizalde. I'll make sure to linkthem in the episode notes of
(04:46):
course.
I also enjoyed meeting a fewAAEEBL Digital Ethics Task Force
members in person. So shout outto my fellow task force members,
Christina Mayes, Dr Kevin Kelly,and Dr Ricardo Elizalde. But
speaking of the podcast the daybefore the AAEEBL Retreat,
Christina had organised for meto speak with three students and
(05:09):
a staff member who turned out isalso a student at Dominican, and
record their portfolio stories.
That makes five interviews fromDominican as I had already
talked with a former student alittle while ago. I will air
these interviews in the new yearas a mini series and look
forward to sharing theirstories. The students all
(05:29):
started to create theirportfolio at the beginning of
their studies and then reallykept up with it, received
support from the portfolio lab'smentors, which were both
students and staff, and areproud of what they can showcase
about themselves. I'm verygrateful to Christina for
scheduling these interviews andto her students, of course, for
(05:50):
being so open about theirlearning journeys, giving me the
chance to share their storieswith all of you.
Now after a quick scenic drivein the Marin Headlands to the
Battery for a spectacular viewof the Golden Gate Bridge that I
enjoy every time I'm there, itwas already time to say goodbye
(06:11):
and head to my next stop, whichwas Mérida in México, where
MoodleMoot Global was held.
Together with a number ofcolleagues who had flown in from
our various offices, we talkedabout Moodle and Mahara. The
tight integration between bothis important because many
universities use portfolios forassessment purposes, and thus
(06:31):
having an easy way to access theportfolio from within the LMS is
crucial, I find. For Moodle, wehave the Mahara Assignment
Submission plugin, which makesit possible to submit portfolios
via the assignment activity.
That allows educators to usetheir regular grading tools and
(06:52):
for all grades to be stored inthe Moodle gradebook. For other
LMSs, the integration is alsopossible, of course, via LTI,
which stands for Learning ToolsInteroperability. There, the
grade is stored in Mahara andsent to the LMS gradebook. With
a more native integration intoMoodle, we can take advantage of
more granular and more powerfulgrading tools, including a
(07:15):
rubric and also the gradingworkflows that the Moodle
community knows really well.
The Moot was actually also achance for me to speak with a
few clients and communitymembers whom I hadn't seen in
several years, as well as talkwith Mahara Business Partners.
I'm also very thankful to threeof my colleagues, two native
speakers of Spanish and one whospeaks it fluently, for their
(07:39):
support as my Spanish is stillvery limited. When I did want to
give it a good go in arestaurant, all my mobile app
learning did not really help. Iimmediately started speaking in
French, and no matter whatSpanish just did not want to
roll off my tongue at all.
Thankfully, the waiter, who wasproficient in several languages,
switched instantly, and my drinkand food order continued in
(08:02):
French without a single word ofSpanish heard.
MoodleMoot Global was very wellorganised by the Moodle HQ team,
and I had the chance to learnabout other integrations,
plugins and the AI subsystem,which allows administrators to
plug in different artificialintelligence tools to have more
control over which ones theywant to make available. After
(08:25):
four days of MoodleMoot Global,which also included the Partner
Day for us Moodle Partners, Iboarded an early flight to
proceed on my trip and go toEurope for the following four
weeks. That also meant,unfortunately, to leave the warm
weather and daily sunshinebehind and trade it in for grey
November skies, high potentialsof rain and even a few days of
(08:49):
light snowfall.
My schedule for the next fourweeks was tightly packed and
included a lot of train ridesthat were typically between two
and seven hours, spending lotsof time packing and unpacking
and packing again of my suitcaseand carrying it up and down
stairs. I experienced the good,the bad, and also the ugly of
(09:10):
physical accessibility of trainstations, city sidewalks,
cobblestone streets andaccommodation providers'
buildings first hand. That'sanother story though and not one
for today.
The purpose of my long stay inEurope was to meet with our
clients in the Mahara communityand talk with them about their
use of Mahara. I'd like to thankeverybody who's made time for me
(09:34):
to visit and learn about theirportfolio work and ideas. Pretty
much all tertiary or highereducation institutions have
champions who do amazing workwith portfolios. That did not
come to them easily for the mostpart, but they spent many hours
thinking about the design of theportfolio, how they wanted to
(09:55):
introduce it, and also what thepurpose was for their students.
These champions are incrediblyimportant to spark the interest
of others in portfolios.
However, the whole portfoliowork should not and cannot rest
on their shoulders alone. Theyneed adequate, long-term support
structures within theirorganisations and also the
(10:16):
support from the institutionalmanagement.
In Germany, for example, manyportfolio implementations are
the product of time boundproject funding, of which much
actually runs out next year in2025. Then the future of the
staff who support these projectsis unclear, especially if there
(10:36):
is no follow-on project, as theinstitutions often do not have
the funds to establish permanentpositions to continue with the
good work that had begun as partof these projects. This is not
the way to create sustainablepractice and implement
portfolios programmaticallywithin study programmes and
across an institution. At otherinstitutions, learning and
(11:00):
teaching support teams haveportfolios in their remit, but
are often not given sufficienttime to support educators in
implementing portfolios and workwith them on portfolio strategy.
Portfolio support does take timeas it comes with
transformational change of bothteaching and learning, and thus
should be well considered. Thisis not to say that it shouldn't
(11:22):
be attempted because it's toodifficult. All I'm really saying
is that it should be wellconsidered and well supported to
benefit students and staff.
In that regard, I loved learningabout a few projects that did
exactly that. At Université deLorraine in the project
Pléiades, and there specificallyin the work package
(11:45):
'Trajectoires' (trajectories),researchers and educators
explored the use of portfoliosfor reflection and tracking of
competencies at a large scalewith lots of students. Amongst
the outcomes of the programmeare a series of templates to
help educators scaffold theportfolio use of their students.
(12:05):
You can find the templateslinked in the episode notes.
Université de Lorraine partnerstogether with Université de
Reims Champagne-Ardennes on theESUP Portail, an offering for
French institutions of highereducation to have IT services
outsourced and managed moreefficiently. Their starting
offer is Mahara.
(12:26):
Another example is projectDiKuLe - Digitale Kulturen der
Lehre entwickeln, which isroughly translated 'develop
digital cultures in teaching' atOtto-Friedrich-Universität
Bamberg in Bavaria. They createda planning and decision aid to
help educators decide whetherportfolios are a good fit for
(12:46):
them and then to help with theimplementation of portfolios.
The aid is currently availablein German, and the team hinted
at also publishing an Englishversion in 2025. The planning
aid is a comprehensive tool toplan details of the
implementation of portfolios ina course. It can be expanded by
(13:07):
questions that also cover anentire study programme to get to
a programmatic approach forusing portfolios. Since the
planning aid is published underthe Creative Commons license
ByAttribution and Share-Alike bythe author team of Martina
Osterrieder, Dr Martin Sticht,Cordula Schwiderski, and Hannah
(13:27):
Brodel, anybody can extend theframework, customise it to their
local requirements and share itagain.
The meetings and events Iattended were also an
opportunity for me to share whatour team has been working on, in
particular the results of ourusability interviews with
community members and theirfeedback. Our business analyst
(13:48):
Rob Hill had compiled thefeedback and dove into the inner
workings of Mahara to criticallyexamine its current information
architecture to identify areasthat should and frankly, also
have to be improved for a betterexperience by portfolio authors
and educators, as well as easeof use. The proposed new
(14:09):
interface for Mahara takescurrent usage of the web into
account, as well as otherwebsite products our community
is likely to use and thusfamiliar with. The wireframes
and the yet to be published,initial designs by our graphic
designer Evonne Cheng, foundgreat approval amongst those
(14:29):
that have seen them and confirmthat we are on the right track.
I link to the wireframes in theepisode notes, we'll publish the
designs early next year, and weinvite everyone to provide more
feedback in our usability forumor via email if preferred.
One item that had come upfrequently in Europe is the need
(14:50):
for a Mahara instance to whichalumni could export their
portfolios. Data privacyregulations and IT guidelines
that the institutions of highereducation need to adhere to
don't really allow them to keepdata from people that are not
officially affiliated with theirinstitution any more. This will
be something to revisit nextyear and talk more about. There
(15:13):
were feature ideas and also someissues that we discussed and a
few live troubleshootingsessions, which are definitely
easier to do in person when thesite administrator and server
administrator are availableright away. It's also always
satisfying to show someone afeature in Mahara that instantly
improves what they've beenlooking for to do for a long
(15:36):
time, but didn't necessarilyhave the words to search for.
Now what am I taking away fromthis trip? Well, I was
reaffirmed that seeing currentclients, prospective clients,
and members of the widerportfolio community in person is
incredibly valuable becausequestions and ideas surface that
(15:58):
may not otherwise be discussedduring an online meeting. It's
possible to have more incidentalconversations and laugh
together, as well as have a bitof fun rather than just purely
stick to an agenda. I'm alsotaking away a number of ideas to
share with my team and ponder onwhat we might want to discuss
more deeply or where we need abit more information. Our plans
(16:22):
have been met with approval,which is reassuring to know that
we are on the right track. Lastbut not least, it is wonderful
to experience the enthusiasm forportfolios and to see the demand
for them as an important tool,not just for students, but also
beyond formal education. Whileoften still a niche tool, the
(16:42):
portfolio does have its place,and together with the community,
we'll nudge it along toestablish it more prominently
within learning ecosystems. Thatrequires all of us to put our
heads together and sharestrategies that work, continue
to collect examples of good use,either isolated use in one class
(17:03):
as well as organisation wide,and to share these ideas widely,
including in this podcast and inother places.
I leave you with a few fun factsof my 51-day journey around the
world. So if I missed any ofyour emails, that'll be due to
moving from one place to anotherquite quickly. I participated in
(17:24):
two community events, threeconferences and two Mahara
events. Altogether, I attended15 meetings, of which the
shortest was two hours and thelongest about eight and a half.
I am super stoked that I had thechance to meet 16 of my podcast
guests in person, of which I hadinterviewed five directly on my
(17:46):
trip. I also gave twointerviews. All of that in
between 10 flights, 16 traintrips, two road trips, countless
bus, tram, and undergroundrides, and one suitcase
sacrifice to the cobblestones ofEurope. Last but not least, I
could visit the tallest indoorwaterfall of the world at Changi
(18:07):
Airport in Singapore before thelast two flights back to
Aotearoa, where I then weightedthe haul of chocolate, gummy
bears, other lollies, andstationary items for friends and
colleagues, which amounted toseven kilograms. No wonder that
my suitcase weight was maxedout.
(18:29):
Now over to our listeners. Whatdo you want to try in your own
portfolio practice or want toshare with others? This was
'Create. Share. Engage.' Head toour website, podcast.mahara.org,
where you can find resources andthe transcript for this episode.
(18:50):
This podcast is produced byCatalyst IT, and I'm your host,
Kristina Hoeppner, Project Leadand Product Manager of the
portfolio platform Mahara. Ournext episode will air on the
15th of January 2025. I hopeyou'll listen again and tell a
colleague about our podcast sothey can subscribe. Until then,
(19:12):
create, share, engage, and havea wonderful festive holiday
season.
Welcome to 'Create. Share.
Engage.' This is the podcastabout portfolios for learning
and more for educators, learningdesigners, and managers keen on
integrating portfolios withtheir education and professional
development practices. 'Create.
Share. Engage.' is brought toyou by the Mahara team at
(00:25):
Catalyst IT. My name is KristinaHoeppner.
Today I'd like to tell you a bitabout my recent trip to the
Northern hemisphere where I'vehad the chance to meet a lot of
community members in manydifferent countries and listen
to how they use portfolios, whatthey'd like to be able to do
with Mahara, and where there areareas for us to have more
(00:46):
conversations on how to createan experience for learners and
educators alike to work moreeasily with portfolios.
I started off my trip in the SanFrancisco Bay Area where I met
five of my podcast interviees inperson. Amongst them was Dr
Leticia Britos Cavagnaro fromthe Hasso Plattner Institute of
(01:08):
Design, commonly known asd.school. She's the creator of
the reflection bot Riff. Riff isone of the artificial
intelligence experiments thatshe has running. I think there's
a potential for really tightintegration with portfolio tools
because Riff makes it easy tostep through a reflective
framework such as 'What? Sowhat? Now what?' Instead of
(01:33):
staying in the 'What?' phase,which is summarising a learning
event as that is the easiest ofthe three phases, students are
encouraged through continuousquestioning from the AI to
actually voice their opinionsand get deeper into the
reflection. I'm grateful toLeticia to hear my feedback
after having experimented withRiff myself, and I also now have
(01:56):
a better understanding of whereshe's coming from with her
experiment.
Riff has now been availablesince about April of last year,
2023, and its availability andfurther development depend on
what those that have beenexploring it want to do with it
going forward, and also whetherthat means that the tool can be
(02:17):
turned into a product. To thateffect, Leticia sent a survey to
everyone who has an account, andI'm eager to learn about the
results because I think it wouldbe wonderful if we had it
available for everyone usingportfolios and could also
integrate it more tightly withMahara.
Now, the second reason for myvisit in the Bay Area was the
(02:38):
first ever AAEEBL ePortfolioRetreat that Dr Helen Chen from
Stanford University, ChristinaMayes from Dominican University
of California, and I organised,with the support of several
other people. We held the eventon Christina's campus at
Dominican in San Rafael, and itwas the perfect setting, I
(02:58):
think, for our one day event onFriday when students didn't have
classes. Imagine driving throughSilicon Valley with its
multi-lane freeways and concreteeverywhere. As soon as you then
cross the Golden Gate Bridge,the scenery opens up and little
towns take over. Sure there'sstill the freeway, but it
(03:20):
actually turns more into ahighway and there are fewer cars
- maybe we also just didn't hitrush hour. When we then drove
through pretty sleepy San Rafaeland ended up on the hill of the
beautiful campus of DominicanUniversity of California, amidst
a redwood forest away from thehassle and bustle of the city,
(03:40):
it was a spectacular site and anamazing setting for our retreat.
So Dominican University has theFletcher Jones ePortfolio Lab in
the Mary B. Marcy StudentSuccess Center, and it's a
fantastic open space wherestudents can learn, collaborate,
and also seek support. In thefirst part of the Retreat, we
(04:01):
learned how Dominican usesportfolios in many different
areas to encourage students totell their learning stories and
learning journeys, talk aboutthemselves, their aspirations,
and also goals. We then venturedoutside and held a session in an
outdoor classroom where treestumps formed the seats. The
fragrance of the redwood trees,wood chips on the ground, and
(04:24):
nearby flowers provided a verydifferent learning setting from
the air conditioned indoors.
Members of the AAEEBL communityshared how they have been using
portfolios successfully fortheir classes. You can find some
of those stories shared here,right on the podcast, for
example, by Dr Helen Chen, DrKevin Kelly, and Dr Ricardo
Elizalde. I'll make sure to linkthem in the episode notes of
(04:46):
course.
I also enjoyed meeting a fewAAEEBL Digital Ethics Task Force
members in person. So shout outto my fellow task force members,
Christina Mayes, Dr Kevin Kelly,and Dr Ricardo Elizalde. But
speaking of the podcast the daybefore the AAEEBL Retreat,
Christina had organised for meto speak with three students and
(05:09):
a staff member who turned out isalso a student at Dominican, and
record their portfolio stories.
That makes five interviews fromDominican as I had already
talked with a former student alittle while ago. I will air
these interviews in the new yearas a mini series and look
forward to sharing theirstories. The students all
(05:29):
started to create theirportfolio at the beginning of
their studies and then reallykept up with it, received
support from the portfolio lab'smentors, which were both
students and staff, and areproud of what they can showcase
about themselves. I'm verygrateful to Christina for
scheduling these interviews andto her students, of course, for
(05:50):
being so open about theirlearning journeys, giving me the
chance to share their storieswith all of you.
Now after a quick scenic drivein the Marin Headlands to the
Battery for a spectacular viewof the Golden Gate Bridge that I
enjoy every time I'm there, itwas already time to say goodbye
(06:11):
and head to my next stop, whichwas Mérida in México, where
MoodleMoot Global was held.
Together with a number ofcolleagues who had flown in from
our various offices, we talkedabout Moodle and Mahara. The
tight integration between bothis important because many
universities use portfolios forassessment purposes, and thus
(06:31):
having an easy way to access theportfolio from within the LMS is
crucial, I find. For Moodle, wehave the Mahara Assignment
Submission plugin, which makesit possible to submit portfolios
via the assignment activity.
That allows educators to usetheir regular grading tools and
(06:52):
for all grades to be stored inthe Moodle gradebook. For other
LMSs, the integration is alsopossible, of course, via LTI,
which stands for Learning ToolsInteroperability. There, the
grade is stored in Mahara andsent to the LMS gradebook. With
a more native integration intoMoodle, we can take advantage of
more granular and more powerfulgrading tools, including a
(07:15):
rubric and also the gradingworkflows that the Moodle
community knows really well.
The Moot was actually also achance for me to speak with a
few clients and communitymembers whom I hadn't seen in
several years, as well as talkwith Mahara Business Partners.
I'm also very thankful to threeof my colleagues, two native
speakers of Spanish and one whospeaks it fluently, for their
(07:39):
support as my Spanish is stillvery limited. When I did want to
give it a good go in arestaurant, all my mobile app
learning did not really help. Iimmediately started speaking in
French, and no matter whatSpanish just did not want to
roll off my tongue at all.
Thankfully, the waiter, who wasproficient in several languages,
switched instantly, and my drinkand food order continued in
(08:02):
French without a single word ofSpanish heard.
MoodleMoot Global was very wellorganised by the Moodle HQ team,
and I had the chance to learnabout other integrations,
plugins and the AI subsystem,which allows administrators to
plug in different artificialintelligence tools to have more
control over which ones theywant to make available. After
(08:25):
four days of MoodleMoot Global,which also included the Partner
Day for us Moodle Partners, Iboarded an early flight to
proceed on my trip and go toEurope for the following four
weeks. That also meant,unfortunately, to leave the warm
weather and daily sunshinebehind and trade it in for grey
November skies, high potentialsof rain and even a few days of
(08:49):
light snowfall.
My schedule for the next fourweeks was tightly packed and
included a lot of train ridesthat were typically between two
and seven hours, spending lotsof time packing and unpacking
and packing again of my suitcaseand carrying it up and down
stairs. I experienced the good,the bad, and also the ugly of
(09:10):
physical accessibility of trainstations, city sidewalks,
cobblestone streets andaccommodation providers'
buildings first hand. That'sanother story though and not one
for today.
The purpose of my long stay inEurope was to meet with our
clients in the Mahara communityand talk with them about their
use of Mahara. I'd like to thankeverybody who's made time for me
(09:34):
to visit and learn about theirportfolio work and ideas. Pretty
much all tertiary or highereducation institutions have
champions who do amazing workwith portfolios. That did not
come to them easily for the mostpart, but they spent many hours
thinking about the design of theportfolio, how they wanted to
(09:55):
introduce it, and also what thepurpose was for their students.
These champions are incrediblyimportant to spark the interest
of others in portfolios.
However, the whole portfoliowork should not and cannot rest
on their shoulders alone. Theyneed adequate, long-term support
structures within theirorganisations and also the
(10:16):
support from the institutionalmanagement.
In Germany, for example, manyportfolio implementations are
the product of time boundproject funding, of which much
actually runs out next year in2025. Then the future of the
staff who support these projectsis unclear, especially if there
(10:36):
is no follow-on project, as theinstitutions often do not have
the funds to establish permanentpositions to continue with the
good work that had begun as partof these projects. This is not
the way to create sustainablepractice and implement
portfolios programmaticallywithin study programmes and
across an institution. At otherinstitutions, learning and
(11:00):
teaching support teams haveportfolios in their remit, but
are often not given sufficienttime to support educators in
implementing portfolios and workwith them on portfolio strategy.
Portfolio support does take timeas it comes with
transformational change of bothteaching and learning, and thus
should be well considered. Thisis not to say that it shouldn't
(11:22):
be attempted because it's toodifficult. All I'm really saying
is that it should be wellconsidered and well supported to
benefit students and staff.
In that regard, I loved learningabout a few projects that did
exactly that. At Université deLorraine in the project
Pléiades, and there specificallyin the work package
(11:45):
'Trajectoires' (trajectories),researchers and educators
explored the use of portfoliosfor reflection and tracking of
competencies at a large scalewith lots of students. Amongst
the outcomes of the programmeare a series of templates to
help educators scaffold theportfolio use of their students.
(12:05):
You can find the templateslinked in the episode notes.
Université de Lorraine partnerstogether with Université de
Reims Champagne-Ardennes on theESUP Portail, an offering for
French institutions of highereducation to have IT services
outsourced and managed moreefficiently. Their starting
offer is Mahara.
(12:26):
Another example is projectDiKuLe - Digitale Kulturen der
Lehre entwickeln, which isroughly translated 'develop
digital cultures in teaching' atOtto-Friedrich-Universität
Bamberg in Bavaria. They createda planning and decision aid to
help educators decide whetherportfolios are a good fit for
(12:46):
them and then to help with theimplementation of portfolios.
The aid is currently availablein German, and the team hinted
at also publishing an Englishversion in 2025. The planning
aid is a comprehensive tool toplan details of the
implementation of portfolios ina course. It can be expanded by
(13:07):
questions that also cover anentire study programme to get to
a programmatic approach forusing portfolios. Since the
planning aid is published underthe Creative Commons license
ByAttribution and Share-Alike bythe author team of Martina
Osterrieder, Dr Martin Sticht,Cordula Schwiderski, and Hannah
(13:27):
Brodel, anybody can extend theframework, customise it to their
local requirements and share itagain.
The meetings and events Iattended were also an
opportunity for me to share whatour team has been working on, in
particular the results of ourusability interviews with
community members and theirfeedback. Our business analyst
(13:48):
Rob Hill had compiled thefeedback and dove into the inner
workings of Mahara to criticallyexamine its current information
architecture to identify areasthat should and frankly, also
have to be improved for a betterexperience by portfolio authors
and educators, as well as easeof use. The proposed new
(14:09):
interface for Mahara takescurrent usage of the web into
account, as well as otherwebsite products our community
is likely to use and thusfamiliar with. The wireframes
and the yet to be published,initial designs by our graphic
designer Evonne Cheng, foundgreat approval amongst those
(14:29):
that have seen them and confirmthat we are on the right track.
I link to the wireframes in theepisode notes, we'll publish the
designs early next year, and weinvite everyone to provide more
feedback in our usability forumor via email if preferred.
One item that had come upfrequently in Europe is the need
(14:50):
for a Mahara instance to whichalumni could export their
portfolios. Data privacyregulations and IT guidelines
that the institutions of highereducation need to adhere to
don't really allow them to keepdata from people that are not
officially affiliated with theirinstitution any more. This will
be something to revisit nextyear and talk more about. There
(15:13):
were feature ideas and also someissues that we discussed and a
few live troubleshootingsessions, which are definitely
easier to do in person when thesite administrator and server
administrator are availableright away. It's also always
satisfying to show someone afeature in Mahara that instantly
improves what they've beenlooking for to do for a long
(15:36):
time, but didn't necessarilyhave the words to search for.
Now what am I taking away fromthis trip? Well, I was
reaffirmed that seeing currentclients, prospective clients,
and members of the widerportfolio community in person is
incredibly valuable becausequestions and ideas surface that
(15:58):
may not otherwise be discussedduring an online meeting. It's
possible to have more incidentalconversations and laugh
together, as well as have a bitof fun rather than just purely
stick to an agenda. I'm alsotaking away a number of ideas to
share with my team and ponder onwhat we might want to discuss
more deeply or where we need abit more information. Our plans
(16:22):
have been met with approval,which is reassuring to know that
we are on the right track. Lastbut not least, it is wonderful
to experience the enthusiasm forportfolios and to see the demand
for them as an important tool,not just for students, but also
beyond formal education. Whileoften still a niche tool, the
(16:42):
portfolio does have its place,and together with the community,
we'll nudge it along toestablish it more prominently
within learning ecosystems. Thatrequires all of us to put our
heads together and sharestrategies that work, continue
to collect examples of good use,either isolated use in one class
(17:03):
as well as organisation wide,and to share these ideas widely,
including in this podcast and inother places.
I leave you with a few fun factsof my 51-day journey around the
world. So if I missed any ofyour emails, that'll be due to
moving from one place to anotherquite quickly. I participated in
(17:24):
two community events, threeconferences and two Mahara
events. Altogether, I attended15 meetings, of which the
shortest was two hours and thelongest about eight and a half.
I am super stoked that I had thechance to meet 16 of my podcast
guests in person, of which I hadinterviewed five directly on my
(17:46):
trip. I also gave twointerviews. All of that in
between 10 flights, 16 traintrips, two road trips, countless
bus, tram, and undergroundrides, and one suitcase
sacrifice to the cobblestones ofEurope. Last but not least, I
could visit the tallest indoorwaterfall of the world at Changi
(18:07):
Airport in Singapore before thelast two flights back to
Aotearoa, where I then weightedthe haul of chocolate, gummy
bears, other lollies, andstationary items for friends and
colleagues, which amounted toseven kilograms. No wonder that
my suitcase weight was maxedout.
(18:29):
Now over to our listeners. Whatdo you want to try in your own
portfolio practice or want toshare with others? This was
'Create. Share. Engage.' Head toour website, podcast.mahara.org,
where you can find resources andthe transcript for this episode.
(18:50):
This podcast is produced byCatalyst IT, and I'm your host,
Kristina Hoeppner, Project Leadand Product Manager of the
portfolio platform Mahara. Ournext episode will air on the
15th of January 2025. I hopeyou'll listen again and tell a
colleague about our podcast sothey can subscribe. Until then,
(19:12):
create, share, engage, and havea wonderful festive holiday
season.
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