November 18, 2025 • 11 mins
In this episode, podcast host, Kristina Hoeppner, MA, from Catalyst IT, picks out a few memorable situations from her recent trip to Europe in September and early October 2025.
Resources
- MoodleMoot DACH
- MoodleMoot Global 2025
- Kawaiicon
- Mahara UX review 2024
- Mahara refresh mock-ups
- CPD enhancements
- Mahara subscription
- 'Mahara Ask Me Anything' sessions
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
(00:27):
Catalyst IT. My name is KristinaHoeppner.
Today, it's just going to be mein this episode as I'd like to
share a few thoughts about myrecent trip to Europe with you.
I had the opportunity toparticipate in MoodleMoot DACH,
the MoodleMoot for Germany,Austria, and Switzerland that
was held in northern Germanythis year. This unconference was
(00:50):
not only attended by Germanspeakers though, but a very
international crowd that foundtheir way to Lübeck at the start
of September to participate inthis unconference, where
participants suggest sessionseach day, and it was very much
about sharing and collaboratingall the time. I didn't
(01:10):
participate in the two developerdays that preceded the
unconference, but heardwonderful things about it with
developers creating new pluginsor making progress on code they
had been stuck at previously. Ifyou happen to be a Moodle
developer, this would definitelybe an event you might like to
check out for next year whenit'll be held in Switzerland.
(01:34):
It was really good to catch-upwith people that also use
Mahara, especially with thosethat I knew would not attend
MoodleMoot Global a few dayslater in Scotland, and whom I
wouldn't be able to see at othermeetings during this trip. One
special person I met again aftermany years was Andrew Lyons, who
(01:55):
was an early contributor toMahara when he worked in the UK,
but whom I first met in persononly in January 2014 when I
attended a conference in Perth,Australia, as he had started to
work for Moodle HQ by that time.
I really enjoyed sitting in onsessions and learning about the
(02:17):
new Moodle design system, howMoodle does automated testing,
which is similar to our Behattest suite in principle, and
also what AI conversations arehad in the Moodle community.
Stepping outside of the Maharaand wider portfolio community
and attending events such asthis allows me to reflect on our
(02:37):
own practices and think aboutwhether we should discuss some
of the presented ideas. That'salso why I like to attend
Kawaiicon, an informationsecurity conference, because
InfoSec is important in everysoftware project. Learning about
the nefarious ways that systemscan be exploited helps being
(03:00):
vigilant and also helps me getand the rest of the team get
ideas of tools or processes toinvestigate further for our own
work. Sure, at the conference,nobody really talks about Mahara
because it is an informationsecurity conference, however,
there are talks that can impactthe work that we do, and
(03:25):
therefore ideas are shared thatwe can or should be following up
on.
At MoodleMoot DACH, for example,the introduction of the new
Moodle design system reminded meof the conversations that we've
had In the Mahara team severalyears ago now, on how to support
developers in creatingconsistent visual elements. One
(03:48):
of our team members haddeveloped a style guide that
allowed for easy copying ofcode. The wonderful thing about
that style guide was also thatit automatically adapted to the
theme in which you viewed thesite. Keeping things consistent
helps reducing cognitive loadand thus contributes to improved
(04:10):
accessibility of Mahara.
The consistent use of visualelements across the entire
platform is currently at theforefront of our development
work with the refresh of theMahara look and feel. This is an
enormous undertaking for ourentire team because pretty much
(04:31):
every single page in Maharaneeds to be converted to the new
design. Throughout my travels, Icould demo the progress of this
work to our community membersand was very chuffed that
everybody likes it and islooking forward to the changes.
This is a wonderfulacknowledgement of all the work
(04:54):
that has already gone into thisproject, starting with informal
chats and dedicated interviewsthat our business analyst Rob
Hill conducted with students,learning designers, instructors,
and staff from supportcompanies. These along then with
Rob's own review of theinformation architecture of
(05:15):
Mahara, resulted in theconsolidation of the look and
feel for Mahara across all ofour screens. Over the years, we
have experimented with new ideasin different areas of Mahara,
but have not always carriedthese ideas through in all areas
of the platform. That hasresulted in a number of
(05:36):
inconsistencies that we are nowtackling. It's good to establish
a new baseline.
The redesign project is led byour graphic designer Evonne
Cheung and developer Doris Tam.
Phil Sainty, Yvonne Waterman,and also our tech lead, Robert
Lyon, are involved in updatingthe code to support the new
design. Our QA tester Mark Aionotests changes incrementally
(06:01):
where possible, but the majorityof the testing will be done next
year, when all the componentshave been converted. I'm not
going to get into the intricatetechnical details now of this
project, but suffice it to say,it's a massive undertaking.
We'll continue to demo thechanges, and I'm planning on
(06:22):
making a recording before theholidays to showcase the
progress.
We usually also show off thedesign at our 'Mahara - Ask Me
Anything' sessions, the AMA, toeverybody who's interested in
seeing the latest changes. Thelast sessions for this year will
be held the first one next week,on the 25th of November and then
(06:45):
another one on the 17th ofDecember in 2025. You can find
the links to these sessions inthe show notes. These AMA
sessions are your chance to askour Mahara team any questions
live. We alternate the sessiontimes to make it possible for
(07:06):
community members in differentparts of the world to
participate more easily. So Ilook forward to seeing you at
one of the events, even if youdon't actually have a concrete
question. Sometimes people comealong to listen to the questions
of others, which I really love,because we often don't know what
(07:27):
question we should ask, andlurking can be quite beneficial
for such incident learning.
But back to my travels inSeptember and October. Together
with a number of otherCatalystas, I attended
MoodleMoot Global in Edinburghin Scotland. It was wonderful to
catch up with our overseascolleagues and meet Mahara
(07:48):
community members there as well.
Whether I meet people at publicevents or at smaller meetings,
it's so good to have in personconversations. Especially at a
multi day event, there's theopportunity then to talk several
times, share meals, and not justtalk about work, as is generally
the case in tightly scheduledonline meetings.
(08:11):
Whether in Scotland, Germany,Belgium, or Switzerland, which
were my travel destinations thisyear for Mahara, everybody is
very passionate about supportingtheir learners and getting the
most out of the systems thatthey have. They also appreciated
all the work that our team hasput into Mahara and love the
(08:33):
features and changes we've beenable to make thanks to the
financial contributions via thesubscriptions and also other
projects that clients funded.
One of the big new features thatI've also talked about a lot
because I really love thefeature and also what it means
for portfolio work and how wecan help track learning evidence
(08:57):
more are the enhancements to theCPD functionality in Mahara.
Thanks to funding from MonashUniversity, we could create a
visual overview for continuingprofessional development
activities, along with a morestructured categorisation of
these activities, which allowportfolio authors and viewers to
(09:20):
see in which categories mostactivities have taken place.
When I show functionalities likethese, it usually only takes a
few seconds for my conversationpartners to brainstorm how they
could use that in their ownportfolio work to document and
then also to visualise learningbetter. This immediate thinking
(09:44):
about how this could be usefulshows to me that everybody I
talk to is very passionate abouttheir work in general, but also
in particular about portfoliosbecause the portfolios offer
students the flexibility topersonalise their learning and
reflect on it to make sense ofwhat they have learned. I find
(10:08):
that with portfolios, we can seethat educators put their
learners first and also want toensure that they can see
themselves in what they learn,that it is relevant to their
lives, or that they can make theconnection to their lives, and
thus make the learning moremeaningful to them.
So I'd like to thank everybodyto whom I talked over the course
(10:32):
of this trip, who has taken timeto chat about portfolios and
Mahara, shared their currentwork, as well as ideas for
future projects, and not toforget shared laughs, a tea, or
another beverage, lunch ordinner to make this trip one to
remember.
(10:54):
Now over to you. What do youwant to try in your own
portfolio practice or newfeature to try in Mahara? This
was Create. Share. Engage.' Headto our website,
podcast.mahara.org, where youcan find resources and the
(11:15):
transcript for this episode. Itwould be great if you shared our
podcast with a colleague ofyours so they can listen as
well. Until then, create, share,and engage.
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
(00:27):
Catalyst IT. My name is KristinaHoeppner.
Today, it's just going to be mein this episode as I'd like to
share a few thoughts about myrecent trip to Europe with you.
I had the opportunity toparticipate in MoodleMoot DACH,
the MoodleMoot for Germany,Austria, and Switzerland that
was held in northern Germanythis year. This unconference was
(00:50):
not only attended by Germanspeakers though, but a very
international crowd that foundtheir way to Lübeck at the start
of September to participate inthis unconference, where
participants suggest sessionseach day, and it was very much
about sharing and collaboratingall the time. I didn't
(01:10):
participate in the two developerdays that preceded the
unconference, but heardwonderful things about it with
developers creating new pluginsor making progress on code they
had been stuck at previously. Ifyou happen to be a Moodle
developer, this would definitelybe an event you might like to
check out for next year whenit'll be held in Switzerland.
(01:34):
It was really good to catch-upwith people that also use
Mahara, especially with thosethat I knew would not attend
MoodleMoot Global a few dayslater in Scotland, and whom I
wouldn't be able to see at othermeetings during this trip. One
special person I met again aftermany years was Andrew Lyons, who
(01:55):
was an early contributor toMahara when he worked in the UK,
but whom I first met in persononly in January 2014 when I
attended a conference in Perth,Australia, as he had started to
work for Moodle HQ by that time.
I really enjoyed sitting in onsessions and learning about the
(02:17):
new Moodle design system, howMoodle does automated testing,
which is similar to our Behattest suite in principle, and
also what AI conversations arehad in the Moodle community.
Stepping outside of the Maharaand wider portfolio community
and attending events such asthis allows me to reflect on our
(02:37):
own practices and think aboutwhether we should discuss some
of the presented ideas. That'salso why I like to attend
Kawaiicon, an informationsecurity conference, because
InfoSec is important in everysoftware project. Learning about
the nefarious ways that systemscan be exploited helps being
(03:00):
vigilant and also helps me getand the rest of the team get
ideas of tools or processes toinvestigate further for our own
work. Sure, at the conference,nobody really talks about Mahara
because it is an informationsecurity conference, however,
there are talks that can impactthe work that we do, and
(03:25):
therefore ideas are shared thatwe can or should be following up
on.
At MoodleMoot DACH, for example,the introduction of the new
Moodle design system reminded meof the conversations that we've
had In the Mahara team severalyears ago now, on how to support
developers in creatingconsistent visual elements. One
(03:48):
of our team members haddeveloped a style guide that
allowed for easy copying ofcode. The wonderful thing about
that style guide was also thatit automatically adapted to the
theme in which you viewed thesite. Keeping things consistent
helps reducing cognitive loadand thus contributes to improved
(04:10):
accessibility of Mahara.
The consistent use of visualelements across the entire
platform is currently at theforefront of our development
work with the refresh of theMahara look and feel. This is an
enormous undertaking for ourentire team because pretty much
(04:31):
every single page in Maharaneeds to be converted to the new
design. Throughout my travels, Icould demo the progress of this
work to our community membersand was very chuffed that
everybody likes it and islooking forward to the changes.
This is a wonderfulacknowledgement of all the work
(04:54):
that has already gone into thisproject, starting with informal
chats and dedicated interviewsthat our business analyst Rob
Hill conducted with students,learning designers, instructors,
and staff from supportcompanies. These along then with
Rob's own review of theinformation architecture of
(05:15):
Mahara, resulted in theconsolidation of the look and
feel for Mahara across all ofour screens. Over the years, we
have experimented with new ideasin different areas of Mahara,
but have not always carriedthese ideas through in all areas
of the platform. That hasresulted in a number of
(05:36):
inconsistencies that we are nowtackling. It's good to establish
a new baseline.
The redesign project is led byour graphic designer Evonne
Cheung and developer Doris Tam.
Phil Sainty, Yvonne Waterman,and also our tech lead, Robert
Lyon, are involved in updatingthe code to support the new
design. Our QA tester Mark Aionotests changes incrementally
(06:01):
where possible, but the majorityof the testing will be done next
year, when all the componentshave been converted. I'm not
going to get into the intricatetechnical details now of this
project, but suffice it to say,it's a massive undertaking.
We'll continue to demo thechanges, and I'm planning on
(06:22):
making a recording before theholidays to showcase the
progress.
We usually also show off thedesign at our 'Mahara - Ask Me
Anything' sessions, the AMA, toeverybody who's interested in
seeing the latest changes. Thelast sessions for this year will
be held the first one next week,on the 25th of November and then
(06:45):
another one on the 17th ofDecember in 2025. You can find
the links to these sessions inthe show notes. These AMA
sessions are your chance to askour Mahara team any questions
live. We alternate the sessiontimes to make it possible for
(07:06):
community members in differentparts of the world to
participate more easily. So Ilook forward to seeing you at
one of the events, even if youdon't actually have a concrete
question. Sometimes people comealong to listen to the questions
of others, which I really love,because we often don't know what
(07:27):
question we should ask, andlurking can be quite beneficial
for such incident learning.
But back to my travels inSeptember and October. Together
with a number of otherCatalystas, I attended
MoodleMoot Global in Edinburghin Scotland. It was wonderful to
catch up with our overseascolleagues and meet Mahara
(07:48):
community members there as well.
Whether I meet people at publicevents or at smaller meetings,
it's so good to have in personconversations. Especially at a
multi day event, there's theopportunity then to talk several
times, share meals, and not justtalk about work, as is generally
the case in tightly scheduledonline meetings.
(08:11):
Whether in Scotland, Germany,Belgium, or Switzerland, which
were my travel destinations thisyear for Mahara, everybody is
very passionate about supportingtheir learners and getting the
most out of the systems thatthey have. They also appreciated
all the work that our team hasput into Mahara and love the
(08:33):
features and changes we've beenable to make thanks to the
financial contributions via thesubscriptions and also other
projects that clients funded.
One of the big new features thatI've also talked about a lot
because I really love thefeature and also what it means
for portfolio work and how wecan help track learning evidence
(08:57):
more are the enhancements to theCPD functionality in Mahara.
Thanks to funding from MonashUniversity, we could create a
visual overview for continuingprofessional development
activities, along with a morestructured categorisation of
these activities, which allowportfolio authors and viewers to
(09:20):
see in which categories mostactivities have taken place.
When I show functionalities likethese, it usually only takes a
few seconds for my conversationpartners to brainstorm how they
could use that in their ownportfolio work to document and
then also to visualise learningbetter. This immediate thinking
(09:44):
about how this could be usefulshows to me that everybody I
talk to is very passionate abouttheir work in general, but also
in particular about portfoliosbecause the portfolios offer
students the flexibility topersonalise their learning and
reflect on it to make sense ofwhat they have learned. I find
(10:08):
that with portfolios, we can seethat educators put their
learners first and also want toensure that they can see
themselves in what they learn,that it is relevant to their
lives, or that they can make theconnection to their lives, and
thus make the learning moremeaningful to them.
So I'd like to thank everybodyto whom I talked over the course
(10:32):
of this trip, who has taken timeto chat about portfolios and
Mahara, shared their currentwork, as well as ideas for
future projects, and not toforget shared laughs, a tea, or
another beverage, lunch ordinner to make this trip one to
remember.
(10:54):
Now over to you. What do youwant to try in your own
portfolio practice or newfeature to try in Mahara? This
was Create. Share. Engage.' Headto our website,
podcast.mahara.org, where youcan find resources and the
(11:15):
transcript for this episode. Itwould be great if you shared our
podcast with a colleague ofyours so they can listen as
well. Until then, create, share,and engage.
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