Mahara

Hello


I don't know what it is about the layout to this site (Mahara), but it confuses me. I often find myself confused about all the different views and I class myself as a digital native! Not that I can't figure it out, I just think I am not use to the 'easy' layout. I also didn't really get the purpose of the site at first... all I kept thinking was "OK, so what am I meant to do on here".

My understanding now is that this site does many things. It allows someone to have a wiki, resume, blog and allows them to network."Mahara is a highly capable tool, but it will take a week of exploration to truly understand the capabilities of the software"(Aldred, 2010). I probably does more than I can recognise now but I am still learning. I think this is a very interesting site and would be very good on a professional level.

I am concerned about the popularity of the site though. One of the reasons facebook and other networking site are so good is because almost everyone has an account, I've got friend in Japan, America and all over on my facebook account! I think it is not good for networking then until the popularity of the site grow.... time will tell.

Student could defiantly use this.... perhaps senior though :D. I still remember creating a resume in high school, it would have been much better if it had been on Mahara. Not only does it have 'template', but it would have been more authentic for me. Actually creating something that I could use for my career, at the time it was just another "stupid" assessment.

Once students had this account it cold be re-used for many different things. It has the option for a wiki, blog, and networking in one place. Mahara can also be made rather cyber safe, if I'm not mistaken. For example our course has its own place in mahara, and it would be interesting to see if this could be made private. That would eliminate the problem of an 'outside' threat.