Mahara reflection and it's relationship with the wiki

Mahara is very new to me and I am still trying to figure out things. I have just left a query on the 'Ask Scot' forum as evidence of my initial confusion. I'm sure I will get my head around it eventually.

I think Mahara is certainly be a good way to let students interact with curriculum materials in their own and particularly at home. It could work as a collaborating tool for a wiki. Mahara could work as a visual guide for students who are working on an ongoing project. Students might not necessarily physically add material to the mahara 'view' (I guess this is what the wikis are for) but it could be shaped as a daily reminder for students on what they have learned in the particular day or in my case a particular day (primary school). Each view would comprise of a particular Unit of Work and be added to every time something new is learned so the students have a resource to fall back on if something is forgotten or not noted in class.

This is a particularly student-centered idea as students aren't expected to remember everything they have been made to digest in a 60 minute setting. Details on the project or Unit of Work will be readily available for students to engage in the project when they get home. Students can attain content from mahara which will not only have information, videos and visuals but suggested websites in order to encourage students to extend their reading by locating and allocating other secondary sources of information. The mahara will publish what is expected of the student in relation to criteria. This saves students from flicking through the pages of writing pads and text books to find this criteria, sometimes resulting in the student not being able to find the criteria anyway. This type of work is considered project orientated learning according to Kearsley and Shneiderman (1999). Kearsley and Shneiderman talk about meaningful engaged learning and project orientated learning is one of three aspects that fulfills this type of learning management theory. The other two aspects are group context and authentic focus which can easily be embedded into the collaboration between mahara and wiki.

I think the wiki and the mahara portfolio could coincide very well in this respect as students have the opportunity to use the wiki to record the information they have found on materials extending from mahara and create a working and finished product. In this sense the use of the two forms of computer mediated communication provides the opportunity for the teacher to assess the applicability of the mahara content from what information the students are actively participating in from what they have published on the wiki. Teachers can also 'check up' on what students are posting on the wikis.

References

- G, Kearsley & B, Shneiderman 1999, Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning, http://home.sprynet.com/%7Egkearsley/engage.htm