1. Mahara as an e-learning tool Karen Dunne Veterinary Nursing

2. Overview What is Mahara? What did we do with it? How did we get on? What next?

3. Introduction

4. “Facebook for academics” Staff & students can create an account Text, images, files, videos etc. displayed on pages Added together to make a portfolio Create a group & invite people to join & see your work, or make it public

7. “Open source” This means it’s free This also means nobody spends any money making sure it works really well! This user interface really sucks!

8. My intervention

9. What did we do? Pharmacy module (50:50) CA assignment (30%) Design a client information sheet Review information for veterinary colleagues Evaluate sources used to inform the work

10. How is this relevant to veterinary nursing?

11. Client compliance No matter what veterinary nurses say to clients..... This is what they hear....

12. Optimal medication use Medicines must be used correctly to be effective (clients & veterinary staff) A common test of communication skills! This project was designed to improve students’ communication strategies & IT skills

13. How did we get on?

14. Quality of student work Marking scheme & assignment details provided on Moodle From passable to excellent Promoted creativity Integration of text, images, audio & video clips

16. What did the students think?

17. Student feedback SurveyMonkey A lot of grumbling! Did (reluctantly!)concede that they learned several new skills Could see the value of the exercise Mahara Some of them really embraced it

18. How did I find it?

19. Strengths Flexible - especially for the use of multimedia Encouraged student creativity Student progress & engagement can be monitored Easy to place comments on work

20. Weaknesses Hard to get student access to PCs for training Difficult to give specific & detailed feedback Some problematic software quirks Privacy settings confusing “figure it out as you go along”

21. What next? I will use it again Make students share their finished work with the rest of the class Find another way to give feedback - only put part of the project on it

22. Final thoughts Useful tool Great way to incorporate multimedia Annoying software interface & privacy settings Encourages student creativity

23. Thank you for your attention Any questions?