Go to View > Header & Footer to edit 19 April 2023 | slide 1

Engaging with Learners

Putting portability back into Portfolios

www.rsc-eastern.ac.uk/ RSCs – Stimulating and supporting innovation in learning

MAXOS - Overview

e-Portfolios: Effective Uses in Teaching and Learning, London 21st October 2009 | slide 2

Engaging with LearnersThomas RochfordE:Learning Advisor, Infrastructure, RSC Eastern

e-Portfolios: Effective Uses in Teaching and Learning, London 21st October 2009 | slide 3

Portable Learning : Rationale

The rationale– There are still some places without internet connections

• Prisons• Airplanes• Village Halls• Rural/Remote areas• Stables?

– Mobile Internet can be expensive/slow– Demonstration purposes– Testbed for development

e-Portfolios: Effective Uses in Teaching and Learning, London 21st October 2009 | slide 4

Portable Learning : Tools

The tools– Moodle: Delivering the content

– Maxos: Developing the content

– Mahara: Organising the learner’s portfolio

– MoMo: For mobile use

e-Portfolios: Effective Uses in Teaching and Learning, London 21st October 2009 | slide 5

Portable Learning : Case-Study 1

What do these have in common

Paston College,North WalshamNorfolk700 FTE Students100 FTE Staff

e-Portfolios: Effective Uses in Teaching and Learning, London 21st October 2009 | slide 6

Portable Learning : Case-Study 1

The Problem– Significant minority of children had no access to

computer or Internet

The Solution– Wm. Paston’s foundation grant used to buy ASUS

netbooks– Students without Internet Access provided with Moodle

on a stick

An Issue– Problems synchronising Moodle on a Stick with Server

e-Portfolios: Effective Uses in Teaching and Learning, London 21st October 2009 | slide 7

Portable Learning: Mahara on a Stick

Problems– Until version 1.1. released in the middle of 2009, it was

not portable to Windows environments

Windows Implementation Issues– Difficulties with mySQL (Collation UTF-8)– Post-installation tweaking (Session cookie not working)

But ….– It can be done

However….– Do users actually like Mahara?

e-Portfolios: Effective Uses in Teaching and Learning, London 21st October 2009 | slide 8

Portable Learning : Case-Study 2

Students at Otley College talk about Mahara

e-Portfolios: Effective Uses in Teaching and Learning, London 21st October 2009 | slide 9

Portable Learning: Mahara

Features– Manageable Filestore– Blogging Tool. External blogs can be included via RSS– Provides ‘social networking’ in educational context.– Shareable Resumés– Document academic, career and personal goals– Uploaded resources (‘Artefacts’) can be organised in shareable

‘Views’– ‘Groups’ enable users to build communities of practice and

facilitate team work– Highly customisable interface– Can be linked to Moodle

e-Portfolios: Effective Uses in Teaching and Learning, London 21st October 2009 | slide 10

Portable Learning : MAXOS

What is MAXOS?– MAXOS enables you to run Moodle, Xerte and Mahara

on a USB stick, without Internet access

How do you get MAXOS?– http://www.rsc-eastern.ac.uk/RSC_files/technical/maxos/MAXOS_150.zip

– Unzip into a new folder on your desktop

– Copy contents of this new folder onto the root of a USB Stick.

– Free at this event!

Instruction– http://www.rsc-eastern.ac.uk/RSC_files/technical/maxos/index.html

– Contact your local RSC or RSC-Eastern for details of XERTE training events

e-Portfolios: Effective Uses in Teaching and Learning, London 21st October 2009 | slide 11

Portable Learning : Group Tasks

Hands On– Hands-on Xerte Toolkits - Try it– Hands-on Mahara – Try it– Mobile Moodle – http://www.ilite.co.za/mlearn

username ‘mary’; password ‘password’

Discussion– Is there a future for Portable Learning; and if so where?– What would you expect from a portable e:Portfolio

Questions/Feedback

e-Portfolios: Effective Uses in Teaching and Learning, London 21st October 2009 | slide 12

Portable Learning : Starting MAXOS

Insert the USB stick in a windows machine– Make sure Skype is turned off– Click on ‘startup.bat’– IMPORTANT – Close the Command Shell window before

removing the stick. Xerte users

– Click on Xerte

– Select the Introduction or any other file to start trialling.

Mahara users– Click on Mahara– Login as admin/mahara. – You should find some images in your folder. Add more from

Internet, create a ‘View’, set some personal targets etc.

Accessibility and Inclusion Role Group, Belfast 19 April 2023 | slide 13

Maxos: Training

Questions ??

t.rochford@rsc-eastern.ac.uk