Mahara for Aesthetic and Functional Practice Document Display

Presented at Teaching with Pizzazz Conference, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, April 21, 2017

Abstract

A demonstration to show how the open-source software, Mahara provides the perfect means for nursing students to create a page to display their Practice related certificates and documents such as CPR and Frist Aid credentials, immunization records, related CCRS completion certificates, FIT testing certificate, and so on. KPU nursing students create their initial page in early semesters and add to it as time goes by. Practice course faculty can easily access these pages and verify student certification to ensure students are prepared to go to the hospital or other clinically related settings. Students can also update renewed certificates by simply replacing the image or pdf file on the Mahara page. This method displays the documents visually in a gallery format so that faculty can quickly check them without having to download or open files.

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Mahara for Aesthetic and Functional Practice Document Display

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Presentation Dynamics

Mahara is an open source eportfolio system first designed in 2006 in New Zealand – hence its name, which comes from the Maori verb “mah-hah-rah” meaning “to think, thinking, or give thought”. Mahara is packaged as a free stand-alone personal learning system that can be installed and managed from any web site that has the latest editions of PHP and MySQL databases.

This session demonstrates how to make a sample page for displaying critical documents required in preparation for Practice course clinical experiences. Students can make this page visible to faculty or relevant practice representatives, and can edit documents as needed (e.g. as renewed).