Using Mahara in Primary Schools

It certainly has been a very mind bending week. As part of week 5's activities we were asked to create an e-portfolio - I chose to use Mahara. After completing this we needed to 'play' with the technology for a while and then make a posting about our thoughts, processes and learning opportunities we see for ourselves and our students. This was to be a reflection on the 'making and use' of our Mahara account.

Little did I realise what a discussion I would create when I made a post on the ICT forum! My posting included a simple (and niave) question

I have spent a number of days sorting through the Mahara thing - and have a question to pose to all.

One of the learning activities is to make a posting to our Professional Blog about the process and learning opportunities for you and your students.

My query is that at this point I see little, if any opportunities where I would use a Mahara account with primary school students. I could see the value in teaching senior high school students - putting resume together etc.

Everything I can think of that I would do with primary school students as part of keeping a profile up, displaying work etc I think I would tend to use in a blog setting.

Can people please put me on track as I think I am missing a huge thought process here. I am finding it very difficult to post to my professional blog about something that I don't see a use for at this point. I'm obviously missing something vital!

Initially I was hoping for a straight forward response that would give me the information I needed to say to myself "Oh yeh, how silly of me, of course that is how we would use it". But that didn't happen. There were dozens of answers coming my way and most said the same thing - that they thought an e-portfolio was an amazing piece of technology and they would jump at the chance to use it with children of all ages and that we should remember how tech savey students are today. I agree whole heartely that students should be given every opportunity to expand their knowledge and to embrace a technology that they can use for the rest of their lives - and be completely transferable and functional for them as adults. I heard it all and don't disagree with any of it - but!!!!
I do wonder how to use it effectively with Primary school students. Maybe I'm not as creative as others or not as good at seeing the whole picture but I do wonder if we are looking at just the class we have for this year - and when the students are young is it too much? How young is too young? I don't know....
One of my concerns is, perhaps alittle selfish, but is it too much work for the teaching staff - you would need to photograph, scan upload etc all their work you wish to include - I don't know about other people but I know that teachers are very stretched for time and having to do this for 25 - 30 students for all their important pieces of work would be extremely time consuming. Please don't get me wrong - I think it is a brilliant idea and would love to see it work successfully I'm just having a hard time seeing it realistically.
I do wonder though, if it is possible, for a school to have an account for every child - as part of the induction process they are given (or the parents) an access code for their child's own account. From Prep to Year 7 (and beyond)the school uses the account - with parents able to view what is available and adds to it what is necessary - this would have all the students details on it and it can easily be modified when necessary. The passwords would be transferred with the child when they leave the school. This would allow the student to leave with a fully functioning record of everything that happened for them within their primary years. This just seems like a mammoth task and I'm not sure that many schools would take on the responsibility to set up such a profile for each student.

I had an in depth and thought provoking discussion with a teacher yesterday about this very subject and it was given to me in a light that I had not yet heard. I like it!!! An e-portfolio is a place to store all our files, plans, resources etc etc. What better way to share these then have a system that is open for all teachers to access others within the same school. Can you imagine having access to other teachers ideas, planning and resources to assist you in providing an outstanding educational opportunity to the students in your class? I think this would be an amazing support network for all teachers to take on. Obviously there would be some people who wouldn't want all their information out for others to see, use or make comment on - but saying that we are a 'community of practice' and have the same goals for the students - we need to support each other, work together and share ideas. These are some of the things that can make a good Learning Manager a great Learning Manager.
As you can see I am by no means opposed to using e-portfolios within a primary school setting. I just think that we need to weigh up time, resources, skills of all who need to use it and the reality of how useful it is (at this particular time) to students under the age of 12. If it is parents and teachers putting all the information together and the student not learning from this then it cannot be classified as a learning outcome for the students. I think this is where we need to think about not only what we teach, but how and why we teach it.