Chosing my E-Portfolio Platform

After a brief investigation I decided to use the Mahara program to create my e-portfolio.

I read about other e-portfolio development programs such as Athabasca Landing and Adobe Acrobat but made my decision to use Mahara based on the following 3 reasons.

1) The Mahara development package came very highly recommended by a respected professor, Craig Montgomerie.  Word of mouth is an extremely valuable advertising tool especially when looking for a reliable product.  When it comes to software the product description is only as good as the creative person writing it up.  Using a product based on recommendation of an experienced user may save many hours of trials and tribulations

2) Mahara appears to be widely supported through Athabasca University, there are many instructional tools available, as well as personal support if needed.

3) The instructional power point presentation available here: http://cde.lms.athabascau.ca/mod/resource/view.php?id=4606 made the software look very user friendly and easy to understand.  In retrospect when I actually started creating this e-portfolio that power point presentation confused me because the user interface appeared quite different then what I was actually presented with in the Mahara software.  After investigation this was due to a different 'skin' applied for aesthetic reasons.