Dr. Glenys Gillian Bradbury originally graduated in Medicine from Cambridge, and is now back in the NHS working as a Clinical Teaching Fellow after an interesting and varied career pathway involving business management, educational project management, and e-Learning. In addition to teaching medical students, Glenys is also engaged in a variety of projects to embed technology in medical education. Current projects include using Mahara to embed portfolio based learning within clinical medicine and to facilitate inter-professional learning pathways, and also a multi media project called "Tomorrow's Clinicians" to support the teaching of clinical skills. She is also an LSIS e-guide and a PRINCE2 practitioner.
She was one of the authors for the earlier edition of this book, Mahara 1.2 ePortfolios: Beginner's Guide.
Mary Cooch, known online as Moodlefairy, is based at the OurLearning training centre located at Our Lady's High School, Preston Lancashire, UK. A teacher for over 25 years, Mary now spends her working days travelling Europe showing educators how best to use Moodle and Mahara. She is a regular speaker at Moodle and Mahara conferences, and is keen always to be up-to-date with the latest developments. Mary works closely with Mahara partners to help promote this excellent open source e-Portfolio, while at the same time sharing good practice in her own school with teachers and students. Mary is the author of Moodle For Teaching 7-14 Year Olds, Packt Publishing and Moodle 2 First Look, Packt Publishing. She blogs on www.moodleblog.net and can be contacted for training or consultation via OurLearning on www.ourlearning.co.uk.
Kristina D.C. Höppner is from windy Wellington in New Zealand. Kristina has been working with the Mahara Development Team at Catalyst IT, the largest independent open source technology specialist in Australasia, since June 2010. She often answers questions in the Mahara community forums and supports Mahara users. Recently, she was responsible for writing the user manuals for Mahara 1.4 and 1.5 at http://manual.mahara.org , which are now being translated by other community members.
She is also a project manager in the Catalyst IT e-Learning Team, Facilitator for Mahara and Moodle workshops, and frequent speaker at conferences and in webinars on Mahara.
Heinz Krettek is a German teacher at a school for vocational education. He has studied business sciences and sports. His main job is to prepare socioeconomically deprived students for lifelong learning. In 2006, he discovered the portfolio work and began to translate the German langpack for Mahara. The first translations for Mahara 0.6 were published on his own Moodle site. Soon after Nigel McNie installed a git repository, the actual files were published in the Mahara git. He has just finished the translation for the Mahara 1.4 release.
He has organized several education and training sessions for teachers and was a speaker at the German Moodle Moots. He publishes postings about ePortfolios and related topics at http://ewiesion.com.
He lives in the Black Forest with his wife and four kids. In his spare time, Heinz prefers the three M's — Mahara, Moodle, and marathon. He finished the New York Marathon 2000. His motto is — he who finishes a marathon will overcome all problems in school ;-)
Allison Miller has been involved in education and training for more than ten years as an Educator, Change Manager, and e-Learning Leader and Innovator.
Allison also currently leads the:
- Higher Qualification Pathways for the National VET E-learning Strategy
- ePortfolios Australia Conference Organizing Committee
- ePortfolios Australia Professional Network
Allison's previous roles include:
- ePortfolios Business Manager, Inclusive E-learning for Youth Project Manager, and South Australian E-Learning Innovations Coordinator for the Australian Flexible Learning Framework.
- E-learning Development Coordinator, E-learning Mentor, and Business Services Facilitator for TAFE SA.
- Allison is currently in the final year of her Master of Learning and Development (Organization Capacity Development) with the University of Southern Queensland.
Allison has a lot e-Learning and e-Assessment experience and know how, especially in the areas of:
- ePortfolios
- E-assessment
- Recognition of prior learning (RPL)/skills recognition
- Mobile learning/devices
- Open educational resources/open courseware
- Learning analytics
Allison's other experiences include being the:
- Lead author of formal reports, peer reviewed papers, and magazine/journal articles
- Co-author of research reports, strategic documents, position papers, and responses to discussion papers
- Project Manager of qualitative and action research projects
- Facilitator of staff development projects, workshops, seminars, and action learning activities
- Mentor and coach in the area of e-Learning/e-Assessment
- Developer of online/paper-based learning resources and content
- Writer of numerous online educational and e-learning journals (blogs)
- Convenor of national and state-based conferences and events
- Key note, plenary, and break-out speaker at various conferences
- Facilitator and presenter of many workshops and presentations
- Chair of and representative of numerous national and international cross sectoral reference groups
Pete Potter is a Teacher, e-learning Technologist, and Mahara Moodle Consultant. He has taught Computing in Manchester (UK) and in Timaru (NZ), and worked with teachers to enhance learning in the classroom with the use of technology. A passion for ePortfolios and specifically Mahara lead to him working on the Myportfolio.school.nz Project in NZ, sharing and consulting on the smart use of ePortfolios across the South Island.
Moodle also features prominently in Pete's work as he has worked with many institutions to introduce Moodle to build and establish their Managed Learning Environment. He has presented at conferences on using both Moodle and Mahara together in the classroom to engage and empower learners.
Moving back to the UK in 2012, he is now working with the UK and Ireland's leading Moodle partner, Synergy Learning. He is still working with Moodle and Mahara in the education sector, spending time with Techies and Educators ensuring they get the most from his experience. When not doing this, Pete is fell running, swimming, or cycling, and sometimes all three.