Welcome to 'Create. Share. Engage.' This is the podcast about portfolios for learning and more for educators, learning designers, and managers keen on integrating portfolios with their education and professional development practices. 'Create. Share. Engage.' is brought to you by the Mahara team at Catalyst IT. My name is Kristina Hoeppner. Normally, you'd now listen to an interview with a portfolio practitioner or a student. But today I'd like to tell you about a number of upcoming events, actually, that give you the opportunity to chat with others who do portfolio work, so you can expand your own network and also share your own ideas. Some events are Mahara focused, others are organised around portfolio practice in general. So let's dive into these upcoming events. I'm sharing them in chronological order, so as not to forget any of them. Later today, on the 6th of May, tomorrow, and on the 12th of May, we have the sessions on showing you around the new look and features of Mahara 26.04. This version has been in the works now for a year, and considering the business analysis work that had gone into it even longer because we interviewed community members, and our business analyst took a good look at the information architecture of Mahara. So we'd like to invite you to take a guided tour through this latest release of Mahara. For our German-speaking community, we have a special session planned for the 19th of May. I look forward to talking about this new version of Mahara with you, and then, of course, also seeing it in action on your sites. Every month, our team offers'Mahara - Ask Me Anything sessions (AMA). These are your opportunity to chat with our team about anything you like to ask about Mahara and portfolios. I really love these sessions because they give us the chance to talk with you about Mahara and find out how you are using the tool to support your portfolio practice. In these sessions, really, anything goes. In the past, we've looked into specific issues that people had to clear up, whether an odd behaviour could be fixed through configuration or a feature that someone didn't know about, or whether it was a bug. We've also discussed ideas for new features and got more insight into why it would be beneficial, not just for one organisation. So come along to the next session on the 13th of May next week. Time wise, it is geared towards Africa, Europe, and Asia. We do alternate the times of the AMA to give everyone around the world the chance to participate. In June, we'll have a session that is geared more towards Oceania and Australia. Just a day after our May AMA, on the 14th of May, Enikö Parrag and her team from EDUTECSOL, a Mahara Business Partner in Switzerland, organise Mahara Hui Schweiz, the gathering around Mahara for Switzerland. The evening event features short presentations by community members who've been working with Mahara and portfolios for several years now, and they are going to share their ideas, give insight into their portfolio practice, and much more. You can also hear from my colleague Penny Leach about Mahara 26.04 in a quick 10 minute session. Mahara Hui Schweiz will be held in German, and everybody is welcome to attend this online gathering, no matter whether you are actually located in Switzerland or elsewhere. So join this free event to learn how Mahara is used in Switzerland and in Germany. You can find all the Mahara events in our event space on Humanitix. If you follow us there, you will be the first to be notified when we publish new events because a notification is sent to your email address that you use to register. So you can't really miss out on any of our events. If you yourself have ideas for events or want to organise your own Mahara Hui, please let me know, and we'll see how we can support you. Now, let's get to some events that are organised by the wider community. The first one is the webinar 'Building digital resilience through ePortfolios - Lessons for the future'. That is an event with Associate Professor Dr Mpho-Entle Modise from the University of South Africa and Professor Dr Norm Vaughan from Mount Royal University in Canada. This webinar on the 20th of May, or for many of you still on the 19th of May, is organised by AAEEBL, the Association for Authentic, Experiential, and Evidence-Based Learning, and FLANZ, the Flexible Learning Association of New Zealand. Last year, Mpho-Entle and Norm published the book 'Digital resilience of ePortfolios during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic- Lessons for the future'. This book was a labour of love of 85 authors from around the world telling their portfolio stories, research, and practice in the portfolio space, especially during the pandemic, and how the work has influenced their thinking now. You can also listen to Mpho-Entle and Norm in their podcast interview that went live on the 25th of March. So before you come to the event, you might want to listen in and prepare some questions for them. In the webinar then, you get the chance to speak directly with them, ask your questions, and also meet some of the chapter authors. Don't miss out on this great opportunity to get more insight into how portfolios have transformed teaching and learning during the pandemic, and what that means now for engaging with learners today. The last event for May that I want to share with you is PARE from ePortfolios Australia. That's 'Plan, Act, Reflect and ePortfolio' on the 26th of May. It's an opportunity, really, to work on your own portfolio in a supportive environment. An ePortfolios Australia community member will facilitate the 90-minute session, and the idea is to get time to progress on your own portfolio and seek feedback, if you like, or have short chats with others in between your writing or thinking sessions. EPortfolios Australia offers PARE a few times a year and is also always looking for facilitators to guide the reflective sessions. That's a lot of events in May that give you the chance to talk about portfolios with people outside of your own institution, to get some fresh ideas and inspiration for your own portfolio practice. But why should we stop there? There's much more to come, so don't put your calendar down just yet because in June, AAEEBL organises two events. The first one from the 10th to the 12th of June is the AAEEBL Annual Meeting. This is an in-person gathering held at Indiana University Indianapolis in the United States. It is three days of intense, fun, and enlightening conversations with portfolio community members. I've seen the abstracts for some of the sessions, and can say that it's worthwhile attending if you can travel to Indianapolis. The organising team also pilots consultation sessions, giving participants the chance to have a one on one session with a portfolio expert to discuss an idea or a portfolio question they have. The call for proposals is now closed, but you can already register for the event. If you can't attend this in person event, though you still have a chance to catch up with the AAEEBL community at the Symposium the week later on the 16th and 17th of June. The Symposium will be held online, and I'm stoked that we can offer this option in addition to the in-person Annual Meeting. I'm saying 'we' because I'm one of the co-organisers of the event. The idea that we have is for the event to essentially take place on the 17th of June, no matter where you are in the world. So how would that work? Well, we'll start with Oceania, so New Zealand, Australia, and the islands, in the morning of the 17th of June for us. This time will also work for the west coast of the Americas. There, of course, still on the 16th of June, so not quite the 17th just yet. And then the following day, when it is the 17th of June in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, participants from these continents can attend the event during their morning or afternoon and a little bit into the evening. Our session formats range from presentations to workshops, conversation sessions, and Shark Tank pitches. Mind you, the sharks swimming in the portfolio waters are friendly and supportive, rather than bloodthirsty, and are not out to get you, but they are there to propel you to the next level. I really promise. I've participated in the Shark Tank at AAEEBL Annual Meetings in the past, and they really are a lot of fun, especially because Dr Kevin Kelly is being the shark master again this year. The event itself will have only one stream, so that you don't need to decide between different sessions and can attend all that fit into your schedule. While the call for papers is now closed, if you are planning to attend the event, you're welcome to think of a portfolio idea that you want to pitch to the Shark Tank. It's only about three minutes. And if there is something that you'd like to try with your learners, something that you've already piloted or run for several semesters and want to share in a short pitch to get some feedback or an additional idea for the next iteration, just go for it and let us know. So I hope you can join us for the Symposium to learn together and also to have a bit of fun. The last event that I want to mention is the Eportfolio Forum. The 'Save the date' had just come out a few days ago. So this is perfect timing for today's session. And Eportfolio Forum will be held on the 23rd and 24th of September. The Forum will be held again in person and online, and this year, the in person venue is the Sydney campus of the University of New England. Make sure to subscribe to the news from ePortfolios Australia to be notified when the call for proposals and registration open. The event really is the gathering of portfolio practitioners and researchers in my part of the world. In the past, presenters, though, also joined the online portion from further afield. So that's it then for today. Not an interview for you to learn about a particular portfolio implementation, but your chance to pick events that you want to attend to talk with portfolio people yourself, and hopefully I will see you at some of these upcoming events and hear your portfolio story. This was 'Create. Share. Engage.' Make sure to check out the links to all of the events that I mentioned today in the episode notes in your podcast app or at podcast.mahara.org. If you think somebody else should also attend any of these events, please share this episode with your colleagues. Our next episode will air in two weeks. Until then, create, share, and engage.