Today was a big day as we released a new version of Mahara. It’s version 1.10 that contains a whole bunch of new exciting features and also bug fixes. Usability improvements are made alongside new functionality to help people create their ePortfolios and work collaboratively on projects that could be described as group portfolios.

Initially unrelatedly, I saw Josh Woodward‘s tweet about his Kickstarter project to fund the publishing of his new CD. I came across Josh’s music years ago when I was in Luxembourg looking for music to use for photo slideshows being mindful to only use music that I could use legally. What better place to look for music than on Jamendo where Creative Commons-licensed music abounded. It took me quite some time to dig through songs upon songs upon songs, but when I heard some of Josh’s I got stuck and have been looking forward to new songs from him since.

So when I saw his Kickstarter project I checked it out and was intrigued by the option to have a tune composed on any topic that I liked. Mhh… Why not have a song for the Mahara project? Wouldn’t that be cool? That’s what sprang to mind very quickly because I like topical songs like “Get my data out” and Josh’s own “Airplane mode“. But how to accomplish that without making it cheesy and like an advertisement jingle?

Josh was great with that because all I needed to do was give him an outline of the project, what we wanted to accomplish with Mahara and that I wanted the song to be more about the concept of portfolios and learning rather than mentioning Mahara all the time. I also noted down a couple of songs that I liked in particular in terms of mood and direction of tempo. And that was it. A few weeks later, I had a tune in my inbox. 🙂

What better time to take it live for the Mahara 1.10 release?

If you like it, sing along and enjoy some cool music. If it’s not your musical style, remix it and make it your own Mahara song. We publish it under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0. Let me know if you want the instrumental version for your own Mahara song remix.

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Icon by Thomas Grollier from the Noun Project CC BY 3.0.

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