About the Author

Ellen Marie Murphy is a curriculum and learning technologies specialist with over 16 years of experience in education. She is an avid proponent of open source software. Her first Moodle and Mahara implementations were during her tenure at The Sage Colleges, where she was employed as Director of Instructional Technologies. More recently she served as the Director of Learning Technologies and Online Education at Plymouth State University, and Higher Education Liaison to the New Hampshire Society for Technology in Education, where she was actively engaged with all levels of education from K to 20. Currently, she serves as the Director of Online Curriculum at the State University of New York at Empire State College.

In 1998, while teaching at a middle school in Vermont, she was introduced to the concept of ePortfolios and has strongly supported the use of ePortfolios in teaching and learning since. She recently hosted a New Hampshire Statewide K-20 ePortfolio Day and hopes it will become an annual event. Additionally, she is a regular presenter at numerous educational conferences and Moodle Moots. Her current focus is on the development of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) and furthering the cause of openness in education.