Reflections on the MoodleMoot

I have spent a couple of days in London at the 2010 Moodle Moot organised by the University of London and held at the newly restored Senate House.

From humble beginnings this has become a sell-out event for hundreds of technicians and teachers committed to the Moodle open source VLE and who are working in harmony to enhance the opportunities Moodle has as a platform for creative teaching and deepening the learning experiences of students young and old. Delegates from as far afield as Israel, Australia, Lebanon and Trinidad to name but a few is testimony to the pulling power of the MoodleMoot.

Moodle itself continues to expand - as of last week there are 49,000 verified Moodle sites in 210 countries with over 34 million users, and at least 500 sites have more than 10,000 users. Our own Tutor2u VLE for AS and A2 Economics has over 3,700 students and teachers from more than 100 schools and colleges. We hope to roll out some exciting new courses starting in September.

Hole in the Wall - an inspiration

There were some excellent key note sessions but perhaps none better than an inspirational address from Professor Sugata Mitra of Newcastle University.

Professor Mitra’s ‘Hole in the Wall’ project has established itself as one of the most talked-about pieces of educational work and research for many years and has been cited as an inspiration behind the film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. It was a remarkable talk, beautifully paced with warmth and humour at every turn. And it gave MoodleMoot attendees a chance to reflect on the huge impact that just a few strategically placed and openly available computers can have on the lives and aspirations of young people. In one of his projects, over 300 children became IT literate in 3 months - with one computer!

Hardwork for some

The workshops were generally of a high standard - the best brought passionate teachers from different sectors and regions/countries to the floor to showcase and celebrate how they are making Moodle work for them in all contexts - from community based Moodle systems in flood-hit Cumbria to some impressive and genuinely exciting work being done by student teachers once they have the Moodle tools available to them.

The sessions in which my energy dipped were those when HE-driven and rather dry pedagogy took over and we were flooded with acronyms and text-heavy PowerPoints.

Moodle as a hugely flexible learning platform works best with people happy and willing to test and try, continually tweak and change and find what works for your own groups of students. There is a training community flooding into this fast-growing space for programming how teachers can make the most of new learning technologies. From what I could see, most of the commercial stands at the Moodle Moot stood largely idle.

Moodle 2.0

A high point for me was a live link up via Skype with the founder of Moodle, Martin Dougiamas who was busy at the New Zealand Moodle Moot but took some time out of the celebrations there to outline some of the exciting new features of Moodle 2.0 - due for release in April as a beta version and a full version rolling out in July (memo- - cancel the summer holiday!) Martin’s slide presentation is available here

Twitterthon

This was the first conference I have attended which has made so much use of Twitter in providing instant feedback during and between sessions - over 200 of those there posted real time comments during the two days and nearly 2,000 tweets were sent, many containing links, tips and ideas for delegates sat in the hall. Here was an audience bathed in bits and willing to develop and utilize the technology - and it provided a fascinating glimpse into what Twitter-style messaging and commenting can do for conferences

Perhaps speakers in the near future will allow instant messaging to appear on the screen behind them and adjust their talks accordingly? That would be a prime example of flexible learning!

The full Twitter feed from the conference can be found here

All in all an excellent conference and one that has given me a long to do list as we develop new VLE courses for Tutor2u for September 2010. Early Moodle Moots were (I am told) dominated by the technicians (and we couldn’t do without them!). Higher education dominated the sessions in 2010 and it would be good to see a stronger focus on using Moodle in schools and colleges in 2011 - I must consider putting myself forward to contribute to a workshop.

Final point - here is an interesting chart from Business Insider on the relative decline of email as a tool of communication!