mootieuk12, vle

Beware of the bling!

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MoodleMoot 2012 – Course Creator Best Practice Workshop

Course Creator Best Practice Workshop #mootieuk12

There is a wide choice of workshops available at the pre-conference workshops. I am currently in the Course Creator Best Practice workshop led by Michelle Moore.

We have gone round and made our introductions, it felt (I didn’t count) that a lot of people were corporate or private training providers, though still a fair few people from universities and colleges (as well as schools). There were lots of people who had just migrated to Moodle or were in the process of migrating.

Even though I am an hold hand with Moodle, I’ve been part of Moodle.org since Wednesday, 10 March 2004 at 3.31pm, over eight years. Gloucestershire College were using Moodle before I arrived in November 2006.

I am hoping to get some useful hints and tips from the workshop. Straight off we are talking about design and style.

“Don’t use more than three font styles per page”

and

“Do maintain consistency”

One of the hardest jobs I find is trying to be diplomatic with staff about the “design” and “look” of their Moodle course.

It can be challenging to let them know that using multiple fonts, Comic Sans, colours doesn’t make their course “look better”

“Do beware the bling”

How do you get your staff to recognise the importance of good design and style?

mootieuk12

Over the Irish Sea

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Dublin Airport #mootieuk12 #366photos

Today is the start of the Ireland and UK Moodlemoot, in a unique move we have a single Moot covering both Ireland and the UK. The conference takes place in Dublin and so here I am in the air flying with Ryanair.

I am looking forward to the conference, hoping to find out how people are using Moodle to enhance and enrich the learning experience.

As might be expected with a conference focused on a tool, there are a fair few technical sessions. Now that Moodle 2 is out, there are quite a few sessions on upgrading and the new functionality within the new system. As my college is already running Moodle 2, I will be “avoiding” the upgrading sessions and aiming to attend the sessions on using the upgraded Moodle.

It will be nice to meet old friends and colleagues and talk Moodle. I don’t usually go to Moodlemoot, as it clashed a lot with other events in April and usually I am more interested in how people are using stuff to support learning over how to use stuff. Over the next few days I am aiming to write some more blog entries from the conference and even the odd video or audio recording.

I have been to Dublin a few times now, however even though the conference venue is close to the airport, I hope to get to Dublin itself at some point.

twitter

Five Years on Twitter

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I have now been on Twitter for five years…

Twitter actually started six years ago and probably like most people joined when it became “big” after SXSW in 2007.

I didn’t use it much in the first year, partly as there were very few people on it, more so because I was using Jaiku a similar service available back then.

In the five years of using the service I have posted over 26,000 tweets and have over 3000 followers. I currently follow just under 500 people and in the main I try and keep it to under 500 otherwise I feel that the stream becomes too quick and loaded.

In the main looking at Twitter I usually use it to post links about my blogs, links to news and sites I have found interesting, photographs (usually via Instagram) and importantly conversations.

My pattern of tweeting follows what I am doing. When I am at work in the office I do find I rarely tweet, whereas when I am travelling or at an event the amount of postings I make really increases. At events I will tweet about the presentations, discuss and also post links related to the sessions I am in.

I have a reputation for tweeting about coffee and in reality it only accounts for 3% of my tweets! Though a day after joining Twitter I did post a tweet about coffee!

I did once say Twitter would die… and in reality I do still think that may happen. If you look at the number of mainstream and traditional media accounts who in the main use Twitter for broadcasting I can see some people leaving Twitter as others disengage. Social networks exist because they are social and only work when you have a community. Without a community, they will wither and die. If key influencers leave Twitter then their communities will disengage with the service and either follow others to a new place or an existing service.

This is something we have seen before. When Jaiku stopped their SMS integration, and also stopped new sign ups, the community on the service began to disintegrate and people began to move to Twitter. Today we can see how some people are disengaging with Facebook and moving to Google+ and Twitter.

At this time though it would appear that Twitter is still going strong and I can’t yet see myself moving away (just yet). So are you still on Twitter?

I am surprised that not only is Twitter still going after five years, but I am still engaging with it. Will I still be on it after another five years… I have no idea!

mootieuk12

Moodlemoot 2012

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It’s been a while since I attended a Moodlemoot, however this year I am attending Moodlemoot 2012 which takes place in the fair city of Dublin, 2nd-4th April 2012.

Moodlemoots are an opportunity for the Moodle community to gather and share experiences, new things and learn from each other.

I am interested to see what I can learn from others at this Moodlemoot. The technical for us is less important since we decided to outsource our hosting (and maintenance) to ULCC. This doesn’t mean I am not interested in the roadmap of Moodle, I am and really would like to see where Moodle is going over the next few years. I am pleased to see Moodle making the move to mobile and I hope that continues.

The real challenge as far as I am concerned with Moodle, is not the technical nature of the software, but how do you get teachers to use it effectively with learners.

I always find it interesting that some people talk about how easy to use and intuitive Moodle is, whilst some people complain about how complicated and unintuitive Moodle is. You won’t find many of the latter group at a Moodlemoot, but I do think their viewpoint is noted and listened to.

One of the things I want to find out at this Moodlemoot is what strategies are people using to motivate teachers to use Moodle and what things work well and what things have broad appeal. How are people making Moodle more engaging and interactive and encouraging learners to make that move from a passive user of Moodle to a learner that engages and interacts with the platform.

Another aspect of the moot will be the networking and engagement with the community. It will be great to discuss the above with old friends and with new ones.

altc2012

ALT-C 2012 – Pilot Mentality

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I am currently putting together an abstract for a debate at ALT-C on the value of pilots and projects. This is something I blogged about before.

The essence of the debate is spread across two viewpoints.

Pilots and projects represent value for money and are a valuable tool in evaluating, experimenting and reflecting on the use of new pedagogies and learning technologies. They are a key part of embedding organisational change.

Or…

Pilots and projects are an inefficient method for the mainstream adoption and embedding of new pedagogies and learning technologies. They are of little value to organisations and are often used as part of a cycle of funding rather than organisational change.

After posting my initial idea on the Twitter I think that this would be an interesting debate and builds on discussions in this area at previous conferences.

So where next?

Well we need a chair and a panel. I am hoping to speak about the inefficiencies of every organisation undertaking pilots and projects and the need to learn from the research and pilots undertaken elsewhere. I would like a varied panel, so if you are interested in taking part (and will be attending ALT-C 2012) let me know, either in the comments or learningstuff@me.com Please note that you either need to be working in an FE or HE institution, or for one of the sector agencies such as JISC, CETIS, HEA, LSIS, etc…

So are you interested?

news and views on e-learning, TEL and learning stuff in general…