Ideas….

NITLE held an online event with the creator of Moodle, Martin Dougiamas.  The intended purpose was to discuss the future of Moodle.  The benefit of going to the session was that he’s Australian and we got to listen to his accent.

Below are some of the things I found interesting:

1. there is a staff that he pays…what was also nice was the slide on the economics of moodle.  he says people often wonder how he pays his staff.  one way they do this is through moodle.com.  some institutions pay for modules to be developed (ex. Open University paid for the gradebook module).
2. moodle partners pay a %10 roylaties fee to moodle.
3. He has a model of steps that teachers seem to move through.  They are:
   • publish some content
   • have a passive forum
   • use quiz/assignments
   • wikis, glossary, database
   • use the forum seriously and actively
   • combine the activities into sequences
   • think deeper about learning activities
   • use the survey module to study/reflect
   • use peer-review modules like Workshop
   • sharing ideas, active research, self-study
4. He had a great slide on the release cycle for Moodle which I would imagine could be used for any open source software.  He mentioned that the beta period is expanding.
5. He promoted the tracker.  Said that its the best way to get your input in Moodle; its the main way to communicate with the Moodle project.  http://tracker.moodle.org/secure/Dashboard.jspa
6. What’s on the list for Moodle 2.0
   • improved file handling. import: support for external repositories. export: support for e-Portfolios
   • community hubs
   • improved usability, interface (especially gradebook and roles)
   • conditional activities
   • progress tracking
   • web services api
   • new modules: feedback, wiki, probably others
   • pages/webli/blocks
   • new text editors and better control over formats in all parts of moodle
   • secure feeds and flows
   • backup 2.0 (no more crashing when backing up a course)
   • site-wide groups
   • IMS Common Cartridge
   • blog comments, external blog support (import blogs via an rss feed)
   • messaging improvements
   • improved security/performance
7. repositories: A new interface for uploading files that looks a lot like Window’s and Apple’s uploading files look.  Also nice you’ll be able to share files with others over the network or wifi, or any samba drive.  This might be a resolution to netspace issues and the digital drop box.
8. e-Portfolios: You can save information from Moodle and upload into an e-Portfolio system.  Martin recommends Mahara custom e-Portfolio system out of New Zealand.  Does cool things with files.  You can produce views for different types of people.  Puts the user in control of their data.
9. community hub: users could connect to a community hub so they can discover users of other communities while remaining within their own.

Also Martin let us know that moodle is named after his type of dog.  Its half maltese half poodle.  I wonder if he knows that its also called a MaltiPoo.  That would be a weird name for an LMS.