My Perth stop over, as part of my NSW Premiership scholarship study tour, was an ideal opportunity to drop in to the Moodle HQ offices and meet Martin Dougiamas and the Moodle HQ – headquarters – team. The very sleek new office has room for three times the current number of staff, which is a great metaphor for the anticipated growth of Moodle.
Over a relaxed lunch time chat, Martin explained how he grew up in remote outback Australia and was often the only English speaking child among Aboriginal children. (I had been discussing how my son was naturally learning Swahili through his recent new friends and I was observing the peer mentoring going on.) As a child, Martin studied distance education through the farm radio on the School of the Air. Australia led the way in this pioneering venture in responseto our large landmass and remote locations. It is no great leap to see how that isolated small child from Western Australia would go on to imagine children all around the world having access to education through a Learning Management System. His commitment to Open Source is perhaps linked to those childhood experiences. Any of us who have had the joy of sitting around a campfire with Aboriginal yarning and gamin (joking) will not forget the sense of community and connection. We were offered a glimpse of complex communal ownership systems and multiple responsibilities and roles. As we move towards a hyper-connected global world, and explore concepts of digital privacy, data ownership and exploitation, we can learn a lot from those old fellas from outback WA on how to adjust our life to this new community based Open Source and creative commons world.
As a community, Moodle is an inspiration of sharing and openness.The recent introduction of the Moodle Association gives all stakeholders an opportunity to participate in deciding on priorities in future road maps. Thousands of developers around the world upload their code to a central place for anyone to use or adapt. Teachers make courses and can upload them to moodle.net for anyone to copy and remix. Online forums and conferences are a place of community support and inspiration. The latest addition of free online hosting now means any teacher can have their own Moodle site for free!
As someone who has been using Moodle for many years and interested in Gamification, I have found Moodle to be a very flexible tool for implementing game mechanics and rewards. I recently wrote a book ‘Gamification with Moodle’ with step by step guides and examples I have tried and tested with my students. I was really excited to visit the hub of Moodle and it made my flights and stop-over well worth the effort.
