Monash hosts global MoodleMoot
Dan Haesler presenting at MoodleMoot 2015.
Over 500 delegates from as far and wide as Guam and the Czech Republic came together at the recent MoodleMoot 2015 conference to discuss and develop the open source learning platform.
“Some professions have conferences to create a community, Moodle users are a community,” said MC and educational technologist Joyce Seitzinger.
“MoodleMoot is simply an intensive event to let the community learn, share, collaborate and hack more together than they were already doing. Monash’s inspirational spaces enabled this community to do just that.”
Among the invited speakers was Barbara Macfarlan, educational designer from the Office of the Vice-Provost (Learning and Teaching), who was thrilled to present on one of her favourite topics - Encouraging engagement with technology.
“It was wonderful to wax eloquent about something I am passionate. I showcased some fantastic Monash projects including the STARLab, iSAP, and gave just a taste of the very cool SWARM robots. I also explained how together we can bring authenticity into our teaching and learning by sharing enthusiasm for our disciplines through case studies, scenarios, and stories.”
Amidst celebrity presentations, flash-mob dance sequences and a consistent flurry of tweets, a new product was launched. Martin Dougiamas, Founder and CEO of Moodle, announced the new resource MoodleCloud which is targeted towards small audience users who want to experiment with the products’ capabilities.
The first time hosted by a higher education institution, attendees found the chance to share ideas with colleagues from their sector invaluable.
“Connecting with others to hear and share ideas on how to best use tools such as Moodle to enhance the learner’s experience was a great opportunity. Many thanks to Monash for hosting this successful event,” said Richard Robinson from Australian National University.
MoodleMoot Australia will return in 2016.