In an effort to get feedback on this year’s Moot and ask delegates to provide input for next year’s conference we’ve invited all 285 attendees to fill in our online survey. At closing of the polls on 7 May 2010 we had received 81 responses, giving us a 28% response rate.

There was an equal split of Moot first-timers (49.4%) and more seasoned Moot attendees (50.6%).

The majority (81%) of respondents gave this year’s Moot the thumbs up with either an Excellent (37%) or Good (44.4%) rating of the conference.

This trend continues with 87.7% rating the conference venue and facilities at Senate House as Excellent (45.7%) or Good (42%).

However the catering didn’t fare so well with over a tenth of attendees rating it either Very Poor (3.7%) or Poor (8.6%).

The majority (78.4%) of delegates felt this year’s Moot provided value for money, with a fifth (21.6%) feeling it did not.

What went well?

Prof. Sugata’s keynote on Whole in The Wall project was named by most as an inspirational opening-keynote. Networking, meeting like-minded people to share experience and expertise and the good quality of workshops & presentations were named by many as key advantages of this year’s Moot.

‘I liked the sense of enthusiasm and drive of those there and it was great to see teachers and technicians with a common purpose. Good to see relative absence of commerciality.’

MoodleMoot UK 2010 delegate

What could be improved?

Many felt that the 1h workshop sessions were packed with too many small presentations allowing less time for Q&A and felt rushed at times, as one delegate said ‘quality instead of quantity on workshops’. More detailed information on workshops upon sign-up and facilitation of all sessions for time-keeping purpose have been mentioned as areas for improvements, as well as considering to live stream all keynotes and workshops as they happen.

There was also a general trend for delegates asking for more technical presentations, even suggestions of a technical strand running throughout the 2-day conference.

MoodleMoot UK 2010 – Feedback

Interesting feedback for next year’s Moot organisers is the preferred ticketing option, with almost half (45.3%) wishing for a more tech-focused pre-Moot event and a similar number of people (43.8%) being in favour the evening entertainment to be included in the ticket price.

15.6% like to see overnight accommodation included in the MoodleMoot ticket price and a third (31.3%) prefers 1-day only tickets for the Moot.

The complete survey results can be viewed online, simply enter ‘moodlemootuk2010′ when prompted for a password.

It seems everyone had a great time at MoodleMoot UK 2010. To help us make sure next year’s organisers have a headstart we are putting together a little ‘how-to-run-a-Moot’ report with lessons learned.

A big part of this report will be the feedback from the delegates. What went well, and what didn’t? What should continue and what should go? To put it simple, what does the community want? So far we had 50 people filling in our online survey and already we had some great ideas how to make next year’s Moot better.

Please take 5min to complete the survey if you attended MoodleMoot UK 2010 and you are in with the chance to win 2 golden tickets for all upcoming events organised by ULCC in 2010.

What do you get?

First up will be Mahara UK 2010 to be held at Westminster Kingsway College’s King’s Cross campus on Friday, 16 Juy 2010. The first Mahara conference was held at the Institute of Education in 2009 and was a great success.  It looks to quickly become an established annual event which attracted over 100 delegates last year.

October 2010 will see the 3rd run of FOTE (Future of Technology in Education) looking at trends and challenges impacting the academic sector in the coming years.

Last but not least we’ll be rounding up the year with our annual Wonderland event in December, with a day of keynotes and workshops sharing best practice and exploring the future of VLEs and their role in supporting teaching and learning.

So you see, not a bad deal for 5min of your time….

I like playing with the technology and as a result, I’ve produced the following alternative personal write-ups:

mind map

I used mind42.com to create a personal mind map that carries links and quotes: 
(first time ever using mind42 – very easy to use. Use the icons at the bottom to collapse/expand.)
http://mind42.com/pub/mindmap?mid=979fe0f6-a7bb-451b-987a-cbdb1603bb65

Very unofficial images

I used a flip for the movies, a phone for the stills, imovie to put it together (there is a little sound):

And finally…

I really enjoyed MoodleMoot. It was one of the most refreshing events that I had been to for a long time.
Hope to see you at another Moot!

Philip Butler, ULCC

From Philip Butler ULCC, Chair of MMUK10 Programme Committee

Running on adrenalin during MoodleMoot UK 2010 (#mootuk10) meant that the following days have been returning to earth with a bump!  I imagine it’s similar to what astronauts must have felt when returning to earth; the world is familiar but strangely different.  The annual UK Moot took place 13 & 14 April 2010 with the impressive University of London’s Senate House as its backdrop.  Over 250 excited delegates arrived from all over the UK, along with a good proportion coming from as far away as Adelaide, New York, Beirut, Trinidad, Finland, The Hague, Austria and Russia.

I’ve successfully navigated ‘re-entry’ although I’m still suffering remnants of MoodleMoot cold turkey!  I can now look back over an extraordinary experience and pen a very personal report in an attempt to capture all the good things that happened. Martin & David wrote about their experience in the breakout session, feel free to comment or get in touch with to have your guest blog post featured on the blog.

Ross Mackensie, the Open University

First I can’t write this report before thanking everyone involved in making it one of the best I’ve attended in many years.  Clearly #mootuk10 couldn’t have happened without an awful lot of planning and preparation by the ULCC team, especially Mick Kahn and Frank Steiner, supported by Sean Keogh and a great Moot Programme Committee who put together the raw ingredients.  But a special mention has to go to everyone attended, along with a few bloggers and tweeple who were there in spirit if not in person!  The delegates bring the whole thing together and produce an experience comparable, I should imagine, like attending one of Heston Blumenthal’s feasts (could we explore this for next year?).

Day 1 – Tuesday 13th April

The Beveridge Hall, Senate House

Anyway, it was a huge honour to have the Vice Chancellor (Elect), University of London and Warden of Goldsmiths College, Professor Geoffrey Crossick to officially launch the conference.  By all accounts it was an excellent speech, although I sadly missed it due to me trying to locate our first keynote speaker, Professor Sugata Mitra.  We managed to avoid catastrophe by one of Sugata’s whiskers as I was shoving him through the door and onto the stage literally as he was being introduced… Phew!

Panic over, it really couldn’t have got off to a better start.  I’ve been privileged to have met and heard Sugata several times, and his ideas and delivery are just as fresh and inspiring as if you’re coming to him for the first time.  He is a remarkable character who has been responsible for some incredible work in his native India, entitled the ‘Hole in the Wall’ project.  I have visited one of these projects and seen first-hand the impact that Sugata’s work has had on village communities and the ‘street kids’ who were given opportunities to ‘play’ with computers.  Indeed, this was reportedly the inspiration that led to the film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.

Mootuk10 - Impressive Workshops

I can’t say that inviting Sugata wasn’t without its risks; he’s never been associated with Moodle, or even the Open Source community, so the question was how a hugely discerning Moot audience would receive him?  But when considering a programme, I was keen to introduce delegates to a range of perspectives; including the impact of technology on teaching and learning, the organisational impact, along with practitioners and administrators.  My faith in both the Professor and the Moodlers were vindicated completely by the number of positive real-time comments appearing on Twitter:

“listening to sugata mitra talk about the hole in the wall project – pretty amazing stuff #mootuk10” by markdrechsler

“signing off 4 a bit, work 2 do, will catch up with #mootuk10 later, lots of thoughtful stuff, particularly Sugata Mitra on Hole In The Wall!” by jamesmichie

“Getting ready for day 2 @ MootUK10 Prof Sugata was awe inspiring Looking 4ward to meeting MD Mr Moodle #mootuk10” by mikallaane

Whilst Sugata certainly covered the former, Ross Mackenzie, the Open University, gave a really interesting insight into how one of the leading organisations in the use of Moodle approached the strategic issues when considering how to plan ahead.

Philip Badman, Vice Principal, Newham College

“@rossmackenzie In 24h period OU Moodle has 35-50,000 unique users with 2-3,000 users on at any one time! Incredible stats #mootuk10” by digitalmaverick

Vice Principal Philip Badman on the other hand showed clearly what a large FEC can achieve (Outstanding Ofsted Inspection) when driven by a supportive and engaged Senior Management Team.

Day 2 – Wednesday 14th April

Martin D - Live from #mootnz10

We began Day 2 at the same level of excitement as we left Day 1.  Even the sore heads from the evening social didn’t dampen expectations.  A live video link with Martin Dougiamas didn’t disappoint, with Martin introducing a live broadcast from the New Zealand Moot.  This was an historical moment as it was a first ever in Moot history.  Perhaps this is how Moots will be in the future; despite Martin being on the other side of the world he gave a very stimulating and engaging presentation (it was he who asked delegates for a show of hands to answer questions, and we realised that many attendees were at their first Moot!) which just goes to show that we don’t have to be physically sharing the same space anymore.  #mootuk10 exemplified how technology enables interactive presentations from people anywhere in the world.

“Live link up with #mootnz10 conference dinner from #mootuk10 before Martin’s presentation” by thestubbs

“we are live via NZ MoodleMoot, this is gr8 #mootuk10 it’s going to be a fab session this morning with Martin Dougiamas” by mikallaane

“@moodler live on-screen. I love technology! #mootuk10 #mootnz10” by vaughany

Mootuk10 - Day 2 Workshops

After lunch, I was lucky to be able to pass over to my colleague James Ballard from ULCC to deliver a plenary setting out where Moodle is moving to.  Entitled Learning spaces: bridging the gap between personal and professional discourses, it explored the theme of ‘Personalisation’ from a learner’s perspective.  The challenge that education providers face is to meet the new requirements of extending what was a Virtual Learning Environment into a Personal Learning Environment.  Certainly the proclamations of the death of VLEs are not only premature but faintly a little ridiculous.  However, we are seeing a significant change in the emphasis and role that they play as we see other tools, such as e-ILPs and e-Portfolios, take over  the functionality.  VLEs, which may currently play 80-90% role in e-Learning provision, will probably contract to something more like 30-40%  as Mahara and other tools become more embedded.

“mapping competences to awarding body/national frameworks with Moodle, Mahara + ULCC’s ILP extension #mootuk10 … interesting for #jisccdd” by thestubbs

Mootuk10 - Day 2 Workshops

To round off the conference I wanted to pitch something to practitioners, as without them Moodle is simply technological tool.  Who better to represent them than the winner of last year’s STAR Award from Becta.  Geoff, who I’m privileged to have known for many years now, always delivers a ‘call to arms’!  He didn’t disappoint:

“Geoff Rebbeck remarks that Moodle has brought teachers and techies together. I suspect you get this with open source generally. #mootuk10” by mberry

“final keynote … teachers and techies partners in providing inspiring learning. awwwwww group hug (()) #mootuk10” by alisonpope

“@geoffrebbeck “teachers must not be passive” #mootuk10” by jamesmichie

“I agree – never use Moodle as a way of saving money. Quality will suffer and students will notice #mootuk10” by mickelous

I could go on, but then you’d have no excuse to go listen to Geoff next Moot.

Workshops

Mootuk10 - Day 2 Workshops

No event report could be complete without mentioning the fantastic efforts of all the presenters who made the breakout sessions one of the features of this year’s MoodleMoot.  We had a considerable task sifting through 70+ submissions, not only from the UK but Europe, USA, Russia, Middle East, Caribbean, and Australia!  The programme committee worked hard to get them to fit within a limited amount of space and time, and I was really impressed with how accommodating presenters were when asked to cut down, or shift their focus in order to ‘fit’ within a session – they were brilliant.

“my 4^th Moot and definitely the best one I’ve been too by some way. Well done to all of you for an excellent job” by Peter Kilcoyne, Director of ILT, Worcester College of Technology

Mootuk10 - Day 2 Workshops

Sadly I only managed to sit in on a couple of workshops, but was hugely impressed with the quality of presentations.  Most notable for me were listening to Lewisham College and their Student Portal developments, the almost ‘Sugataesque’ inspired work of the Foyer Federation, and many more fascinating case studies and project reports.  I didn’t see a bad presentation and I learnt something, which is a great thing to take away.  Thanks.

Endnote

At ULCC we set out to achieve an event that would be memorable for delegates attending, which would induce a feeling that they’d attended something a little special.  Indeed, there were many things I would or could have done if we’d had more time and resources, but 2010 seems to have set a new benchmark somehow.  When told that ULCC was hosting #mootuk10, I was struck that this was a perfect time for the Moodle community to, like the Roman god Janus, looking

MMUK10 Workshops

back from whence we had come as well as looking forward to whence we go.  I feel these aims were achieved and it seems so did most of you:

“Enjoyed #mootuk10 a lot, solved some problems, added a lot to my task list, but mostly inspiration for battles with dinosaurs.” by maryjames54

“Finally heading home from #mootuk10. Nice screens on the backs of train seats. Awesome conference! http://twitpic.com/1flprc” by nrparmar

“#mootuk10 – a good Moot & looking fwd to #mootuk11 already! But #mahara conf first – 16 July, London! Is that a hui?? http://bit.ly/cRz0Gv” by jonbolton

Sean Keogh, Mr MoodleMoot!

“Goodbye, London! Thanks ULCC and all who worked to make #mootuk10 excellent. Thanks to everyone for sharing your insight and experience.” by ghymel

Philip Butler, Senior e-Learning Adviser ULCC.

Useful Links

MootUK10 Blogs:

http://jamesmichie.blogspot.com/2010/04/mootuk10-holes-in-walls-cyberspace.html

http://www.moodlemonthly.com/2010/kristianstill-and-hamblecollege-mootuk10-1st-day-recap/

http://www.moodlemonthly.com/2010/kristianstill-and-cragman69-provide-a-recap-of-day-2-at-mootuk10/

MootUK10 Tweet Archive:

http://twapperkeeper.com/hashtag/mootuk10

MoodleMoot Workshops

I would certainly echo Martin Sepion’s comments about the opening presentations from Professor Geoffrey Crossick  and Professor Sugata Mitra being good – they kicked off the Moot with a buzz that lasted the whole conference.  I facilitated the Moodle in Schools workshop which was equally inspiring; children in year 2 upwards were using moodle with a variety of colourful themes (one memorably based around creepy crawly bugs!) which had been purchased by the LEA and offered to the schools.  Parents seemed to welcome the involvement by using Moodle at home with the children’s schooling.  Interestingly it was also used to help with the transition between years by introducing new teachers and classes via Moodle ahead of time.

Overall I thought it was a great event.  The facilities were excellent and the twitter display a great fun thing to do too.   Philip Butler, who MC’d, did a great job keeping the energy levels high and injecting lots of humour while maintaining seriousness – a good balance.  The sandwich lunch could perhaps have been a bit more exciting, but the cakes with tea/coffee were nice though.   The wireless network worked really well and everyone was able to ‘tweet’ effectively – I particularly liked the Twitter display in the main hall.  The venue was excellent with the exhibition, food, and conference halls looking nice.   It was just the right size for the number of delegates (probably much more would’ve been unmanageable).  The Moot banners/marketing stuff looked good too.

MoodleMoot Workshops

For MoodleMootUK 2011?   I wondered about having some real workshops, rather than just presentation based sessions, but then thought about possible conflict with ‘training’, commercial operations, etc.  Perhaps some effort to collect output for submission to Moodle.org or to the conference– for example top 10 lists of features we’d like to see in the next Moodle version.   While this isn’t a formal ‘user group’ organisation, is it never the less a powerful and committed group of people who collectively represent a good cross section of opinion.  Perhaps comments/outputs could be collated for submission back to the conference for publishing on the website along these lines.

David Hooper, Web & e-Learning Services

Nitin Parmar, University of Bath

The event had a real energy throughout the two days, which was kick started by a visionary speech from the incoming Vice Chancellor of University of London, Professor Geoffrey Crossick.  He impressed me with his knowledge of IT and its potential to enhance learning, which I hadn’t expected from a university Vice Chancellor.  Next was the charismatic and very thought-provoking Professor Sugata Mitra.  I have heard Professor Mitra speak several times before and he has always stolen the show.  Everyone was talking about his presentation throughout the conference.   His brilliant presentation was based on his work in exploring how to use technology to educate children who do not have access to English speaking teachers or computers.  He showed the power of the social constructivist model where, in his experiments, children are able to learn through social interaction with a computer without the active in-put of a teacher.  The role he takes with children is more that of a facilitator.  He sets children puzzles in an informal setting and gets incredible results.

I facilitated four workshops over the two days and was very impressed with the creativity and innovative ways people had found of using learning technologies like Moodle and Mahara.  We had presentations on Moodle in the Health sector, Moving to Moodle from other systems, Linking Moodle to other internal systems, and using the Mahara e-Portfolio system in colleges.  Each workshop had several presenters from different organisations which gave delegates a rounded view of the topics and a range of approaches which could be followed.  The workshops included question and answer sessions and discussion which proved to be very popular.

Highlights for me were the presentation from Fehmi Hanoglu of Hackney Community College on their linking Moodle to their internal MIS and monitoring systems.  This has led to a rich ILP (Individual Learning Plan) which enables staff and students to easily set goals and track progress on a student by student basis.  The ILP enables learners to develop responsibility for their own learning and share this with their tutors.  This has enhanced communication between learners and staff which has resulted in improving standards across the college.  The other presentation that really caught my eye was Angela Jay from Lewisham College.  Angela explained how the Mahara e-Portfolio system had been a success at Lewisham without the college having to promote it. It is so popular with learners that it sells itself.  Angela demonstrated a traditional CV against a CV a catering student had created in Mahara and there was no comparison between the two – Mahara won hands down.  Portfolios such as this will vastly improve the chances of students gaining employment. There was also an interesting discussion about the possible use of Mahara e-Portfolio systems being used as an Alumni system.  It could be a great way for colleges to keep in touch with their former students and celebrate their future successes with them.

Acting as a facilitator at MoodleMoot 2010 was a very easy job as sharing expertise, information and ideas with so many creative and dedicated educationalists was so interesting and inspiring that the two days flew by before I knew it. I am already looking forward to MoodleMoot 2011.

Martin Sepion, Senior Adviser
JISC Regional Support Centre for London

Open source projects like Moodle are not a case of someone programming in their spare bedroom after work any more.  In order to survive and grow, they have to have a robust management structure and funding model.

In “The anatomy of a major open source project”, we are not talking about how the programming and/or designing is arranged, or anything like that, we are going to be talking about how the Moodle organisation itself is supported – where the funding comes from in order to pay people, what those people do, and how the moodle model compares with funding models used by other major open-source projects such as Sakai and Apache.

So if you are interested in how such a large project survives, please come along.

Submitted by Sean M Keogh

Setting them up and getting resources on has been the easy bit. On the whole teachers and other colleagues involved in 14-19 education like the subject Moodles and agree with the principle of shared subject communities.

The hard bit has been getting them to incorporate this into the way they communicate and the way they teach. We’ve learned a lot over the last few years. My aim is to share that learning with you via my workshop at the Moot. Look forward to seeing you there

Me: Um, ok.

And so started my adventure of coming from the small town of Adelaide, South Australia, to London for the 2010 UK Moodle Moot.

As opening day for the Moot approaches and I start to think seriously about my first trip ever to the UK, I have also been lucky enough to be asked to contribute to the Moot blog to share some thoughts and ideas about why I’m heading over.

Firstly, there will be three of us heading over from Adelaide – myself, James Strong and Allan Christie – we’ll be the funny sounding ones, probably with jetlag. Stop us and say hello if you get the chance. Or at least stop me and say hello – as the least well travelled of my companions (and a small town boy at heart) I’ll be the one looking like, well, a small town boy wandering around one of the largest cities in the world…

But why come over in the first place?

Working for the largest Moodle Partner in the Southern Hemisphere is great and has taken me to lots of places around Australia, but it is also quite isolated in regard to meeting some of the ‘big names’ from the North. In particular I’m looking forward to (hopefully) meeting some people from the Open University, which is still considered by many as the ‘holy grail’ of campus-wide University implementations, so if you are at the Moot from the Open Uni then please come and say hello – we’d love to hear your experiences.

Then there is the presentation I’ll be co-delivering with James Strong, which will be all about the people, processes and platforms required to run an Enterprise Moodle environment.

I’m also keen to see how significant the regional differences are in the Moodle communities (if there are any), to meet people I’ve interacted with online, and really just to experience a Moot on the other side of the globe. Then there’s the little matter of seeing how many ideas I can ‘borrow’ for the Australian Moot I’m helping organise in July – I have been watching the Moot UK team work their way through the various challenges of organising an event like this and getting just a little nervous about the amount of effort involved… And of course I, like most, will be keeping an eye out for any presentations on Moodle 2.0 as we draw ever nearer to the beta release.

Whatever the case, I can’t wait to get over there and experience at least a little bit of London, see what I hope will be some innovative and thought-provoking presentations and meet as many people in the global Moodle community as I can.

Roll on the 13th!