Quick notice that the 2011 iMoot sessions have been chosen and announced – here’s the list. If I had been paying attention to @iMootOnline I may have known it was coming : )

There was also a discussion posted giving updates on keynotes, speakers and what’s changing from the 2010 iMoot.

Speakers now locked in

Last week we finally approved our Speaker list and this is now public for all to see. If you did not make the final cut this year, please do not be disheartened. I would urge you to submit a paper again for next year as we would certainly love to hear from all those who want to share their Moodle stories…read more

I’ve posted about iMoots before and as you know I highly recommend attending. One of the perks is that if you want, you are able to watch every single sessions because they are recorded. Something you can’t do at a face-to-face conference. If you haven’t already, register for the 2011 iMoot – it’s less than 1 month away!

Again, check out the  recently announced 2011 iMoot speakers!

For the past year and a half Minnesota Moodlers have been sharing and collaborating with each other through a Google Group and monthly meetings. It first started with a Ning, but when that service went to a fee-based system we all moved over to the Minnesota Moodle Users Google Group.

During the school year we pick an afternoon and a restaurant and meet face to face once a month to discuss Moodle. It’s a great way to get outside of your school district’s “bubble” and learn how other district’s are using Moodle.

Even if you are unable to make the face to face meetings it’s beneficial to be a part of the group to see how Moodle is being used around Minnesota, get responses and help from colleagues and share your own experiences. Moodle.org has a great community as well but we find it beneficial to have a smaller, more intimate community of Moodlers that makes it more personable.

Another great Moodle User Group is Moodle Mayhem, created by Miguel Guhlin, which also uses a Google Group for discussion and a Google Site for resources.

So if you’re from Minnesota or just want to join a Moodle User Group visit the Minnesota Moodle Users Group and request a membership! Our next meeting is tomorrow – Thursday March 31st in Maple Grove.

Have you always wanted to attend a Moodle Moot but were unable to attend due to cost, time or travel issues?  You now have the opportunity to do so from comfort of your own couch!

The 2011 iMoot is being held April 30th-May 3rd 2011. What is an iMoot?

iMoot is an annual event where the Moodle community of over 32 million users are provided the opportunity to join together on a global scale. This web based event engages a global audience of Moodle practitioners, administrators and decision makers in one event for an online e-conference with a difference!

Basically, it’s a Moodle Conference, online, happening in multiple countries 24/7 for 3 days. I attended last year’s iMoot, which was the first one ever. With tremendous work and effort from the Moodle Community, especially those from the Moodle HQ putting it together, it was a great experience and went extremely well for the first attempt.

Last year Elluminate was used for web conferencing and each session was recorded. All first sessions were live and they were replayed two more times (taped) but the presenter would come back after and you could ask questions in a live chat. This way, you could essentially view all of the sessions you wanted! Another nice thing is that those taped sessions could be viewed for some time after the Moot was over. Oh, and of course this is all happening within a Moodle installation : )

How to register for $50 in 3 minutes right now!

1. Visit the iMoot website
2. Create an account
3. Click on one of the many Register links
4. Pay via Pay Pal
5. That’s it!
6. And when April 30th comes around..sit back, relax, grab a drink and enjoy!

Important pieces of information

• As this is an international conference it should be noted that this date is listed as GMT or General Moodle Time. As the home of Moodle is Perth Australia this means these dates are based on a time difference of +8.
• It looks like the Early Bird rate is $50
• They are still fine tuning the site/technologies but the forums are active

Stay Connected

• Official Twitter Account – @imootonline
• LinkedIn Group
• iMoot 2011 Official Site

I’m sad that I missed the actual date of Moodlenews.com’s birthday (November, 12th) but I wanted to post a quick note celebrating it : )

It’s been a short 12 months since I registered Moodlenews.com (originally it was Moodlemonthly and my main intention was a monthly journal) with the goal of aggregating and sharing all the great things I was reading and learning about Moodle LMS.  Since November 12th, 2009 I’ve changed jobs, moved, traveled (to California, Key West, Texas, Pittsburgh, Maryland/DC, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York and a few other places) and have done my best to stay true to my original intent for Moodlenews. [read more]

Moodle News (originally Moodle Monthly) was created by Joseph Thibault last November. If you haven’t visited Moodlenews.com already, it is a must! There are multiple quality posts about Moodle every week day by Joseph and others. Take a look at the stats in the past year – proving it to be a great, new Moodle resource!

I have contributed a few posts and I am planning on doing more in the near future!

Cheers to Moodle News!

Related:

• Moodlenews.com
• Moodle News Birthday & Stats
• Moodle News Twitter – @MoodleNews
• Joseph Thibault

Nominations for the 2010 Open Source Awards on Packt Publishing ends on Septemember 17th.

The Open Source Awards is an annual online event held by Packt Publishing to distinguish excellence among Open Source projects.

Now in its fifth year, the Award, formerly known as the Open Source Content Management System (CMS) Award, is designed to encourage, support, recognize and reward not only CMSes but a wider range of Open Source projects.

Here is the Open Source Awards timeline:

August  9 | Nominations Open

September 17 | Nominations Close

September  27 | Voting Begins

November 5 | Voting Ends

November 15 | Winners Announced

Related Links:

• 2010 Open Source Awards
• Nominate an open source project!
• Packt Publishing

Just a quick post with some links and notes about the 2010 Midwest Moodle Moot in Goshen, IN. I really wish I could have gone, maybe there will be another Midwest Moot soon! Martin Dougiamas gave the keynote! I was only able to watch the first 10 minutes but hopefully a video will come out and I believe his slides are out there somewhere (I have yet to search, been so busy! Does anyone know?).

Anyways, check out some notes.

• More from #mootusin10 by @theohiobloke: Open Session with Martin
• Notes from Martin’s Keynote #mootusin10 from @theohiobloke
• Martin Dougiamas Live from the Midwest Moot (9am EST Today) #mootusin10
• #mootusin10 – Official Midwest Moot Twitter hashtag
• @moodler pulling a buggy full of Moodlers at #imootusin10 (ha ha)

Are you like me, who either missed some iMoot 2010 sessions or you attended a session while another one you wanted to go to was going on? Check out the repeat session!

Posted at imoot.org by Julian Ridden:

Has this happened to you over the past 36 hours?

• A great session was on at 3am when you were in your right mind sleeping peacefully
• Two awesome sessions were on at the same time making you choose favourites.
• You were on Twitter and heard cool stuff about a session that you just didn’t think of attending.

If this is you then have we got just the right answer to perk you up again. In your program you may have noticed that all the previously live delivered sessions are now available in “Repeat” mode

Read the full post here!

Below are just some live blogging notes and my stream of thoughts. Not organized at all but I highlighted a few key items I found interesting. Sorry if I noted anything wrong as I was listening and typing.

Panel 1 – moodle.com

Presenters: Martin Dougiamas and others (I can’t remember their names)

Ask questions directly to the moodle HQ team in Perth. What are their development processes? Where does funding come from? Who is the best foosball player?

This was just a Q & A with Martin and others at the Moodle HQ. I noted a few questions. If you haven’t already checked out the replay check it out – if you’re registered!

Question I asked:

briefly exploring an installation of moodle 2.0 dev the navigation (docking) seems a bit different and something to get used to. have you done any user groups to see how “regular” teachers will react and adapt? as an admin i witness a lot of frustration with “change” after they get used to something..

Their Response: One of Tomaz Lasic’s first jobs will be testing/working with this. They rely on people like “me” and the Moodle Tracker to help them out.

My After Thoughts: “Techy” or people like me are different than regular teachers. Regular teachers won’t go on the tracker, they don’t even know what it is. It’s the lower techy users that I’m worried about. I’m worried it will turn them away, make them frustrated. Is there any user groups strictly with teachers who are not that tech savy, users who don’t even know about the Moodle.org!

Question I asked:

will the journal module be in the core and will it be gradeable?

Their Response: The journal module will not be in the Moodle 2.0 core but still available for download if it’s kept up. The online assignment will replace it.

My After Thoughts: Isn’t there a difference between journal and online assignment? I think there are a few differences that a teacher would want in journal that isn’t in online assignment – like repeated journaling – not having a “one and done” assignment – something ongoing. I’ll have to look at this.

Question I asked:

are there major upgrades in blogs? will there be comments on blogs? also will there be an option to make the blogs a course module instead of everyone with shared courses seeing each others – lots of complaints about seeing user blog enteries they don’t care about

Their Response: There are comments on blogs already. RSS external blogs into blogs (like WordPress). They said blogs = forums pretty much. There is a new forum type called blog forum type which looks more like a blog. Sounds interesting!

Question Asked:

In Forums: Is there any way to set a default for all users to not be subscribed to forums automatically? On that note, will Moodle 2.0 have a central place for users to control emails they get from a Moodle site? At the moment there are subscriptions (forums), message settings and settings in the profile.

Their Response: This is available at modules | forum | default you can change that.

My After Thoughts: I either heard wrong and they didn’t mean this or it will be in Moodle 2.0. I’m not sure, but I couldn’t find this in my Moodle 1.9.7 version.

Other Notes:

The Feedback module will NOT be in the Moodle 2.0 core which was planned before. They also talked about how the Questionnaire and Feedback module will somehow work together and merge into something new called “Survey”. This will combine the best features and allow Questionnaires and Feedback to transfer into a “Survey”.

I’m not sure if “Survey” will totally replace both modules and if so I’m not sure when.

B-04: Making Moodle Funky by Bending the Code!

Presenter: Lewis Carr

AWESOME session!

• quick edit – turn editing on – change weeks/topics, short code, more settings on the course homepage instead of having to go into the Course Settings – not on moodle.org plugins/modules – hard coded.
• Sweet Moodle user and course ajax search – very useful for admins – I would use this every day.
• Course Format: no weeks or topic number — “clear format” – modified weekly topics format and told it not to display the numbers
• moodle bar (like on the iMoote site) – will be publicly available soon – go to moodle tracker and his website
• iphone theme – iphone theme in own folder “We detected an iphone theme would you like to switch to iphone theme?
• iphone app/mobile will include all features..like quiz… use it as a “student response system”.. YES
• user agent switch – test in different browsers