MoodleMoot is the annual conference for users of Moodle and the 22nd-24th March saw the UK event take place in Dublin. Falmouth’s Learning Space, like the majority of VLEs in the UK is built upon Moodle, so it is an excellent opportunity to find out more about upcoming features and how other HEIs are using the platform.
The first day usually takes the form of a HackFest, where participants explore and develop with Moodle functionality. Key themes for this year were Learning Analytics, Assessment and MOOC Design.
The main conference begins on day two with themes including Adoption where Middlesex University talked about inclusive learning, academic and professional service partnerships and analytics tools like Tableau to monitor and drive engagement. Within the Develop strand, the Open University presented on their new theme and also developing a tool to deliver VLE material in multiple formats which provides better accessibility for students. Check out the OU #Mootie16 write up for more. The importance of User Experience (UX) design and usability testing was also raised. Administration covered Southampton Solent’s approach to rollover and why they don’t undertake it (each module having a start and end date, students and staff can then access old modules up to 3 years).
Other interesting presentations came from Dublin City University on their measures of Blended Learning in moodle which include; content transfer, assessment, interaction and collaboration. UCL have been trialling ‘My Feedback’ to present students with one source of feedback across assessed activities. Cranfield University are using Open Badges to improve TurnItIn Inductions and Portsmouth are looking at ways to manage large file submissions for creative subject areas. Portsmouth’s current approach is to use Google Classroom in conjunction with moodle, something we had also demonstrated for Falmouth last year.
The Moodle website documents some of the major features of the platform. Contact the team if you are interested to use these within your course. In addition, twice a year the community runs a the Learn Moodle MOOC that helps educators create courses and learning activities and peer review the work of colleagues across the globe.