Slides from my keynote in Canberra at the Moodleposium

1. Community-driven
development
towards...?
Martin Dougiamas
Lead Moodler
Executive Director, Moodle Pty Ltd

2. Open Source Software
Free to download
Free to use
Free to explore, modify and extend
Free to distribute (under GPL)
And you are...
Free to help with development
Free to choose your service supplier
Free to make money from it
Free to use something else!
Copyright 2008 © Martin Dougiamas

3. Statistics
Over 37,000 registered verified sites in 202 countries
Registered sites contain over 25 million users,
2.5 million courses and 1.1 million teachers
About 500 sites have more than 10,000 users
Interface translated into 75 languages
50 specialised Moodle Partners
Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

4. Registered versions
Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

5. Biggest countries
7138
3265
2686
2272
1930
1632
1020 966 883 846
USA Spain UK Brazil Germany Portugal Mexico Australia Italy Canada
Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

6. Community roles
There are over 740,000 registered participants in
the Moodle Community at moodle.org
(about 1000 new accounts being created each day)
Other
8.0%
Software Devs
8.0% Teachers
35.0%
Researchers
11.0%
Educational Admins
16.0%
System Admins
22.0% Source: Moodle Community 2008
Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

7. Moodle Forums
Copyright 2008 © Martin Dougiamas

8. Moodle Docs
Copyright 2008 © Martin Dougiamas

9. Tracker
Copyright 2008 © Martin Dougiamas

10. Tracker
Copyright 2008 © Martin Dougiamas

11. Moodle Tracker
Votes and
Bug
Comments Ideas
reports
tracker.moodle.org
Quality
Code Priorities Information
Copyright 2008 © Martin Dougiamas

12. Walkthrough
Copyright 2008 © Martin Dougiamas

13. Moodle Moots
Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

14. Moodle Economics
Clients (Institutions, Government, Companies, Teachers)
Services
Contracting
Royalties
n atio
ns
moodle.com
Do
Contributing Contributing
Community Developers
Code
Discussion
etc
moodle.org Software
Copyright 2008 © Martin Dougiamas

15. Moodle Partners
Copyright 2008 © Martin Dougiamas

16. Moodle History
Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

17. History
1999 0.0 First prototype versions
11 / 2001 0.9 First pre-release version on the web
8 / 2002 1.0 Forum, Survey, Journal, Resources, Quiz...
8 / 2003 1.1 Backups, Workshop, Chat, Scales...
3 / 2004 1.2 Filters, Groups, Glossary, Lesson ...
5 / 2004 1.3 Calendar, Blocks, RSS, Media plugins ...
8 / 2004 1.4 Installer, Resources, Enrolments, Wiki...
6 / 2005 1.5 XHTML, Themes, Blocks, Gradebook ...
6 / 2006 1.6 Unicode, Database, Docs, Blogs, Reports ..
11 / 2006 1.7 Roles, Admin, Oracle and MSSQL, AJAX ..
3 / 2007 1.8 Accessibility, MNet, Forms, Multi-auth...
3 / 2008 1.9 Gradebook, Outcomes, Performance, Tags, Notes..
? 2.0 ?
Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

18. 2.0Wait
for it!
Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

19. What drives
Moodle requests?
Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

20. Key Drivers
Administration
Control Integration
Usability Pedagogy
Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

21. Administration
Create/remove courses
Create/remove users and roles
Move people in and out
Manage activities within courses
Structure the site (courses, blocks, etc)
Increased modularity
Alternative interfaces such as Flash, iPhone, etc
Remote control of Moodle
Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

22. Web Services API
SOAP
External XML-RPC
Server
Application
REST Moodle Core
Functions
AMF
External
Client
Application
Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

23. Control
Any CMS/LMS/VLE is a system of control
Many educators want to increase their control
Others want to give more control to students
Course completion and progress tracking
Conditional activities
Individual permissions
Privacy restrictions
General security
Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

24. Improved roles?
Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

25. Conditional activities
Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

26. Integrations
Pull content into Moodle
Push content out of Moodle
Exchange data with other systems (SIS, HR)
Blend with institution web sites
Support of standards for interchange of data
Encourage mashups using feeds (in and out)
Duplicate functionality where required inside Moodle
Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

27. Repositories
Almost
any other
content
repository
Moodle
Files
Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

28. Portfolios
Almost
any other
content
repository
Moodle
Files and Pages
Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

29. Messaging
Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

30. Google Integration
Moodle users are automatically created in Google Apps
• Log in to Moodle -> logged in to Google Apps
• Gmail block in Moodle shows recent Gmail messages
• Apps block show links to all the Google Apps
• Google Widget shows a link to Moodle on iGoogle and Gmail etc
Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

31. Microsoft Integration
Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

32. Usability
Consistent navigation
Consistent layout and structure
Beautiful themes
No dead ends
More AJAX where appropriate
More early testing on real users
Accessible on a wide range of devices
Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

33. Usability
Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

34. Usability
Gradebook
Roles
Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

35. My PhD thesis
An exploration of the use of an
Open Source software called
Moodle to support a social
constructionist epistemology of
teaching and learning within
Internet-based communities of
reflective inquiry
Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

36. Basic concept
People + Software Tools
Teaching Improving
Community
Ideally with skilled facilitators
Copyright 2008 © Martin Dougiamas

37. Pedagogy
10. Share ideas, active research, communities!
9. Use Survey tools and logs to study / reflect
8. Use peer-review modules like Workshop
7. Introduce external activities and games
6. Combine the activities into sequences
5. Facilitate active discussions in the Forum
4. Use Wiki, Glossary, Database (collab content)
3. Use Quizzes/Assignments (less management)
2. Provide a passive Forum
1. Publish some content (Resource, SCORM)
Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

38. Community Hubs
Ordinary Moodle site
Building a course Taking a course
Template User Community User
Restore
In
Search Search
Download E
D 2
Publishing site Course Community site
List
C
3 Enrol
cache
zip
Backup B
A 1 Enrollable course
Downloadable course
Register as
Register as enrollable
downloadable Moodle Hub Server
eg hub.moodle.org
Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2008 © Martin Dougiamas

39. 2.0
Major Rewriting Major New Features
•Database access / data handling •Repository integration
•File storage and handling •Portfolio integration
•Roles and enrolments •Conditional activities
•Wiki 2.0 •Course completion
•Messaging •Progress Tracking
•Backups •Feedback module
•Gradebook and Roles •Blog 2.0
•Navigation and Blocks •Resources 2.0
•Themes •Site-wide groups
•Text formats •Secure RSS feeds
•Commenting •Web Services
•Javascript handling •IMS CC
•Lesson 2.0 •Community Hubs
•Workshop 2.0 •Totally flexible user fields
Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

40. Moodle long-term future
Moodle 2.0
Rewrite of the underlying platform
Infrastructure, connectivity etc
Moodle 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 .... 2.x
Pedagogy, teaching, learning, usability
And then ...
Single huge web service?
Copyright 2008 © Martin Dougiamas

41. Questions?
? ? ?
?
? ? ?
?
? ? ?
? ? Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas