Moodlemoot is a conference for "Moodlers". It allows people who work in elearning to meet and share experiences, allows teachers an excellent professional development opportunity, and welcomes new Moodlers to the wider Moodle community. Moodlemoot aims to include 'something for everyone', so choose workshops and presentations that suit you.
This year there are again inspiring presenters. A taster for you on just a few:
Martin Dougiamas (founder and lead developer of Moodle)
Martin Knott (CEO of Moodlerooms in the USA
Moodle enthusiast and guru Tom Murdock (from North Carolina, USA)
Shane Elliott (a Kiwi living and working in Perth at Moodle HQ)
There will also be some very talented New Zealand practitioners too. Teachers and Moodle enthusiasts who are happy, willing and able to share their experiences and knowledge with others. Numerous workshops, presentations and discussions are being facilitated by local experts - and we should thank them for this hugely valuable contribution to the programme.
I am fortunate enough to have experienced Moodlemoots all around the world and the New Zealand Moodlemoot is definitely one of the best, as it is fun, relaxed, and full of friendly people to network with. I always learn loads from the conversations as well as the presentations and workshops. It is great to spend time with the people I follow on twitter!
This morning I had the extreme pleasure of being part of a powhiri at the Unitec marae to launch the elearning strategy and welcome special guests to Unitec. A very special experience for all involved, we were treated to an insight into the whare building process and the stories contained in the carvings.
There is information about the marae project here. I would post a picture but I am not sure of permissions, so I suggest you look at the webpage and visit if you can. This is a very unique marae and the master carver (Lyonel Grant) was recognised for this building with a NZ culture award.
Today I attended the iMoot conference. The conference website is a Moodle site and the conference is completely online.
I attended a session facilitated by Tomaz Lasic using Elluminate Live. (Elluminate were a sponsor - this software does require a license).
Tomaz ran a session: Using Forum - the Heart of Moodle
It was a well led session where he shared some slides, then used Elluminate indicator tool to see where participants were from, then voting buttons to see how familiar the participants of the session were with forums. He walked us around the his website and showed us some forum examples, then used the white board to get people to write answers to questions posed during the session. He is going to share everyones input after the sessions (he is repeating the session later in the conference).
I have joined Unitec's elearning team in Te Puna Ako. This puts me at their Mt Albert campus in Auckland. My role is Learning Management System (or Virtual Learning Environment) and Web 2.0 Advisor. I am in a team of four elearning specialists in the wider team called Te Puna Ako which has twenty something members.
There is lots to take in and lots of people to get to know.
People: so far I have found that Te Puna Ako is made up of the learning centre; elearning team; academic literacy team; timetable office; and academic advisors. There are twenty something of us and I think I have met nearly everyone. As well as the teams there is Kelly who is supporting everyone as the Te Puna Ako Administrator, Linda as acting manager and Robert will be the Te Puna Ako Manager in March.
The Learning Centre: Caroline, Cat, Cindy, Lance, Margaret, Margi, Renu and Wilma. The eLearning team: Thom, Yong, Vickel, Tabitha Timetabling team: Johnno, Hung Academic Literacy: Bettina, Mark, Nina, Academic Advisors: Simon, Diana, Trisha, Nick, Ed
Day one was full of meet and greet as well as getting setup with computer and system logins, HR and Security access. However we still managed to squeeze in a meeting that gave me a basic indication of some of the things happening and a workshop on Ning setup run by Vickel preparing for supporting his workshop next week.
Day two was Te Puna Ako strategy day. It was good for me to get a better picture of Te Puna Ako, its composition and how each part complements the other parts, and a hint at the objectives for this year. As a group everyone was relaxed with each other and relatively confident in sharing and asking questions; overall the climate suggested we work well together and support each other. The day reassured me I have joined a good team.
So far I have the following sites: Blackboard Moodle Nings: Te Puna Ako, Community Coordinators, Teaching and Learning community Mindmeister CTLI wiki CTLI blog - Te Puna Ako news Unitec webmail Uniweb intranet
There were probably more sites and logins but that is about all I can remember right now. Vickel was assigned as my buddy and has helped me with finding my way around and getting all the HR things done. I think it will take quite at least a month to really get the lay of the land. Most publications on induction tell me it takes three months so I will keep that in mind.
I am looking forward to next week's eLearning Coordinators workshop. I can see some interesting conversations happening, and great challenges to sink my teeth into with the living curriculum and elearning strategy work this year.
I have moved from Wellington to Auckland. This involved getting quotes from moving companies and selecting a company to move my things, packing everything, choosing moving dates and finding a way to get my car to Auckland. Oh, also working out how to get myself to Auckland.
Moving my stuff: I asked people who they used and what they thought. I checked lots of websites and emailed or filled in online forms. After not much response I called companies. I learned that no one moves on Sundays in New Zealand. Or on Saturday afternoons. I found this hard to believe but had to accept that they were coming on a week day and I had to make arrangements for someone to meet them. I also learned that a good reputation and recommendations from several people does not mean they will get it right. My delivery was not correctly picked up (should have been labelled and a print out done at the house but that didnt happen) and then it was not delivered on the expected date with no phone calls telling me what was going on. They also managed to damage some items.
Getting my car to Auckland: Tom put my car on the train and it seemed pretty easy. He rang and delivered it to them on the same day (Tuesday) and they delivered it on time (Friday) with an easy pick up. No damage, no hard stuff. Pretty reasonable price of $325 including gst.
Getting me to Auckland: This got tricky. Although I had been living in Wellington, I had been working in Wellington, Christchurch and Twizel. As it turned out, my last two days of work (previous employment) were in Christchurch so I ended up flying direct to Auckland. It was cheaper than flying back to Wellington and meant I didnt have to take two flights that night. I made it with no hiccups.
The fragile stuff: I had been a bit worried about getting my saxophones to Auckland and my plants. My saxophones (a tenor and soprano) I put into my car to go on the train, that was evidently a good idea as the car arrived on time with no damage, wish I could say the same for the truck. I also put a bag of clothes into the car thankfully so I had something to wear to work on my first day. My plants would not have survived the trip I don't think so I replanted them and left them with my flatmates in Wellington - as they are all edible plants that should be useful or them.
Finding my way around Auckland again after almost four years away has been made easier by getting Tom to drive or using the GPS when I do drive. I am struggling with the thought of driving in the horrific traffic up here after the joy of walking to work, biking, or taking the electric trolley bus. I thought I could try the train from work to home or to Tom's work but got very stressed when I tried to work out how to get there, so will have to attempt that again another day. There is parking at work so I can drive but I don't like the damage I do to the planet taking the petrol car, so hopefully we will have the electric car road certified soon (or I will have worked out public transport options).
It is great to be closer to family again. My sister is 5 km down the road and my parents are both also living in Auckland so will be good to see them more often as well as my old friends after so long away.
The day started early. We were displaying the Carrott electrici mini and the Greenstage Saker electric race car in the Wellington Town Hall West Gallery and had to drive them across the town hall at 7am before the exhibition stands could be built.
After successfully setting up the cars I set up the Little Blue room. This was the kids space where we had olpc XO laptops, couches, little tables and chairs, cardboard cutout penguins with glue and scissors, a playground with basketball hoop and slide, Frets on Fire guitar programme, books, toys and colouring in. Actually this was the coolest kids room I have seen at any events lately and a number of adults hung out in there too.
The olpc volunteers manned the kids room as well as a Sugar stand where we talked to people about Sugar and gave out Sugar on a Stick.
There were some great exhibitors at the Open Day; full list on the LCA2010 wiki here. It was good to see Moodle and NZOSS there.
So my world has been complete chaos lately and there is lots to post about so I am going to make a list of things to post on and try to fill them in over the next few days:
So I am getting ready for the LCA2010 conference to be held in Wellington town hall 18-23 January 2010.
There are some fantastic keynotes and speakers throughout the whole conference so really looking forward to the whole week and have not a clue on how I will decide which speakers to see. Thank goodness they are video recording a lot so we can see the missed ones later.
The education miniconference is on Tuesday so I have been trying to make sure I have everything ready and the presenters have all that they need on the day.
Some people have asked me to help them see some of Wellington the weekend before so am looking at what can be done on Sunday. (Saturday there will be last olpc / sugarlabs get together to finalise what we are doing during education miniconf and during the Saturday Open Day - anyone who has nothing to do on Saturday will be welcome to join us at the Southern Cross from 11am).
Today I got shirts printed with olpc logo and business cards made. I managed to find good priced printers (since we have not acquired any sponsorship these sorts of things come from our own pockets).
When I asked about using olpc image on shirts and business cards, the conversation ended up with Adam Holt very kindly offering to send over some olpc postcards for us to give out too.
At the Open Day my time will be split between olpc area (where we will spread out the XO laptops and invite anyone and everyone to play with them), a Sugar booth (where people can come and get some "Sugar on a Stick" (USB key) to take home - free Sugar has got to be good for you), the Moodle stand, and the electric mini and Greenstage Saker electric racecar area. It sure will be a full on day.
At some point in the week I will have to squeeze in a trip to Te Papa to see the Killacycle, worlds fastest electric drag bike, and try to attend one of Bill Dube's talks. The Killacycle is touring NZ so if I miss it in Wellington, I can see it later in its tour.
I am also moving cities and starting a new job at the end of this month, so it is a busy time for me. Well, on that note, I better get back to it.
There are some very talented people out there and I wanted to take a moment to share a bit about one of those talented people: Tomaz Lasic.
I have followed Tomaz's blog for as long as I can remember. I enjoy hearing about his students and challenges he faces in his school, but one of the greatest things that he has contributed to the Moodle community is his 2 minute moodles (with a contribution note also to Julian Ridden who is also awesome but I will save his praise for another post).
I wanted to share one of my favourite of his videos with you (those of you who are Moodle users) and recommend you look at his channel on vimeo.
The Killacycle tour schedule is now public. The Killacycle is the worlds fastest electric drag bike and it will be travelling around New Zealand January / February 2010. Owner, Bill Dubé will be giving talks during the tour.
As part of the tour, you can also see the Greenstage Saker electric race car with owner Phil Court, host of the tour, and the Carrott Electric mini with owner Tom Parker.
So I am getting ready for the 
At the 
ke a moment to share a bit about one of those talented people: