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Preston / Reservoir Adult Community Education |
PRACE |
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interview with Martin Dougiamas
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overviewMichael Chalk wanted to know more about the brains behind "Moodle" - the latest 'Learning Management System' to storm the world. This one is an open source product - Martin Dougiamas is the creator of a new 'learning management system' - known as "Moodle". He has described Moodle as an "acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment .. [and] .. also a verb that describes the process of lazily meandering through something .. an enjoyable tinkering that often leads to insight and creativity". Thanks again, Martin, for agreeing to an interview. You're welcome! You've come from a background in Computer Science and Education - how has this dual approach (also reflected in your description of the 'meandering acronym' above) fed your enjoyment of both the technical and pedagogical aspects of online learning - the interface between the machine and human learning ? Oh, it's all very inter-related ... despite the unforgiving rules of computer code, the process of creating software is actually a very colourful, human activity filled with interpretation and multiple meanings. My interest has always been in the pragmatic applications of technology - I believe technology is useless unless people can grapple with it. That's why our development community is deliberately framed as a learning community (within a Moodle site, what's more) Only one year since you released Version 1.0, and there are reportedly 500 sites in over sixty countries using Moodle - you must be thrilled at such a rapid uptake? Could you tell us about the experience of discovering so many people interested in your work? Those are just registered sites - there are actually many more sites out there than that - I see them in Google or coming in via referrer links. It's *amazing* to see so many sites, it really is. I always knew I was onto a good thing, but to see others taking hold of Moodle and using it to power their own various dreams is really terrific. The largest user I know is using Moodle for 3700 courses and 18,000 students, which makes it comparable to the University where I started working on Moodle - it's a nice feeling to have come this far in such a short time. .. and what do you think has attracted so many users? Well, being Free helps. I also think the simplicity of the design attracts many who might find the alternatives quite complicated and a little daunting. Moodle was recently rated very highly in an independent review of a full range of open source learning management systems (Rob Reynolds at Xplana.com) - did this review vindicate the many hours you've spent dedicated to the process? Well, it's just one review of many, but yes, it was
great to see that. From my perspective Moodle is still a baby ... I have
big plans for it, but it's good to see that it is already competing so
well against systems that have a much larger backing behind them. |
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interview with Martin Dougiamas
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How to contact us at Preston/Reservoir Adult Community Education (PRACE) |
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Physical: Merrilands Community Centre, cnr Asquith & Sturdee Streets, Reservoir, 3073. Postal: PO Box 510 |
Phone:
9462 6077 |
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prace.vic.edu.au