Introduce yourself!

I’m Andrew Field, eLearning Manager for Cambridge International. I’ve made use of Moodle and Mahara for years, both as a teacher and then subsequently as an eLearning developer and practitioner.

I qualified as a history teacher in 1999, which itself is a long time in the past now. However, with the growth in the use of the internet as a tool for learning I was delighted to explore and prove the use of ICT to support effective teaching and learning. I’ve really been doing that ever since.

I developed a number of websites in the early 2000s, including the very popular www.SchoolHistory.co.uk where I produced eLearning games, online lessons, quizzes, together with a vast array of shared teaching resources and developments. This included a discussion forum for History teachers that became more popular than official government resources.

I developed lots of learning games and resources using Macromedia, then Adobe Flash. These included a whole range of quiz-based games such as Penalty Shootout, Walk the Plank, HoopShoot, Grade or No Grade, and the ever popular, Fling the Teacher. These were essentially all the same game - answer questions correctly, and then take a turn at the game. However, used effectively, these mini games had a great way of being an effective use of technology as a tool for learning. Getting learners to create their own questions, then even develop their own versions, was a great way of flipping the concept.

Due to the growth and development in technology, I became a Head of ICT and Computing in 2005. This saw me improving my initial self-hosted version of Moodle (started, I’m sure, in late 2003) into something much more powerful and usable. We placed our entire curriculum online and continued to explore new learning opportunities. I was involved in the emerging Building Schools for the Future work, looking for ways to ensure teachers and learners could make the very best use of technology for learning.

After 15 years teaching, I joined Cambridge International, part of the Cambridge Assessment group, in 2015. Here I inherited a great Moodle & Mahara based Online Learning Area which was initially focused on our Global Perspectives qualifications. I’ve been delighted to extend, enhance, and develop its use so now, in 2020, we’re making use of connected Moodle and Mahara tools to support every subject across the organisation. The fact that teachers and learners around the world don’t always know they are using the tools is an interesting concept. Whilst I’d love them to know how much Open Source they are using, I’m actually really pleased that the focus is on the learning rather than what technology is being used.

I love exploring the use of online tools to enhance the opportunities for teaching and learning. Whether this is online games that I developed early on in my career, creative & engaging tools to add value to existing teaching, or supporting the use of portfolio and online learning tools, I’m still eager for us to do so much more. The scale of use of the responses I’ve been involved in developing during the current pandemic has been amazing - it shows the enthusiasm and appetite even more than ever for valued added use of technology for learning.

I think I’ve written enough now. Well done if you’ve read this far.

Bonjour!

Like Sam Taylor, I am one of the Product Specialists at Catalyst IT Europe, with a key focus on Moodle and Mahara.

My experience is initially in secondary education, then universities. I was a Learning technologist at Cranfield University and the Royal Agricultural University (RAU) before working with Catalyst IT EU.

I use this experience and product knowledge to advise educators and technologists on optimising their use of Mahara, including advice on implementation and training. 
I love hearing new user stories and ways to best utilise the open technology that's available to us.

I'm looking forward to this event and hearing everyone's experiences. Have a great #Mahui20 !

Hey there,

I teach at a vocational school in Germany, the Berufliche Schulen in Korbach und Bad Arolsen.  My original subjects are Business and Administration and English as a Foreign Language. For the last 15 years I have been working in teacher training in addition to my normal teaching job (Hessische Lehrkräfteakademie). I focus on how to use technology like smartphones or tablets in order to enrich the student‘s learning experience. 

Moodle has been part of my lessons since 2007 and in 2012, we started using mahara as well. I am a great fan of both systems and believe that a combination of moodle and mahara is the perfect setup for digital learning. If you would like to contact me: christine.duelfer@bildung.hessen.de 

Hi Everyone,

My name is Ingrid and I am a newbie.

Although I have played around with Mahara for years, the last two years have seen me more involved in our local Mahara instance - from the ground up!

Yes, I have almost been a one (wo)man bandwagon with an internal instance and recently we decided to move to a Managed Hosting with Catalyst. 

So, at this stage, I have nothing to 'add' or share but hope to be more active in the community once we build our experience and exposure to the platform. 

One thing I am really excited about is the Moodle Assignment Plugin (testing begins soon). We have needed this due to our large class size (over 300) and many, many markers. The LTI just didn't suit our needs!

Hope to virtually meet you soon but it may only be this morning as we are at the end of our (working) day here in Melbourne.

Have an awesome day and thank you for sharing it with the world!

Ingrid

I am the eLearning & Innovation Officer for the University of Glasgow's College of Arts, advising on Technology Enhanced Learning & Teaching at strategic and local levels, facilitating project activity, and providing specialist support to the 4 Schools of the CoA on Digital Learning, Moodle, Mahara, and all aspects of eLearning, online assessment and learner engagement.  I am also the chair of MacHara, the Scottish Mahara User group.

 Before taking up this role I was the Learning Technologist for the School of Veterinary Medicine for 7 years, transforming curriculum delivery into a fully blended interactive syllabus, and supporting staff and students develop confidence in using multimedia, eLearning and technology, with a particular focus on Moodle and Mahara.

Previously I was the Learning Technologist for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, encouraging use of technology, digital and social media within performing arts education. My past career includes roles as Learning Innovation Officer at Skills Development Scotland and learndirect scotland, managing the national learning bytes online platform, leading on EQUAL funded partnership projects, and delivering services to enhance learning opportunities nationally, Course Manager and Lecturer roles in Life Sciences within FE/HE institutions in England, and several years conducting research in applied animal behaviour and welfare, with a particular focus on zoo and exotic animals.

My name is Julian Elve, and I lead digital services for for SSAT, the Schools ,Students and Teachers network, where we are committed to improving education for every child through providing CPD and networking services to school leaders and teachers.

After a necessary and urgent pivot to online delivery at the start of the pandemic we are now placing our digital delivery on a more considered footing. this will include e-portfolio work throughout a number of our programmes delivered on Mahara.

My role is at several levels: on the one hand it as CTO,  I have had to get hands-on with Mahara (and Moodle) code to integrate them into our environments; I am also working alongside our Director of School Improvement to develop our e-learning strategy.

Much of the power of Mahara clearly lies in the way people use it, so trying to split my attention between education and developer tracks at this Hui.

#developer #strategy #pedagogy #Moodle #Mahara

Hello

I work as Educational Technologist for the University of the Highlands and Islands, based on the Isle of Skye.  Prior to that I was Technical Director of a multimedia networking company based in Galway, Ireland, mostly working on EU research projects.  

In my current role, I advise, train and support staff and students (FE and HE) across the UHI network on a wide range of educational technologies including Mahara.  I've been the Mahara administrator since we started using Mahara ~ 2011.   

I'm one of the senior developers at Catalyst EU.

While I've only been working in the e-learning sector for the last 3 years, I've been doing PHP development for most of the last 20 years, across various industries and disciplines.

My main focus at Catalyst is integration - Moodle/Mahara is the obvious candidate, but I also consult, design and implement various solutions with MNET, SAML, LDAP and other SSO integrations.

The other part of my time as a senior developer is in supporting all of our clients with whatever custom development they want to, either working on the design and/or implementation - I've somehow found myself involved on pretty much every large development Catalyst EU has done over the last 3 years, which keeps it varied and interesting, and means that each use I see of EdTech inspires something for the next.

Hi, I'm Richard,

I'm now working with Catalyst-EU helping source solutions for HEIs, NGOs and corporate training teams. My background is as an educator (20 years in Primary teaching) before moving into HE as a Learning Technologist and Moodle/Mahara Developer and Administrator. I have been active on the Moodle community forums for a number of years and I'm enthusiastic about all things EdTech and Open.