On July 6-10, we hosted over 1300 attendees from 88 countries participating in up to 250 live-streamed presentations and interactive sessions at our biggest online Moodle conference: MoodleMoot Global Online 2020. The event gathered educators, instructional designers, open source developers and learning technologists from around the world to share and learn good practices in the use of the world’s open source learning platform: Moodle.

Across five days, organisations and professionals shared good practices with our open source Moodle LMS in education, workplace and research environments. The spirit of knowledge-sharing and collaboration to improve the quality of education was the leitmotif of the event, which gathered speakers and attendees from 88 countries.

“Thank you to the #MootGlobal20 organizers for a fantastic online conference experience. It has been a perfect mix of the how and the why of online learning, with so much best practice and innovation on offer”. Dr. Deanna Horvath, La Trobe University

Challenges and opportunities of fully online learning

The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 has transformed the way in which people teach, learn and collaborate. At #MootGlobal20, the Moodle community showed the hard work that they’ve been doing to move to fully online teaching and learning while still providing solid quality learning experiences.

From corporate organisations to small schools, learning technologists shared how they had leveraged Moodle to support students and colleagues during lockdowns, as well as valuable lessons learnt for better blended and online learning in the future.

During the Covid-19 school lockdowns, @tamarindtree2 launched an online platform on #Moodle open to all primary students in India, building a School without walls. pic.twitter.com/JjadgrNNm4

— MoodleMoot Global | July 6-10 (@mootglobal) July 6, 2020

The last few months have been an incredible adventure in learning & teaching with my @LTUnutrition team- tonight we celebrate our development work for using Moodle as a collaborative training hub for academic staff to transition to online delivery during COVID-19 #MootGlobal20 pic.twitter.com/qaSPKUJvoK

— Jess Biesiekierski, PhD RNutr (@JessBersa) July 7, 2020

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint” Digital Education Team Manager at @uofglasgow, @JennnCrow, shares how the University quickly shifted to online learning – with sustainability and long-term in mind. #MootGlobal20 pic.twitter.com/1NMr0PUTcJ

— MoodleMoot Global | July 6-10 (@mootglobal) July 9, 2020

 

A virtual venue with real networking!

Thanks to a virtual venue built entirely on Moodle Workplace, attendees enjoyed a real conference experience with many opportunities to network and connect with fellow Moodle users. 

Our Networking Cafe, where attendees could sit at tables and video chat with each other, proved to be one of the most popular areas of the event.

 

The coolest cafe I’ve been to in a while – really felt like a coffee break in an actual moodle conference. I grabbed a seat at the Table called “cool peoples table” and met some seriously committed opensource guys @mootglobal pic.twitter.com/9rq1qPWW5w

— Michelle (@michelle_dahanu) July 6, 2020

 

The forums at the online venue gave attendees and speakers an asynchronous communication channel, where they could have deeper conversations and discussions about topics that had been presented in the sessions.

Good tool for the #MootGlobal20 based on #Moodle with lots of talks into Forums and access to all participants! Well done @moodle @mootglobal https://t.co/OnyuqA483D pic.twitter.com/GicqdH1Lvi

— Diana Andone (@diando70) July 6, 2020

 

Building the next Moodle together with our community

The global Moodle community of educators, researchers and developers play a very important role in the making of our open source LMS. At #MootGlobal20, our Product Managers shared what’s coming up in the roadmap for the Moodle LMS, Moodle Workplace and Moodle Education.

“Very interesting presentation about the future of Moodle LMS and Workplace. Details about that were expected, and we got them!” Serge Fleussu, Techno-pedagogical structure and development manager.

The team at Moodle HQ also had the invaluable opportunity to get input from the Moodle community and to know first-hand what goals and needs they want to fulfil with our learning platform, strengthening our commitment to providing the world with the most effective platform for online teaching and learning.

“This has been a great experience as a teacher and learning technologist. It’s important to put ourselves in the shoes of our students & a five-day conference like this enables us to. 

Loads of useful advice coming from practitioners and visionaries. More convinced than ever that LMSs are crucial for schools, universities, corporate training… Also, more convinced than ever that Moodle has a bright future ahead”. Eamon Kelly, Education Technology Consultant.

 

Bringing together over 1300 professionals from the education and technology fields, MoodleMoot Global Online 2020 was a success as Moodle HQ’s first and biggest online event. We love to see how the Moodle community continues to grow with committed educators and open source developers who believe in collaborating to provide quality education. So one thing is clear: Online MoodleMoots are here to stay! 

If you want to keep up with all that’s happening in the Moodle world including conferences, new software releases and educational initiatives, subscribe to our newsletter.

The post 1300 participants, 88 countries and 250 interactive sessions over 5 days at MoodleMoot Global Online 2020 appeared first on Moodle.