MoodleNet-MootUS17

At the MoodleMoot in Miami (November 2017) we asked participants for their input to the MoodleNet project. The slides and etherpad from that session can be found below;

• #MootUS17 etherpad: https://devpad.moodle.org/p/MoodleNet
• Slides: https://goo.gl/rvPjj7

We asked participants to think about their 'hopes', 'fears', and 'dreams' for the MoodleNet project.

Hopes

• Packaged for competency frameworks (i.e. quality matters)
• Trustworthy
• Our faculty are willing to share some learning objects
• People will provide feedback
• Sharing good practice and experiences
• People will improve content
• Share content made with Moodle
• Access to GOOD quality OER content
• Addictive
• Works in all LMS
• It's easy to share and pull in resources into Moodle
• Activity from HQ
• A resource that all teachers, instructional designers, support people, etc. will go to for the best examples that Moodle could offer
• Portals for different role communities w/ chat (like AOL in the 90's). Who's online?
• Simple user interface
• Place to share our work - like Facebook timeline. A gallery of what people have done.
• Sharing of best practices
• Is promoted / marketed effectively and appropriately
• Contributed objects will have a review or discussion area so they can be community evaluated for appropriate uses
• Integration of partners to provide support for questions. One-stop shop
• Faculty development opportunities
• Create amazing courses - fashion
• Repository of activities for re-purposing
• A place to see examples of ways Moodle is being used by others
• A portfolio for teachers that REPLACES LinkedIn
• Option to contribute anonymously; option to require attribution or not
• It becomes a major player in the social media world
• One button to update content pulled from MoodleNet
• Great platform for sharing best practices
• All user forums posts are responded to
• Easy to navigate
• Gallery of courses to view to get inspiration for developing my courses
• Option to find others for content development
• Definition of moodle.net - users and dev. where you ask for features?
• Replace current Moodle community
• Rating system and reviews on content
• Have community facilitators
• User interface feels like Yammer / Facebook / Teams
• Share problems and quickly identify issues
• More regular teachers involved
• Access to great open courseware
• Paid bounty for support
• Students USE it =)
• Open
• Moderated
• Sexy interface
• Stays relevant for a long time
• Highly configurable
• Synchronous options to communicate
• Enhanced engagement w/ community knowledge holders
• Help me find Moodle resources
• Access to free training from HQ and partners
• Content is shared in such a way that it can be used by users of other LMSs too
• Different sections for different user types (dev/teacher/design)
• Feature to request someone review your content before you post
• Content is tagged to make it easy to find content you can use
• A place for users to connect with consultants for paid support
• Features like Meetup to let teachers get together to have conversations
• Find stuff easily
• "Integration with every Moodle site" is not intrusive
• Documentation will be kept up to date
• An easy way to find information
• Corresponding tags to identify pedagogy / curriculum / paradigm
• Be very easy to use
• A platform for students from different fields to connect
• Be open to all interested
• Will run the SAME as the original app
• Single sign-on for all users for all sites
• Connects people best practices + technical
• Some filtering so it doesn't get weighed down with crap that isn't useful
• Seamless
• I can get paid or attributed for content
• Way to connect with other Moodlers
• Suggested tutorials broken down by role (teacher / admin / developer)
• Have a great search function
• To understand what MoodleNet is
• Help me connect with other Moodle users
• A place to share educational material
• Bring the Moodle community together in a coherent way
• Variety of realworld content for all industries
• Different user roles so connections can be made at appropriate levels. Assignable groups.
• Get traction with students actually using it
• Have ability to favorite / follow content or creators
• Market for helping others
• Pull request like GitHub for improving content
• Reuse activities from a course on one site on another
• I could help people with Moodle and get paid
• Manage to get contribution in my Moodle vs. having another login
• High level of activity
• Place to share ideas
• Perfect place to learn Moodle
• Channels for grouping and identifying self
• Share/barter expertise with real-time feedback
• Crowdsourcing solutions and/or finding community members who can help, troubleshoot, brainstorm, etc.
• Easy to find usergroups
• Provides an open stream of communication with the various groups in the Moodle community (e.g. devs, support, etc.)
• Use Moodle FB to specifically show updates/videos
• Collaboration
• FREE TOAST =)
• Helping place
• Collaborative knowledge base
• Places where developers, designers, and users can interact
• Video tutorials
• Knowledge base
• Go to the help center
• Help desk
• Button to create audio file from a text file
• Easy path to component installation
• Includes discussion forums for asking questions of similar roled users
• Repository of courses, packages, analytics. this could save instructors lots of time putting courses together.
• Crowd sourcing for plugins
• It facilitates positive change in Moodle core
• Allowing different roles in Moodle to "cross-over" in a comfortable way
• Better understanding of what MoodleNet is
• Incentive based engagement
• Share ideas on how to use Moodle

Fears

• The capabilities in Moodle will not be appropriate for instructors to use objects from MoodleNet w/o admin assistance
• Don't want to be forced to use the service
• Safety/security for K12 student involvement
• Not well moderated/monitored
• Schools will be afraid to move/change
• Lack of administration or moderation to the website
• Doesn't work - won't use it
• It becomes too commercial and loses primary focus
• Moodle goes away
• No-one cares or notices content
• Big Brother danger with all websites connected
• Accessibility issues
• It's another platform I have to remember to use
• Takes too much time
• Participation takes too much time
• High barrier of entry
• Lack of activity
• We use 3rd party modules; wouldn't be supported
• Too many new things going on - quantity trumps quality
• It might get outdated quickly
• We don't want to lose our Moodle.org PHM status + reputation
• It becomes work
• It can't pay for itself
• Easy to ignore
• Increase complexity for Moodle owners
• What we create does not improve what is already available
• To be able to interact socially in person & not only in social networks
• MySpace blink tags
• Have to provide course support
• Ends up with too much content that makes it hard to find the "good stuff"
• Too complex
• Poor UI resulting in less usage
• Inadequate documentation
• Not used by the vast majority of Moodle users
• It won't happen for years
• Effort fizzles, nothing materializes
• It will cost too much
• Getting closer to online education may lead to lack of direct interaction with teacher & other students & discipline
• Becoming too relaxed, not being innovative
• Data used to sell me things
• Fear of sharing because others will steal my stuff
• No-one uses it
• Copyright violations and lawsuits
• Too technologically intimidating for instructors
• Management of content
• Content control
• Content layout
• Bad content
• Also open
• Blackboard buyout turns it into a for-profit and injects ads
• People won't know how to share
• Make teachers and staff need me less
• Anti-techy, educator-only
• Will get as much HQ attention as mod.lesson
• Another MySpace site
• Only works in IE6
• MoodleNet becomes the "education" Facebook
• Content does not apply to customized Moodle sites

Dreams

• World peace through understanding + education
• Community builder using LTI to build larger collaborative learning communities
• It is used by >80% of educators in the world
• Facilitators recruitment in information educational technologies
• Snake wearing vest pushing do-nut down a hill
• Forum threads with answered questions - moodle.stackoverflow.com
• Machine translation between Moodle that is as good as a human so that anyone can take any class
• Digital MoodleMoot (meet others using Moodle)
• Open
• Critical mass where education + reason hold sway over fear + anger
• MoodleNet displaces textbook publisher OER
• Filtering through the information
• Q&A
• Troubleshooting
• Help agent
• Facilitates: recruitment + hiring resources
• Instant popup notification each time user logs in based on your interests & history
• More regular teachers engaged on Moodle
• Have Patreon model
• Connecting students across the globe
• Connect students with experts
• Seamless integration with Moodle using an interface within Moodle to upload and download content
• Collection of all OER sources by topics
• "Social media" transfer protocol
• Connect w/ others w/ the same goals
• Link to other Moodle sites/guests
• Cool UI features like video service integrations, live streams, virtual events
• Collaborative plugin BETA releases
• FREE!
• Sign into Facebook using MoodleNet
• Shared technical specifications
• Revolutionize education and learning
• A person can take over my screen and fix the problem
• LTI support
• Have content marketplace for not just Moodle
• Way to get someone to help fix/set up site in realtime - for free
• Universal badges for everyone
• Better world
• All plugins will be moved here as well
• Augmented reality

Affinity group responses

Participants also split into affinity groups to think about what people in a particular role or position would find it useful for MoodleNet to provide.

Admin (techie)

Why?

• Big supply of expertise available - for $
• Provide easy quick options for one time support beyond forums (paid?)
• Empower more people who need that little push to be successful
• Big supply of expertise available - for free
• Moodle users work in many contexts
• Effective use of Moodle requires expertise from many disciplines - multiple skillsets
• Need immediate feedback / input / help
• Moodle itself is not a great repository of resources, knowledge (i.e. forums, documentation insufficient)

How?

• Staff to consolidate knowledge FACILITATORS therefore making it easily searchable
• Ability to identify help for appropriate user types (i.e. bus intelligence)
• Search like Google - what do anyways
• Use Google - access topic within Moodle AND other resources
• More effective search
• Consolidated knowledge of optics - maybe lists, active, of 'who can help'

What?

• Moodle (match.com) - matching ppl who need w/ people who can offer
• Way to access other experts and collaborate
• Quick reliable responses to help requests
• User-friendly documentation
• Better documentation
• Way to connect and pool resources

New users (less than one year)

Why?

• N/A (answered by Moodle mission)

How?

• Course template builder
• Site building wizard (a match.com version for Moodle)
• A separate area where new users can access with ease
• Answer critical early stage questions

What?

• Moodle integration wizard
• A regular website for new users

Learners

Why?

• Moodle mission

How?

• Connect learners with instructors for the purpose of improving course design and usage
• Learner friendly roadmap vs Jira dev roadmap
• Measuring learner/educator efficacy
• Learners request new features into Moodle
• Student feedback about Moodle within Moodle

What?

• Shared learning techniques & resources for similar courses at possible different locations
• Professional note taking
• Paid & enhanced services that learners buy into (professional help)
• Learners share self-created educational resources
• Learners able to connect with devs
• Learners can go for career opportunities in education
• Student consulting groups for disciplines / professions
• Tutoring & mentoring
• Office hours with educator not tied to location where learner is
• Portfolio for learners
• Moodle.net certification / degree
• Student focus groups for educators, companies, schools

Educators

Why?

• Empower, improve, connect, effect, vision

How?

• Direct connection to similar educators
• Filtered search to find materials
• Badges + certification
• Strong facilitator
• Open source content
• Incentive + challenges
• Direct connection to resources

What?

• Resources
• Best practices
• User rating + reporting
• Fun practices

Developers

Why?

• Connect
• Contain valid and current docs
• Feature request trend tracking
• Earn a living as a developer
• Development community support
• Build & value analytics based on communication
• 3rd party plugin support
• Make users jobs easier

How?

• Service matchmaking
• Anonymiser share data sets
• Move dev docs in git version ctrl
• Non techie & legal language for techies to use
• Anon donations of code or data
• Gather needs of users
• Sysadmin matchmaker for short-term assist
• Meeting coordination for devs & others
• Connects clients w/ devs
• 3rd party support recruiting
• Connect devs w/ devs
• Theme/plugin marketplace
• Tag questions & answers w/ versions
• Test LTI etc.
• Feature bounties
• Data sampling - abstraction
• Instructions for enhancing courses w/ out plugin - LTI-like
• Needs matchmaker
• Reputation
• Tag contributions by intended audience

What?

• Meeting space e.g. BBB
• Rating of support as well as dev't & clients
• Live chats?
• Moderation? Filters?
• Report repository SQL etc.
• Shared data sets
• Crowdfunding features for plugin

Out of scope

• Diaspora*
• Easier updating Moodle
• Hidden pointed pixels all apps
• Ability to isolate test case data for behot?

Instructional designers

Why?

• What other users are using?
• Desire content sharing across users
• Communicate to other IDs using Moodle
• ID focused connected users

How?

• Profile account history
• Profiles tell MoodleNet what content to show based on role
• Can we see other people course design?
• How did you do the course?
• Courses are designed
• Need to collaborate
• Share designs for constructivists
• IDs able to help other users
• Most popular stuff - have it notify IDs to use it
• Consultant meet need of problems - experience in certain area
• Links to Learn Moodle etc.
• Share training resources

What?

• "Follow" other IDs
• List of institutions w/ profiles of what plugins & integrations
• Moodle product reviews - integration, feedback, etc.
• See + share course designs
• Collaboration & build a model
• Watch someone interact with my course? - see how stumble
• Open source to see other course?
• Shared course shells
• ID live chats?
• Showcase the courses
• Venting area - overcome issues / how to fall into line
• Like & dislikes feature (saved to profile)
• Moodle research project (portal)

Out of scope

• How to install plugins - easy explanations (non-developer)
• How-to courses for all roles
• Moodle HQ live chat
• Moot takeaways info