 Roeddwn i'n meddwl â Allyson i唯ed Gweithrediol, oherwydd hen Alyson a Roby yn y gweithiau sy'n ei bwysig i'r gweithio mewn cymdeithasol y byddwn i'n mynd o supermarketau. Felly iddyn nhw wedi跃 yw'r gweithiau. Rwy'n ymdian nhw'n sefyrdd gweithiau sy'n meddwl a llwyddiad dwi'n ei wneud i gael rwyf yn L-ele Moodle, ac yn y bêl yma wrth gwrs o'u bydd arno enwedig yn ei bwysig i'w mynd i'w bwysig i'w yma. There might be a change in management, or there might be a re-shifting of departments and things like that. But, after having been asked this a couple of times, I just decided, oh here, you know... Are we really asking the right questions of moodle? So I want to explore that a little bit with you today and see maybe what you think of it. Or if you have any pearls of wisdom for me, maybe by the end of the presentation. That's my Twitter handle as well either during the presentation or afterwards. If you have anything to say about it, please connect with me. I'd love to kind of continue the conversation. So in terms of kind of situating me, you're getting a little road trip through Ireland. You were in Dublin just in the previous presentation. This is where we are in Athlone. Martin mentioned OER 19. That was in Galway, so the other side. So it's a little road trip across the middle of Ireland. And that's our campus. We were one of 13 institutes of technology in higher education Ireland. Those numbers are dwindling because we're changing. We're repurposing and renaming. And we have technological universities now as well on that landscape. So the numbers are dropping, but we're still currently in Institute of Technology. And as I say, that's our campus. It's small. That's about 5,000, few 5,000, 6,000 full-time and part-time students across a range of disciplines. We have faculty of science, faculty of business and engineering. And we have both a strong research focus because we have Level 10 programmes. And those of you who are familiar with the NFQ framework for Ireland's National Frameworks for Qualifications, we're on this side. So the yellow and the purple, that's us, right up to Level 10. But we also have a very strong industry focus. So lots of applied programmes with placements and so on and really lots of links with local industry. We're really embedded in the community and that's something we're quite proud of. My role has also changed quite a bit. I started back in 2000 as a French and German lecturer. And now I am that. So it's slightly different. But I am currently in the Graphic Design Department working with students and I also teach digital applications in the Faculty of Business. So I wear money hats. But since 2007, I've also had the role of education developer and I was kind of trying to grapple a little bit with these titles. So in the room, you know, are you a learning technologist? I'm going to raise your hand if you're a learning technologist. Any educational developers? What else have we got? Instructional designers? You've got a three or four different hats, yeah. It depends on the day of the week which one I choose because the jobs, you know yourselves, the job is quite varied, yeah. So at the moment I'm going with educational developer with a strong technology focus. So I think that covers quite a bit. And I'm kind of moodle teaching support as well since 2007. And I have to do a shout out to Anthony who is also here from Athlon IT who is the brains behind the moodle administrator and does all the tech stuff as well. So, but we have been working together quite a long time trying to help people to get to grips with moodle and see how we could use it in lots and lots of different ways. And that's what this is about. So it's kind of like a little jigsaw if you like of the kinds of ways that we use moodle. So you've got your standard undergraduate. I'm going to have a look at my pointer here. So the standard undergraduate programs that you're all familiar with. We've also got our postgraduate programs again up to level 10. Again, you're all familiar with that as well. But we've been trying to branch out really to try and be an inclusive Institute so that we have our academic supports. We have an academic writing page and academic writing center. I mean, try and encourage students to go there to use Tarnadine as a formative tool to look at the resources that we have then in terms of improving their skills. And we also have peer assisted student support. Do any of you know PASS? Manchester was one of the places where PASS actually originated. So it's a support system, a peer system where secondary students help first year students settling in college. So we use moodle for that as well and the PASS mentor is really actively involved in looking at how educational technology might help them. We have recently as well, we have kind of short courses and I was delighted to see Steven's presentation yesterday because we started looking at CPD, particularly for our placement supervisors because they need that kind of on-the-job knowledge, if you like. They don't necessarily need an accredited programme. They need something short and sweet and we're using moodle for that as well. So plenty of hats. And the one we've started as well down there in the bottom left-hand corner are badges. Believe it or not, we're only just using badges. How many of you are using badges for ages, I suppose? Yeah? I don't know. But for us anyway, we've only just started using badges and they are great. They're great. So I'm delighted to see that our badges have been awarded and our badges have been awarded to visiting Chinese academics. So they're going home in June with two badges, one for learning, teaching and assessment and the other one for technology-enhanced learning and they're thrilled with them as well. We couldn't offer it, excuse me, we couldn't offer accreditation but we could offer a microcredential and that's why I think that we're really looking into those kind of those achievements or recognition of achievements. So that's kind of us as well and we have our PG DIP. We have our accredited education programme with lots of modules where Moodle and lots of different technologies are embedded in the system and I suppose for me the key thing is it's embedded in our practice. We kind of don't really think about it too much and I'll get to why that's important in a little bit. So this is where we started, picture it Friday afternoon and nobody else wants to be around. There were six technology enthusiasts in a very old computer lab in AIT and two software engineers had found a new tool and they wanted to show it to us but that new tool was Moodle. I was teaching French and German and if you can imagine, I was trying to find authentic resources and I was constantly having to point students to a URL here and a link there and so on and all of a sudden Moodle was going to give me a space to put it all in to structure it and construct activities around. So I was thrilled and I haven't looked back. However, along the way we had this and this and this and this and this and there are a few more that I could have put in there as well. Policies and strategies and maps and more. Do you ever feel that you just bogged down a little bit with all the policies and all the strategies? The intentions are good but it stifles innovation a little bit and when you find that you've got to be responding to whenever you have an innovative idea you've got to be responding to a strategy. Find the page in the strategic plan where that links to it then you'll get the funding. So this is kind of where we're at at the moment and there are more to come and I'm sure that it's similar for a lot of you as well. And from that point of view I suppose I was thinking we're reflecting now. We are, I suppose, what are we now? 15 years, is that right? 15 years using Moodle last year and we're kind of trying to think well where are we going to go now? And last year I suppose you're asking why on earth is this or what has this got to do with Moodle? Last year I was looking at the website after the Moodle Mood and I came across the core values. Was it last year that Martin introduced the core values? I came across the core values on Moodle and it was a bit of a light bulb moment because for me in our institution Moodle has become so embedded in practice it's another dare I say it, another IS. Just a system, yeah, or so we thought. And all of a sudden here we had a group of people talking about core values aligning themselves to UN sustainable goals and then really talking about a mission statement and that was quite transformative for me because it made me think about where we stood. So getting bogged down in all of this it made me step back and look at what Moodle was trying to do and then see well where do we fit in or does it even align to where we're going? And I don't know if you saw it yesterday but I misquoted Martin. I wanted to change the world not just improve it so in my head somewhere as an educator that's what I want to do. So I had a look at the core values and I went back to our own strategic plan. Do you all know your own mission statement from your institution? Could you quote it for me? Yeah, your core values? Your goal? I didn't, I didn't. So I went back and I had a look at it. This is ours. I'll give you a minute to read it. I've highlighted the word impact because I think in the current climate we really do need to have a different kind of impact in education particularly higher education. So it's broad-ranging and that was our strategic plan up to 2018. We're doing another one now just to see if we can follow on from that and that's our compass. That's supposed to guide us, okay? Do you always go back to your institute vision or goal when you're thinking about a new and innovative idea? This is supposed to guide us. Those are our values. I'm not sure if you can see them but we have the inclusive focus, excellence in teaching and research, partnership, collaboration and teamwork, transparency and accountability, and professionalism, integrity, truth and collegiality. That's our catchphrase if you like. Truth is great and it will prevail. Just think about that one in today's context. A lot of fake news going around. So those are our values but I wanted to see did Moodle's values align with ours? So I did a mapping exercise. You're all familiar with these. I think they're incredible. I think as a compass for a company to have it's an incredible set of values. And they do match. They do map and I was delighted to see it. I was kind of hoping they would because otherwise we were in trouble but they do match and I was able to move them around and see that yes, we have aligned our values and yes, we're on the same page which is really important for me. So what does that mean? Does it really matter if our values are aligned? This is quite high level thinking I suppose. On the day to day basis this is the kind of stuff that we're doing. The cannot do this tends to come from EMT where people aren't using Moodle on a regular basis but they are the decision makers. So the key decisions they make are cost, reliability, support, availability which you would expect. Moving on to the educators and I asked them that. We did a survey a couple of years ago and those of you who are from Ireland would know that the VLE project there are two papers I put at the end of it about staff and student impressions of the VLE and I suppose what staff really wanted was ease of access, reliability and good training so that they could use the tools and students wanted access to content, flexibility and different kinds of assessment ideas. So very much the micro level, day to day running of the business not really talking about high level philosophical statements like visions and goals but it does matter. It does matter that we're singing on the same sing from the same hymn sheet because otherwise this kind of thing can happen. Do you recognise it? Yeah? The latest digital bling. Are you guilty of it? Yeah? You know that the magpie is attracted to shiny things. Well I found that of late there are lots and lots of companies looking for buying for attention and it's who has the shiniest newest thing and if you have it and you can actually promote it well enough then you're more than likely going to get an audience particularly amongst the group who are the decision makers. So I was trying to counteract that and I was trying to figure out why is it that people aren't looking at Moodle? Moodle has all of those things. You know we can do all of the kind of the shiny new things but I actually decided I suppose I came to the realisation. Moodle is like a comfy pair of slippers. It's the thing that we've been using it since 2003. We're really comfortable with it. It's embedded in our practice. We've started learning about new things in a really organic way. It's conversations over coffee, meeting in the corridor, actually looking to see we're sharing maybe a programme. What are you using? Can I do that too? So it has been really, really organic in its growth. We're almost at 100% capacity in terms of our teaching staff and that's approximately 200 people. There'll always be the laggards. There'll always be the people who just won't engage but that's okay because that's life. But we've got a really good engagement rate of them from the academics. And what we valued as well was that teacher autonomy. You know academic freedom is really important for faculty and we've let them do their own thing. We haven't imposed templates. There's no top-down kind of decisions being imposed. What's happening is the students are saying can you use it? And the staff are saying well how do you do that? It's going to make my life easier. It's going to make my teaching better. So we're not shouting it from the rooftops. It's kind of a suroptitious group. We're underground and that has had a negative effect because there's a lack of visibility in the upper echelons of our institute. And there's also a perceived lack of innovation. We haven't been shouting from the rooftops all the cool stuff we've been doing but now there's a perception that we're actually not doing anything at all. So the focus is on the wrong stuff. So what do we need to do? First off I wanted to look at those high-level questions. What do we want from Moodle? Okay what do we want from our LMS? We always call it a virtual learning environment as opposed to a learning management system because it brings everything together. We've used lots of social tools. We've used lots of other tools but Moodle brings it all together. It's our one-stop shop for our students and it's a platform that they can easily access and particularly with mobile app. It's readily available for students. So we use a mobile app but we'll probably push it a little bit more after the Moodle Mood. How can Moodle help us get where we want to go? Think of our compass. What do we want to do? We want to have an impact across research and industry. And then can we learn from the wider Moodle community? I think what I've taken away from this Moodle Mood is that real sense of community and I'll be at the Moodle Nest workshop later on just to see how that can happen. I think we've been in our little silo and we haven't really reached out and I think it's time for us to do that. I haven't been at a moot in about five years and things have changed and moved on quite a bit so I'm delighted that I came back. And then this shared vision of what higher education can do. I know it's quite high level. I know it's quite philosophical. My God, look at what's happening nowadays. Look at what's happening. Pick a country and think about the impact that we could have in higher education on the future leaders of our countries. So high level stuff. But then let's get down to the practicalities. We have Moodle, what we call champions or coaches. They're going to be getting involved with Moodle Nest. Our mobile app, we haven't really pushed it. We're definitely going to look at that a little bit more. I think we need to start shouting from the rooftops what we've been doing. So I picked up on Steven's CPD model yesterday. So thanks Edinburgh and AP and any other suggestions. What else could we do to make ourselves more visible? Not even on a wider scale, but even with our own institute. We've done our own mini Moodle Mood, but it was a while ago. So showcasing things as well. But it's a comfy pair of slippers guys. So we have to make it a little bit friendier now. So can it do this? I would argue. Of course it can and so much more. Thanks very much guys. So we've got a couple of minutes for questions. If you raise your hand and Bob and Helen will run around with them. Microphones and come and find you. If you want to tell me what your mission statement is or what your goals or values are if you have them off to your tongue. Thanks Geraldine. I really enjoyed that. It's interesting talking about the mission statements. I don't know what they are. I think I can probably name a couple of the core values because whenever we put a paper to the LTA committee, we have to say which one it's aligned to. And I think it's a good technique. And one of the things we've been trying to do on our blog site is we've got hints and tips, news and events. And the third one is academic spotlight articles. And we've really failed to get enough of them. Really just showcasing how people are using it. So I think this has just given me a good idea to try it. Well, I've always wanted to reinvigorate that. But also say this is supporting this particular value. So thanks. That was a really good reminder. Yeah, I think it's just that we just lacked visibility and there's lots of really good stuff going on, but we haven't been showcasing it. So I think we need to get the word out a little bit more. And I think that's from this is what I've taken anyway. Any more questions there? So if you do have strategies like Stephen or anything else that you'd like to share, something that works really, really good in your institute rather than having the conversation about changing an LMS. And you know the change management is something that I don't necessarily want to go down the road of. But if there's something else then please feel free on Twitter to give me a shout out and let me know. Could you go back to your Twitter handle just over on the screen there? I'll have to go right back will I? I should have done that at the end as well. Yeah, sorry now. This is really bad. It's at GS McDermott. I've been tweeting a little bit so. Ah. Oh, someone's going to do it for you. Thank you guys. No next one up. That's not me. I'll do it. I'll do a tweet and we'll follow up from then. Jeldyn, just for my point of view having been involved in lots of different strategies and this kind of stuff. It's the storytelling as well as the philosophical kind of stuff. And really good leaders are very good at talking about where we started and the whole story and how it all fits together and that kind of thing. And I think that if you do want to make a change, even if you want to have a refocus on Moodle, it's about telling that story. It's about saying like this is why we chose this. This is our mission. This is our value. So I really appreciate what you did there. I think that's a great approach for anybody who's looking to like reinvigorate their Moodle and to fend off potentially someone coming in with a shiny suit and going, oh, let's get rid of all this and really bringing in our visibility. Yeah, I think it has given me an opportunity to kind of refocus as you say and see where we go from here. So we'll have great things for next year's Moodle. Thank you very much, Jeldyn. Thanks a lot.