MoodleMOOT Virtual Conference August 5-7, 2016
A review by Sibel Taşkın Şimşek
The 5th annual MoodleMoot Virtual Conference (MMVC16) for 2016 was a free online event that took place from August 5-7, 2016 on MoodleMoot Moodle website. It was organized by Nellie Deutsch (Ed.D) who is an education technology relationship-based mentor to educators worldwide. She works at Atlantic University and is a member of EDMedia executive committee. She organizes free online events such as Moodle & Second Life MOOCs, online conferences (Connecting Online and Moodle MOOTs), Blog Festivals and EFL talks for free.
The “Highlights of MMVC16” were “Teaching and Learning with Technology, Teaching and Learning Online, Blended Learning, Mobile Learning, Blended Online Learning, Badges for Learning, Online Learning Environments, Learning in Virtual Worlds, Case Studies on Moodle”.
The 18 presenters of MMVC16, including me, were educators who use technology in face-to-face, fully online or in blended learning courses. Vance Stevens, Marisa Constantinides, Nellie Deutsch and Judy Wong were among the presenters. For the whole list and the bios of the presenters, please visit the links below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G4YJQ2dQl8
http://moodlemoot.integrating-technology.org/course/view.php?id=2
I attended the conference from the comfort of my home but, due to the time difference between Toronto, Canada and Istanbul, Turkey, I could join a few sessions online and watched some others from the recordings later.
Stephan Hughes gave a presentation on “The Use of Whatsapp in Language Learning”. His examples included how students share their self-learning experiences such as a book they read, or notifications and alerts with their peers and their teachers via Whatsapp.
Marisa Constantinides talked about “Online Collaboration and Group Work” in a Virtual Learning Environment. She talked about the necessary knowledge and skills of an online teacher and shared some tips such as designing one’s own syllabus, supporting learning with other tools (Edtech) and working without a course book. She also pointed out that principles of sound pedagogy come first: being online does not mean lecturing and collaboration is even more important from a distance.
Vance Stevens talked about “PD Opportunities Online” and suggested some websites to follow for online events and professional development opportunities, such as:
• www.edupassions.org/conference
• www.ASCD.org/webinars
• http://edcampglobal.wix.com/edcamp
• Shelly Terrell’s American TOEFL webinars: http://www.shellyterrell.com/webinars.html
• www.clmooc.com
Danny King gave a presentation on “Digital Credentialing”. He mentioned that a digital credential should be scalable, flexible, ongoing, comprehensive and aspirational. He talked about online certificates and digital badges, which are visual representations of a skill or achievement. One of the links he mentioned during the session was http://openbadges.org/, which is free software to create, issue and verify digital badges. The backpack feature of the tool allows collecting and saving badges from multiple sources. He also mentioned Blockchain and explained how to use Accredible (https://www.accredible.com/ , which is not free software) by showing a case study on digital credentialing.
I gave my presentation about “QR Codes in Education” on 6th Saturday at 16:00 EST, (23:00, Istanbul) and I got positive feedback from the participants during the session. The ones who watched the recording later shared their feedback via tweets or messages on MoodleMoot website, which is very rewarding. The recordings and the presentations are available for download from the link below:
http://moodlemoot.integrating-technology.org/mod/folder/view.php?id=55
Presenters received certificates for presenting once it was over, after completing a mini survey about the conference. Participants will also receive certificates of completion. In order to get their certificates, the participants have to reflect on 3 webinars or recordings in a blog post for each webinar by the end of August.
