Hi,
I would like to start a Moodle user group in South Africa, specifically in the Pretoria, Johannesburg area.
My idea behind the user group is to meet with other local Moodlers, especially developers, and to build up a network of friends/individuals that share common interests, in this case Moodle.
I find that Moodle falls in a niche market, and that help and support is not readily available, except if you are willing to fork out thousands for a support contract with a Moodle partner, however this is not always feasible, especially if you just have a simple question, or need some help with something small.
If there are any Moodlers living in the JHB/PTA area, and would like to form an in-formal/social/developers user group please let me know.
(Maybe I should have posted this in the developers forum???)
Let me know what you think about this idea?
Julian
Hi Julian,
I am in Florida and not South Africa, but I am looking for similar group in my area. I wonder if we shouldn't try to set up a virtual group? I use DimDim and could host a meeting sometime.
What exactly is change management? That sounds interesting,
Jamie
I am in Florida and not South Africa, but I am looking for similar group in my area. I wonder if we shouldn't try to set up a virtual group? I use DimDim and could host a meeting sometime.
What exactly is change management? That sounds interesting,
Jamie
Hi Jamie,
That sounds good to me, no reason for geography to get in the way, it is 2009 after all, :D
I almost got excited reading your post, the neighborhood next to mine is also called Florida, lol.
Change management is the process of managing the "people side" of organizational change, and ensuring that the change persists.
Many corporations implement change to their business processes, or change their software applications etc. What we do in Change Management is ensure that employees understand why change is happening, why they should care, we ensure that the change process is correctly managed, and that once the change has been implemented, it persists. Many times companies will go through a change process, but then after a month or so, employees revert back to doing things the way they always used to.
That sounds good to me, no reason for geography to get in the way, it is 2009 after all, :D
I almost got excited reading your post, the neighborhood next to mine is also called Florida, lol.
Change management is the process of managing the "people side" of organizational change, and ensuring that the change persists.
Many corporations implement change to their business processes, or change their software applications etc. What we do in Change Management is ensure that employees understand why change is happening, why they should care, we ensure that the change process is correctly managed, and that once the change has been implemented, it persists. Many times companies will go through a change process, but then after a month or so, employees revert back to doing things the way they always used to.
That is very interesting. When I get my website further along into a beta stage, I might ask you if I could interview you on that subject. I am working on an innovation website oriented toward developing green leadership.
Have you read the book "Tribes - We Need You to Lead Us" by Seth Godin. Very cool book about how to leverage the Internet by leading "tribes". He talks a bit about how the music industry could have made the change to the new technology, but stuck too long with the radio/CD model. Interesting how resistant to change people can be.
What is your time zone over there? You are already in tomorrow... We will have to figure out a good time for us to start the users group, then catch everyone between here and there
Oh, I was so excited yesterday to contribute some blog code in te blog forum. I needed to get blog posts to show up in shortened form in blocks, so I wrote the code and CSS for oublog. I like oublog much better than the built-in moodle blog - since oublog supports comments. Anyway, not even ONE person has posted anything about my block!!!!! What an anticlimax It was a very good learning experience, since when I decided to make it geneal enough to contribute to everyone, I had to learn how to do the configuration page thing, etc.
Take care,
Jamie
Have you read the book "Tribes - We Need You to Lead Us" by Seth Godin. Very cool book about how to leverage the Internet by leading "tribes". He talks a bit about how the music industry could have made the change to the new technology, but stuck too long with the radio/CD model. Interesting how resistant to change people can be.
What is your time zone over there? You are already in tomorrow... We will have to figure out a good time for us to start the users group, then catch everyone between here and there
Oh, I was so excited yesterday to contribute some blog code in te blog forum. I needed to get blog posts to show up in shortened form in blocks, so I wrote the code and CSS for oublog. I like oublog much better than the built-in moodle blog - since oublog supports comments. Anyway, not even ONE person has posted anything about my block!!!!! What an anticlimax
Take care,
Jamie
Hi Julian,
I started the Sydney Moodle User Group last year and it has been very successful at what it does - connecting people locally.
From this idea I started a new website called Moodle User Groups: http://www.moodleusergroups.org. My idea is that we could gather together all the user groups for Moodle in the one place and help each other plan and organise local gatherings.
At the moment people can register on the site and in the future there will be organised information and tools for people to run their own user groups.
I have been to several Moodle Moots (conferences) and they have been wonderful as well at connecting with other Moodle enthusiasts. But they don't happen often enough so the idea of monthly meetings has spurred me on. This week we are meeting at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (http://www.aftrs.edu.au/). Each month we have a case study of the host's Moodle site as well as a scenario of how they implemented from paper-based or other digital systems for elearning.
Contact me off list if you want more information.
Cheers,
Jason
I started the Sydney Moodle User Group last year and it has been very successful at what it does - connecting people locally.
From this idea I started a new website called Moodle User Groups: http://www.moodleusergroups.org. My idea is that we could gather together all the user groups for Moodle in the one place and help each other plan and organise local gatherings.
At the moment people can register on the site and in the future there will be organised information and tools for people to run their own user groups.
I have been to several Moodle Moots (conferences) and they have been wonderful as well at connecting with other Moodle enthusiasts. But they don't happen often enough so the idea of monthly meetings has spurred me on. This week we are meeting at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (http://www.aftrs.edu.au/). Each month we have a case study of the host's Moodle site as well as a scenario of how they implemented from paper-based or other digital systems for elearning.
Contact me off list if you want more information.
Cheers,
Jason
Hi Jason,
Cool, I went a head and registered on your site, it is a good idea, I'm curios to see how the site is going to evolve.
P.S. your theme does not work so well in Firefox once a user has logged in. (I used Firefox 3)
Cool, I went a head and registered on your site, it is a good idea, I'm curios to see how the site is going to evolve.
P.S. your theme does not work so well in Firefox once a user has logged in. (I used Firefox 3)
Hi Julian and Jason,
I too also joined your site Jason. Good idea. I am attaching a screen grab of the firefox issue on the home page once I am logged in.
I usually have the opposite problem - my sites play great in FF and are messed up in IE. I like FF so much that I often forget to look at the site in the "other" browser
I actually try to keep IE7 or higher open on one monitor and FF3 in another, with a third monitor set at a terribly low resolution, for cross checking both in that too. My experiences with CSS and different browsers has burned me to the point that I check almost robotically after every CSS change. It can be so hard to track down solutions after many changes...
Another tool taht can really be helpful is: http://browsershots.org/
It lets you see your sites in dozens of different resolution/browser combinations - pretty cool.
One things you could add to your site is any RSS feeds you can get from moodle.org on events, etc.
Great start!
Jamie
I too also joined your site Jason. Good idea. I am attaching a screen grab of the firefox issue on the home page once I am logged in.
I usually have the opposite problem - my sites play great in FF and are messed up in IE. I like FF so much that I often forget to look at the site in the "other" browser
I actually try to keep IE7 or higher open on one monitor and FF3 in another, with a third monitor set at a terribly low resolution, for cross checking both in that too. My experiences with CSS and different browsers has burned me to the point that I check almost robotically after every CSS change. It can be so hard to track down solutions after many changes...
Another tool taht can really be helpful is: http://browsershots.org/
It lets you see your sites in dozens of different resolution/browser combinations - pretty cool.
One things you could add to your site is any RSS feeds you can get from moodle.org on events, etc.
Great start!
Jamie
In reply to Jamie Robe
Re: I would like to start a Moodle "user group" in South Africa
by Jason Hando -
Hi Jamie and Julian,
Just tried to fix the theme issue - can you comment if there is still a problem or contact me direct please?
Thanks for the feedback.
I also use browsershots on client websites but for the login issue it can't login before taking the shot. I suppose I could publish modules to the public before taking browser shots then change them back. Hmmm... food for thought.
On the Moodle User Group side of things - last night we had another meeting - meeting 8 in fact. Everyone in attendance learnt a great deal, including me. I really think there is something magical that happens when people meet face to face as opposed to the online forums, which are fantastic for other reasons. There is a bouncing of ideas and camaraderie about what we do.
Cheers,
Jason
Just tried to fix the theme issue - can you comment if there is still a problem or contact me direct please?
Thanks for the feedback.
I also use browsershots on client websites but for the login issue it can't login before taking the shot. I suppose I could publish modules to the public before taking browser shots then change them back. Hmmm... food for thought.
On the Moodle User Group side of things - last night we had another meeting - meeting 8 in fact. Everyone in attendance learnt a great deal, including me. I really think there is something magical that happens when people meet face to face as opposed to the online forums, which are fantastic for other reasons. There is a bouncing of ideas and camaraderie about what we do.
Cheers,
Jason
In reply to Jason Hando
Re: I would like to start a Moodle "user group" in South Africa
by Alex Souza -
Aloha Jason, I have been working on an academic project called Schola Global (www.scholaglobal.com) and perhaps I can help you with your initiative in South Africa. Schola Global is a free education network and is dedicated to promoting learning and education all around the world. As I am planning to offer free online courses on Schola Global, an open source like Moodle might be the right option to support an online learning system. Please feel free to contact me.
Alex.
Hi Jason,
Your Firefox issue has definitely been fixed, your site is looking great :D
I like your login "thingy" at the top of the page, really cool.
As for creating a South African Moodle user's group, it would seem that it is not going to happen
Not 1 person has indicated that they are interested, which is quite sad, since there are over 180 Moodle sites in South Africa.
oh well, my site has gone live earlier this week, it is a commercial site, and has very little to do with education, but please feel free to check it out, it may give you some good ideas of how to implement Moodle in a way that it has not been originally designed for, which just highlights the "Uber flexibility" of Moodle. (www.change-management-toolbook.com)
Your Firefox issue has definitely been fixed, your site is looking great :D
I like your login "thingy" at the top of the page, really cool.
As for creating a South African Moodle user's group, it would seem that it is not going to happen
oh well, my site has gone live earlier this week, it is a commercial site, and has very little to do with education, but please feel free to check it out, it may give you some good ideas of how to implement Moodle in a way that it has not been originally designed for, which just highlights the "Uber flexibility" of Moodle. (www.change-management-toolbook.com)