Moodlerooms Users Group

Moodlerooms Users Group

by Dave Willmore -
Number of replies: 4

Hello,

I don't know if one exists at this time or not, but I would like to have a place for Moodlerooms users to come together to discuss Moodlerooms specific topics.   Maybe a forum could be created on moodle.org for each of the seperate Moodle partners?

If that is not possible or practicle I am up to the task to organize and host such an online community.    One of the major accomplishments that I would like to acheive with this group is to leverage a group voice to request add-ins to the Moodlerooms Moodle platform, and to find a cooperative of schools that may want to share funding for specific add-ins to be included.

For example we just asked for an iClicker add-on to be vetted by Moodlerooms, and for our small school the price was a bit expensive needing to be repeated when we go to Moodle 2.x.    Surely there are a number of Moodlerooms customers that would benefit from such an add-on,  The Etherpad add-on sounds and looks wonderful.  I am certain that many of our faculty would love to use it, but we simply can't afford to have Moodlerooms vet this plugin.

We at SCC have had a very good relationship with Moodlerooms.  They have been responsive to our needs.  I just think we may help build a better product of the customers come together to communicate their wants and needs, and to find others with the same wants and needs that live under the Moodlerooms hosting umbrella.

Average of ratings: Cool (1)
In reply to Dave Willmore

Re: Moodlerooms Users Group

by rick burkett -

I emailed Bb last week to ask them--since they are now a multi-platform corporation, if they were going to add a listserv for Moodle users to their list of listservs (since they include not just regional and admin groups, but also groups for WebCT and ANGEL.  The person in charge of social networking part of Behind Blackboard said they were not planning to at this time.  I emailed the request to community@blackboard.com.  The response came from Tiffany Tooley <Tiffany.Tooley@blackboard.com>.  If enough people ask maybe they will add one.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Dave Willmore

Re: Moodlerooms Users Group

by Derek Chirnside -

I'm not sure what to think about this.

In my time with WebCT > Bb, I found the Bb forums good, but only because I used the access from another person in the department - I was not officially allowed on it.  But I met real people, and had some meetups with people who actually had flesh and blood and a sense of humour.  And we all loved to hate Bb.

In the Moodle scene, I've had to do with three MP over the world to varying levels.  My expectation was more "where is the community of users on Moodle service platform X" but was in actual fact more like "please don't share details of this contract, contact the help desk and we will give you a ticket" and I felt more like siloed, and unable to find others who I may bave liked to collaborate with.

Then at a social event someone told me they were on the same platform with super high secutity funtionality on Moodle, and I realised we were just in another universe.  These guys were just not thinking about bug reports and plugin incompatilility and killing the scroll of death.  They just wanted a super secure system that worked.  The were not in fact even interested in the idea of a "community forum".

So the world of MP support is different in all sorts of ways.  I have joined the Moodlerooms LinedIn group (which they graciously let me into) when I was doing some research, but there is little there.

I've always been curious about the inner workings of the MP network.  I have imagined there is a super secret forum somewhere, but this would be for MP employees to share ideas and fixes and plans.  This kind of information flow needs to be robust and working well. [as an aside, It's this network I've worried about in the Bb move.  Can it survive having a substantial input from a company like Bb Inc?]

But as for MP clients.  It may be a different matter.

@Rick.  Moodle listserve run by Bb?  Not sure.  Thre is no Angel.org, so an angel one is needed (etc).  But Moodle?

-Derek

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: Moodlerooms Users Group

by Dan Marsden -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Plugins guardians Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

I'm not sure about this either (I work for a Moodle Partner)

One great thing about moodle.org is that it brings "everyone" together in a single place - the problem with listserv/linkedin/other is that it becomes very hard to keep track of all that is happening!

One of the issues commonly faced by people visiting moodle.org is the large number of forums and people have trouble deciphering where they should post their request - so adding more forums to this could potentially be problematic.

Code reviews are an area that all Moodle Partners face and we have all been duplicating the effort and haven't been very good at sharing the information. The new plugins db has a "reviews" feature that will hopefully allow us to do this a lot better and help to bring some of this cost down.

There is a "private" partners forum although it's not all that "super secret" - it's mainly a place where Moodle HQ can post marketing information, give advance notice of security issues, and when Moodle HQ are directly contacted about RFP's they post the information there to share with all Moodle Partners. The same "space" is used for conversations around how partners can collaborate on specific issues, for example we had a short conversation there around the ending of 1.9 support

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: Moodlerooms Users Group

by rick burkett -

I was responding about a moodlerooms user group.  There are ANGEL and WebCT usergroups on the list @ http://www.blackboard.com/Platforms/Learn/Resources/Community-Programs/Meet-Your-Peers/Listservs/By-Platform.aspx

I said that I emailed them to see if they were going to add one for Moodle since they were now supporting Moodle through Moodlerooms and NetSpot.  

We have both Blackboard and Moodle at our school.  So I am a member of a couple of users groups on the list.  I was not that interested in a Moodle group through them as I was hearing what their response would be to the request.  

My guess is that there will be something similar to the Bb, ANGEL and WebCT groups but hosted by the 2 Moodle Partners themselves.  

Average of ratings: -