What's your background?

What's your background?

by Christian Herman -
Number of replies: 14

In trying to prove a point I recently argued that Moodle is not typically administered by IT professionals but instead by training and instructional design professionals who, like me, out of necessity or interest, have learned CSS and PHP with varying degrees of mastery.  Then I realized I have nothing but my own assumptions and extrapolations from these forums to back that up.

Am I correct in my assumption?  Do you hold an IT degree or instructional design/education degree?  Both?  What is your background?

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In reply to Christian Herman

Re: What's your background?

by Matt Bury -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Christian,

I was a teacher and then a curriculum developer before I learned how to use an LMS and how to code.

Have you thought of doing a more structured online survey? Could be interesting smile

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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: What's your background?

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

I have a 30 year old degree in French from UCL and have been a languages teacher all my career (until now) I got into Moodle as a hobby and I still can't code, although I can recognise bits of it and copy and paste other people's.

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: What's your background?

by Glenys Hanson -

Hi there,

I'm a feeble copy of Mary Cooch, also a language teacher who's learnt a bit of HTML/XHTML5, a bit of JavaScript but who really relies heavily on those who really know their stuff like Martin Holmes, Gordon Bateson, Stan Bogdanov, Itamar Tzadok and a host of others. Like Mary, I do a lot of copying and pasting of other people's code. I try always to acknowledge it.

If I can do it, you can too. wink

Cheers,

Glenys

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In reply to Christian Herman

Re: What's your background?

by Frankie Kam -
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$assumption->SPOT_ON

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In reply to Frankie Kam

Re: What's your background?

by Matt Bury -
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I'm also interested in how many coders are or were musicians. There seem to be a lot of musicians turned coders out there, including Martin Dougiamas himself.

Yeah, I was a professional musician before I became a teacher.

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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: What's your background?

by Frankie Kam -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Matt

Interesting you should mention your interest and others' too, of music. Perhaps you might be interested in this forum post, this Moodle site, and in the attached zip file (containing the js, css, and sample html files) that allows you to embed music notation scores into a webpage. Uses HTML5.

Frankie Kam
P.S., I have an idea gear whirling around in my head how I can get music notation to appear on my Wonderwall....hehe...be right back.

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In reply to Frankie Kam

Re: What's your background?

by Matt Bury -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Frankie,

It's an interesting proposition. From my experience of learning new tunes/songs, rehearsing, performing, writing arrangements for groups, transcribing, composing, etc., and collaborating with other musicians, I'd say that most musicians that I know of work with computer sequencing software (MIDI), some of which can transcribe the sequences to music notation, and/or multitrack digital audio recorders.

Still, a lot of "old school" musicians still use pencil and paper, in which case it might be useful for third parties to transfer their compositions and arrangements into machine readable digital formats. As far as I know, the quickest way to put music into a computer is to play it into a sequencer through MIDI instruments. So again, something that can read the output of sequencing software would be the most useful and productive.

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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: What's your background?

by Christian Herman -

Well, I'll throw my hat into that ring. My Bachelor's is in Music Education. Although I enjoyed and still enjoy music and performing, I HATED practicing...and still do. Consequently I barely graduated. By then I had become more interested in the ideas and practices of teaching the appreciation and knowledge of music, and the many cerebral benefits it imparts, than I had in the music or my own expertise in it. It is still a pastime that brings me great joy but learning and technology have my passions.

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In reply to Christian Herman

Re: What's your background?

by Edwin Cruz -

I teach English to 7,8 and 9th grades.  My Bachelors is in Business later certified as a TESOL teacher.  Completed a Masters in Educational Computing.  It has been a passion of mine integrating technology in the classroom.  Trying to convince most of my fellow teachers to use the system.  Its astonishing and the best thing is that it is free.

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In reply to Christian Herman

Re: What's your background?

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Hi

> In trying to prove a point I recently argued that Moodle is not typically administered by IT professionals but instead by training and instructional design professionals ...

Any possibility of biased data coming in?
wink
Average of ratings: Coolest thing ever! (1)
In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: What's your background?

by Edwin Cruz -

I'm a educator with 16 years experience.  Moodle is so easy that you don't have to be an IT professional to set it up.  We have been using Moodle for a little over a year now and students love it.  I teach at the middle school level.  My students call it "The coolest thing in school."  Parents love it too.  It's putting back the responsibility in hands of the parents at home.

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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: What's your background?

by Joseph Rézeau -
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Visvanath "Any possibility of biased data coming in?"

Nope tongueout

Joseph (a language teacher turned Moodle fan and amateur programmer)

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In reply to Christian Herman

Re: What's your background?

by Sam Thing -

Not an IT professional as such but with a long pedigree of being the goto IT guy without an IT role or qualification for well into my second decade now.

I grew up copying games from Computer and Video Games mag onto my ZX Spectrum with my dad reading out the code to me.

Professionally Ive been in Advice and Guidence and had a sideline in it fixing p3oples pcs and sorting out websites made by people whoshouldnt be making websites.

Yes I taught my self music. I can circular breathe and also juggle, but not at the same time.

I rather think I need to learn PHP.Sorry about the spelling, grammar and punctuation I have a Galaxy Tab on loan from work and its keyboard input leaves a lot to be desired.

 

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