Happy 15th Birthday Moodle
My recent letter to Martin is below and I *almost* got an answer from him!
Dear Martin,
I have to admit you were (and are) my first open source crush; someone who invented a course management system and then shared it for free? Oh, yes!
When I heard about Moodle around 2007, I set about creating my own on my little internet space. When I connected a class of students, my little space couldn't handle it and, lo and behold, right then my state of Oregon began hosting moodles for schools for free. I created one for our entire district and ran it myself above and beyond my duties as a Spanish teacher and library media specialist.
Our tech department was fine with the idea as long as they didn't have to run anything. I got a grant to do training and connected quite a few of the high school teachers and built these awesome Spanish classes. What fun!
When you gave a MoodleMoot speech in 2011, my single-handed little moodle (Ashland School District) was included on your slide of example schools and my heart soared.
I had been a Fulbright Exchange Teacher to the Peruvian Amazon in 2005-2006 so when a new program called "Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching" that included an action research project was announced, I applied. My project was a language learning exchange between the high school of the University of Guanajuato, Mexico (where I had been an undergraduate and a professor in the Center for Autodidactic Language Learning (like a library for self learning of languages), and my high school in Ashland, Oregon, using Moodle, of course!
I was selected and developed some wonderful activities for language learning and exchange. I spent 6 months in Guanajuato running the class with great success. Our online exchange became an actual in-person exchange as we later visited each other's respective cities and countries.
The downside to this was my district would not let me run my moodle remotely and gave it to the district technology workers to run. They killed it. They didn't know what they were doing (and I suspect did not want to learn). Not being teachers, they had no idea what they were losing.
So, I've been biding my time, but.... I'm due to retire soon and I'm getting ready for my next life (in Spanish they call it the third age!)
During my time in the Amazon, I saw how desperate the educational needs of the students of the rivers were. I am returning this summer with several solar projection units with Raspberry Pi 3s full of content in Spanish curated by World Possible into a RACHEL and with the technology assistance of Powering Potential who in Tanzania has already accomplished my goal of access to information in remote locations in the Amazon. I will be visiting with Mundo Posible in Guatemala on my way down to see their installations. They have added the Guatemalan national curriculum to their RACHELs which I'm hopeful to do in Peru.
I read that Moodle runs on a Raspberry Pi and, though, I haven't had time yet to make my own, I'm very hopeful that Moodle can be integrated into the RACHEL. There is so much awesome content on the RACHEL, but no management system. My other loooong term goal is to somehow create an ESL English moodle class that could be deployed on the RACHEL, as well. Or if not on the RACHEL, then on a Raspberry Pi.
The Amazon is an amazing place. People can mostly feed themselves from fish from the river and plants such as yucca and they know how to make their canoe and floating house. The hard part is little access to health care (many tropical diseases) and no jobs. Iquitos has a terrible infant sexual tourism trade. Although illegal, people sell their children and teens like I'm sure you have heard of in other places, such as Thailand.
If people can speak English, they can get a job in the legitimate robust tourism industry. As an English teacher in Peru on my Fulbright, I met many teachers, English and otherwise. All Peruvian school children receive at least 2 hours a week of English. However, they don't progress. The English teachers are mostly low level speakers and many are hardly understandable due to poor pronunciation. They would go to an English speaking country to perfect their English, but lack the opportunity and are paid so poorly that most work two jobs just to survive.
With my experience teaching Spanish through Moodle, I know that an articulated English class could be created with audio and video that would train not only the students, but also the teachers.
In the meantime, the RACHEL is a digital library in Spanish that functions as if they had internet when they don't and it runs on solar. My goal this summer is to bring at least one unit, if not more, to the research station of Project Amazonas to be used with the school near their research station in Santa Cruz. I'm also going on their medical boat as a translator for a week up to remote villages on area rivers.
Of course, I have been following Mary Cooch and Helen Foster for years. My dream would be to create the ESL class with them and, of course, come to Perth and see the Moodle Headquarters.
Thank you for your time and for your "social constructionist models of
teaching and learning online," and for not being a greedy capitalist
Sincerely,
Dana Rensi