Overall thoughts on MootIE13

Overall, the 3 days have been great.  The sessions on Tuesday (day 2) were of more interest to me than Wednesday largely due to the amount of 'upgrade' and 'technical' sessions (whereas Tuesday seemed to have a lot more practical uses).  The event has succeeded in meeting my expectations again.  It continues to be an excellent source of information and networking to get ideas for the next things you want to do using Moodle.  

The range of organisations, perspectives (user, teacher, technical) and levels of skills makes it quite a challenge to meet everyone's needs. However, there are a few areas where I think we can do something a bit different to make this an even better event!

In the spirit of 'Moodle' I think that delegates should be able to 'apply' ideas (eg: the use of the tools, use of plugins, application of findings from research etc).  I did see at least one session where someone showed some heavy customisation to a Moodle 1 course layout that they hadn't released to the community. I am not really sure what I can take from this session!! 

I was also a bit disappointed of how many workshops were based on changes and uses in Moodle 1. I was part of the programme committee and read the abstracts but didn't notice these and assumed that unless the sessions were about 'upgrading' they would be based on a Moodle 2.x considering this has been available for 2 years now!

Chatting to various people throughout the days it is clear to see the range of skills and expertise in the room.  I watched Michelle's 'Why Moodle' Pecha Kucha and thought 'we are all convinced and already use Moodle' but I did find that there were a number of people looking to move to Moodle so this did have a place at the event.  However, for me, I wanted more sessions on application in teaching and learning.  Maybe streams of content would be useful such as beginners / new to Moodle; developing use for learning / advanced; technical; heavy customisation.

As I have mentioned, the Moodlemoot continues to be THE place to look at developments for the use of Moodle and this year has not let me down. I have picked up some new ideas for supporting learning using Moodle as well as further developed some plans already in action or ways to use something in a different way.  Even if some of the workshops are not always that relevant, having a couple of days to devote thoughts to Moodle helps to develop use and that has certainly been the case for me.  I have a big Moodle jobs list to get going on.....