Mahara 2013 at the Custard Factory – my perspective

Mahara UK 2013 Conference site

Following the Mahara conference, I took a fortnight's leave (in England, no rain during the entire time), so this report is delayed.

Here are a few observations taken from my little notebook (one with real paper).

Badges seem to be the upcoming theme, as Mozilla have their Open Badges project and badges are available in Moodle 2.5.

Leading the Development of Academic Practice - Flying Visitor from Canada

The weather this July reminded me of the weather that I experienced during my time as a Visiting Fellow in Ontario, Canada in 2011. This year I had the opportunity to be host as Dr Alan Wright who is the Vice-Provost, Teaching and Learning at the University of Windsor in Ontario came on a flying visit to the UK. In addition, Alan came to Coventry University to present a seminar on Leading the Development of Academic Practice. The seminar was well received by those who attended, who came from many different parts of the University.

Six years ago, Windsor was the first university in Canada to appoint a Vice-Provost with a specific teaching and learning leadership mandate, and ten other universities have since followed suit. Their job is to lead the development of academic practice by influencing policy with the aim of promoting change and improving the student experience. In the seminar, Alan discussed the way that this needed to be achieved by addressing the notion of getting lecturers' support and commitment to changes and the need to integrate the plans within academic practice.

The presentation is now available in Curve - Coventry University's Open Collection

Best of Moodle2 - basic tutor guide

This handout will show tutors some basic features of Moodle2 and how to do them. It includes the following:

• How to enter Moodle at Coventry University
• Moodle 2 home page
• Add an item to the news forum
• Editing a module/course
• Change the topic title and add a summary
• Changing the number of topics
• Adding a link to a web site (URL resource)
• Using blocks
• Adding a file using drag and drop
• Adding a file - using upload