Besides the next release cycle, this upcoming meeting will feature Damyon Wiese of Netspot to talk about development activities outside of Moodle HQ (Netspot is current tackling the Assignment Module redevelopment).

Hope to see you there: http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Developer_meeting_February_2012

For more Moodle-related events check out the Moodlenews Calendar: http://www.moodlenews.com/events/

If you’re not interested in waiting and refreshing the screen every 5 seconds until the site is back up, you can click the image above to play some Space Invaders.

Tomaz Lasic

Over the past year Tomaz has worked on several projects at Moodle HQ, including the full reorganization of the Moodle Docs, the Mt. Orange School site, Water and all of the great Moodle 2 feature videos.  Each is a great contribution to the community and will be lasting resources for Moodlers globally.

Three cheers for Tomaz and I wish him the best of luck in his new job.  I look forward to following his adventures at http://tomazlasic.net.

• Moodle 2.1 release
• Moodle Docs update
• Plugins (M&P replacement)

For more information on attending this virtual/online event please visit http://docs.moodle.org/en/Developer_meeting_May_2011.

Compared with some of the already available Mobile Apps for Moodle (http://moodlenews.com/mobile) the official app looks to engage the device’s inherent tools more deeply in order to upload audio, video and images from a mobile handset directly to Moodle, allowing for mobile-specific activities and assessments.  Support for the other standard Moodle features is also implied.

The wire-frame mock-ups of the screens look promising and it looks like a great plan.  I hope it comes to fruition.  To keep up to date on Mobile development for Moodle check out the forums at http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=7798.

This post is cross posted at my new site with broader coverage of the LMS world: http://www.lmswatch.com.  Subscribe and follow @LMSWatch.

The “official” (but undocumented) end-of-life cycle for Moodle versions was clarified in the Moodle.org forums this weekend by lead developer and Moodle Founder, Martin Dougiamas.  According to Martin,  Moodle’s long standing policy has been to support only the two most recent releases of the software.  This would mean the version 1.9 (arguably the most stable and widely adopted version ever released) would have it’s support discontinued with the release of Moodle 2.1 (due out in June 2011 [link]).

However due to the popularity of 1.9 and the timing of 2.0′s releases Martin has mentioned that support for 1.9 will continue, but only through the end of 2011,

This would normally mean that we would stop supporting 1.9 when 2.1 comes out, but given that it’s such a big jump to 2.x, and the release timing was bad for the north hemisphere, I plan to keep putting resources into supporting 1.9.x until December 2011.  I doubt we can stretch beyond that, because it’s getting harder and harder for our developers to remember how to write code for 1.9 [emphasis is original, link]

11 months is a short duration for planning a major transition for some institutions, no doubt many will start planning now for the future of their LMS.

That said, there’s a major case to be made for continuing the development of Moodle 1.9 beyond Moodle HQ’s “end of life” cycle.  As a quality LMS for schools, businesses and other organizations the 1.9 release may find “new” life in continued community support for years beyond (one of the many benefits of open source). Moodle 1.9 was first released in March 2008 [link].

For more information:

• End of Life discussion: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=168021
• Moodle Development Roadmap: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Roadmap

The release of Moodle 2.0 was touched on briefly at the beginning of the meeting (with celebratory brews in hand around the table at HQ).  According to the Martin, since 2.0 is released Moodle HQ is

Back to business as usual.

Discussion then turned to the development process itself which will be more directed in the future.  Martin unveiled a new hierarchy of development roles that should help to make development of new releases more formalized and orderly (and easier) in the future.  For a full list of the roles see below or visit: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Development:Process

The majority of the rest of the meeting focused on the Git migration (moving away from CVS).  For more information visit http://docs.moodle.org/en/Developer_meeting_November_2010 or view the entire meeting online.

For more coverage of the video check out:

• Additional commentary: http://www.edugeekjournal.com/2010/10/18/is-moodle-going-down-the-path-of-open-social-learning/
• Michael Feldstein’s site and his comparison/contrasting of Moodle with Sakai: http://mfeldstein.com/interview-with-martin-dougiamas/

Past

Martin’s education as a child in rural Australia was accomplished mostly through correspondence learning (literally materials were flown in) which he acknowledged might have prepared him to embrace the internet and web-based tools ever more closely later in life.

Another is that Moodle’s core functionality is built around several principles (he mentioned that there were five but listed four) which have guided development since the earliest days of Moodle.  The principles were,

• Students can be teachers and teachers can be students.  Everyone can be a learner.
• Teach the whole person (which speaks to Martin’s thoughts on constructivism)
• Learning environments (physical or virtual) should be flexible
• Learners learn best by doing and creating for an audience

The last principle can clearly be seen in Moodle’s design (the forums, glossary, wiki, etc) which all provide ample opportunities for students to create materials in a safe/secure online environment which can instantly be seen and reviewed by peers.

Present

The present state of Moodle includes a develop and release cycle (Moodle 2.o is weeks away) and this is largely supported by Moodle’s partner network.  Martin created the Moodle Proprietary (Pty) Trust which is represented online by Moodle.com.  The Trust manages the Moodle copyright/service and trade marks; but most importantly it directs Moodle’s growth internationally by approving and regulating use of the Moodle trademarks via an Official Moodle Partner network. If you’re unfamiliar with the Moodle Partners, it’s interesting to note that there are 54 partners worldwide (at the time of the interview) and that they each provide ~10% of revenue to the Moodle Pty Trust.  This is the main (only?) revenue source for “Moodle HQ” which is a staff of 18 programmers and other staff (including a Moodle.org community manager in Helen Foster and educational researcher, Tomaz Lasic).

Presently the majority of the Trust’s work is programming and developing Moodle features and changes for it’s release cycle (but Martin’s goal is to shift it’s roll to more oversight and coordination in the future).

Future

I was most interested in Martin’s views of the future of Moodle releases.

2.0, he mentioned, has been much refactored and simplified in order to create more opportunities (and more succinct code) for developers to customize and tinker with.

Near the end of the interview Martin also speaks his mind about the long term (5-10 years or longer) development cycle of Moodle.  This is the first time I’ve heard him mention “Moodle X”, a code-base created from scratch, governed by his original principles but geared toward more social learning and using modern/contemporary development paradigms.  Two-point-oh is certainly a step in that direction, but an entirely new code-base developed in parallel (rather than continuation) to the Core is an interesting thought.  While alienating, possibly, some of the most devout Moodle developers and users it might also provide an opportunity to re-frame the Learning Management System and pivot Moodle as a company/idea to a more enduring framework and model.

Takeaways

Reflecting back on the interview, it’s interesting how Michael Feldstein directed the interview arc, which unearths Martin’s background, his driving vision for Moodle, it’s decentralized structure and governance and future thoughts.  Each building upon the other gives credence to the possibility of Martin directing a serious pivot in the direction of Moodle development (X) while maintaining the complete foundation (principles) which the current code-based has been built upon.

What do you think?

Watch the full video at Vimeo and kudos to Michael Feldstein for such a high quality interview: http://vimeo.com/15933942

Interview with Martin Dougiamas from Michael Feldstein on Vimeo.

I wrote an article on the relevance and importance of Moodle Mobile over at Opensource.com (http://opensource.com/education/10/4/can-you-moodle-me-now).  In it, I outline two projects that have come into the lime light over the past few months and the general benefits to the community that their work might usher in.  I want to reiterate the importance of a Moodle mobile initiative and how it will help Moodle grow and prosper in the future.  In a few years, access to websites via mobile will be a default capability.  Android, Win7 Mobile, iPhone OS and other players may all end up being the majority of traffic to our sites of learning, commerce and information.

A short term benefit of these projects is publicity and exposure for Moodle.  While we wait for a Moodle2.0 release, Moodle Mobile has provided the community with a stop-gap raison d’etre. Though access by mobile may not be perfected for years, the future viability of its ubiquitous adoption is shored by the fact that there are multiple projects working collaboratively, simultaneously and sharing their progress publicly.

That being said, the longterm effects of Moodle mobile will have a substantial community, financial and developmental effect on the Moodle economy.

Mobile Community

The community will benefit from exposure to millions of additional users, who otherwise may not have even been considering Moodle, will find another “pro” in their list of pros and cons for possible learning management systems.  Perhaps rural countries and communities with better cell coverage than internet will leap frog to a mobile implementation in general.  Africa, with it’s savvy and growing mobile community comes to mind specifically¹.

Mobile Finance

In terms of straight dollars and cents (or pounds and pence) we could see a strictly mobile Moodle partner establish itself, contributing money and code to Moodle HQ.  This isn’t to mention the possible book titles (who’s going to write Designing Moodle for Mobile Use: A Guide), custom themes, freelance and contracted Moodle mobile theme installations, native apps created or other custom work.  The question isn’t “will Moodle mobile create jobs?” it’s “how many?”².

Mobile Code

In my article over at Opensource.com I argue that development will be profoundly affected by the introduction of mobile.  In a quick survey running at MoodleMonthly currently, over 50% of respondents say “yes” to the question “Now that Mobile access is available for Moodle sites, will that change how you construct your courses?”.  We might quickly find a movement to make mobile course construction easier and faster (I hope so).  In general we might find teachers trimming the use of features that don’t work for mobile, simplifying their course structures to ensure that all students have equal access and opportunities.

What about new modules specifically designed for mobile use?  SMS, better live chat, photo upload from mobile cameras, voice recording as an activity….  What other mobile modules might you want for your students?

Conclusion

In a few years looking back I hope we’ll recognize this as a significant event in the long history of Moodle.  There are a great many possibilities and if only part of the community’s vision for Moodle mobile is realized it will be great news for education.

¹http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_39/b4051054.htm

²http://opensource.com/education/10/2/moodle-driving-jobs-education