Moodle Education Technology Platform: uniting African universities to reclaim Africa’s intellectual futures and create sustainable African solutions.
From 25 – 27 September 2024, the UNISA Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Portfolio in collaboration with the MoodleMoot Africa Association member universities will host the MoodleMoot Africa 2024 Conference. The conference aims to bring together and unite the Moodle community in Africa to share Moodle best practices, knowledge, and competencies to improve the quality of online, e-learning education and training in a globally connected digital era.
The conference also calls on all Moodle LMS partners/vendors, educational technologists, learning scientists, academic and non-academic practitioners, scholars, researchers, and students who are interested in the innovation in the 4IR era to collaboratively proffer educational solutions based on their knowledge and practical use of Moodle LMS to improve the current trajectory in the continent’s adoption and adaptation of education technologies. This could be based on Moodle Education Technology platform and other complementary technologies such as Cloud technology platforms, database technologies, application programming interfaces, plug-ins, etc.
Dr Martin Dougiamas, the Founder and CEO of Moodle is on record when he was visiting UNISA in December 2022, saying that his vision is to develop an Open Education Technology platform based on Moodle principles and foundational elements. His vision is to see all organisations involved in education using this platform as a basis to innovate and create online educational resources appropriate and relevant to the advancement of each education institution’s purpose, mission and vision. The MoodleMoot Africa 2024 Conference organised by the MoodleMoot Africa Association founding members and hosted by UNISA is a platform where these ideals will be explained further by the Moodle Founder and CEO, with an opportunity for the conference attendees to interrogate him further and find out how they can participate and collaborate with Moodle.
Conferences streams and Sub-themes
Specific sub-themes delegates might want to consider include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Moodle Development – Enhancing and Extending the Moodle LMS functionality.
- Integration to/with other Teaching and Learning systems (e.g., Student Information System, ERP/Student Finance, etc.)
- The datafication of teaching, learning and student support (e.g., Moodle Analytics during the Student Journey (from application stage to alumni status) and for Early Alerts on student performance and Student as Risk)
- Addressing the digital divide and accessibility – (Tools of the trade such as Moodle LMS through remote connectivity, devices, etc.)
- Staff and student Moodle LMS user experience, success, and retention
- Moodle Ecosystems incorporating composability and modularity
- Moodle Administration – Architecting the Moodle LMS for better performance, stability and scalability
- Securing Teaching and Learning in an interconnected learning space(Protect Student Privacy, POPIA, GDPR compliance, etc.)
- Moodle migration to cloud – pros and cons, challenges, and opportunities
- Database architecture and optimisation
- Moodle architecture for best performance, scalability, and stability
- Moodle Educational Technology – Creating teaching and learning intellectual Property (IP) through Moodle LMS
- Platformitisation (e.g. Moodle EdTech) and commercialization (e.g. MOOCs and OERs)
- Micro credentialing
- Pedagogical approaches for fostering collaborative learning experiences within the Moodle LMS.
- Increasing access to educational opportunities, inclusivity (Promoting Educational Inclusion in an Online Learning Environment)
- Moodle Innovations – Thinking and acting differently to improve teaching, learning and assessment processes in Moodle.
- The implications of Natural language processing and conversational artificial intelligence robotics (e.g. ChatGPT, Google and Microsoft) in teaching, learning and assessments.
- Innovation in 4IR era - Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, robotics, internet of things, block chain technology and smart software
- Incorporating Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in Moodle LMS, e.g. marking/grading of assessments, etc.
- Education and the Metaverse (e.g. Smart Campus)
- Conference workshops
- Students, academics, and support staff to showcase their Moodle inventions, etc.
- Conference sponsors to come and showcase their products.