On Wednesday 7 June we had the opportunity to conduct a Facebook Live Q&A with members of the Moodle Users Association (MUA) – Gemma Lesterhuis (who successfully proposed the new overview block in Moodle 3.3) and Steve Powell (Chair of the MUA).
For an hour, our Moodle community members asked questions on various aspects of the MUA and it’s recently submitted project – all answered live by Steve and Gemma in minutes.
It was a great experience to see so many of our community jump in from around the world to participate!
In case you missed it, you can still view all the questions and answers at our Facebook page.
We also took the time to provide a summary of our live session below for a “written” experience. Enjoy!
Our Facebook Live session was scheduled to start at 3pm (Perth time). Gemma, based in the Netherlands was at the ready at 9am whilst Steve in the UK also jumped online at 8am his time.
Some of our community members had previously posted questions so that they didn’t miss the chance of getting involved! We then reposted them for Gemma and Steve to answer…here are two of them:
Danielle started off the Q&A by asking whether there will be more improvements or added features to the new dashboard! Gemma was quick to answer, affirming that there would be improvements to be made with the guidance of our Moodle community:
Still on the topic of the dashboard, Pamela asked what was Gemma’s (and MUA’s) role in the core development for Moodle 3.3.
This time around both Gemma and Steve provided answers, summarising as this was the first major project proposed by the MUA, they learnt many lessons, the main one being the importance of “continuing to work closely with the project proposer through the whole development journey…to the point where the project becomes reality.”
Community member Chris asked Gemma what was her inspiration for submitting her dashboard project, and the honest answer: “…the old dashboard was something that was bugging me for a while…I looked around a lot, tried several plugins…when I joined the MUA it was more like, “Okay, let’s try this.” “
Ps You can read more of Gemma’s inspiration behind the project at our past interview with her.
Moving on from the dashboard, many community members were interested to find out more information about the MUA, including…
Whether there is a way to trial being a member? The good news as Steve mentioned is that this topic has come up and is worth following up on…so watch this space!
There were also questions on what are the commitments and benefits of joining MUA, to which Gemma answered: “learning to know others [in the Moodle community]” to “being able to fulfill a wish [improved dashboard’ for a long time.”
Steve also provided his own valuable insights, quoting something similar to MUA’s mission of “strengthening connection between what happens at HQ and the educators/ technologists and building better communication between users.”
Lastly, we saw a grouping of questions based on process and procedures of project submission with the MUA, including the step by step method for proposing a project.
We also got a very valuable insight as to what happens to projects that are not successful with Steve explaining potential new steps for “quick wins” and working more closely with Moodle HQ to tie in priorities with earlier projects and working more closely with the MUA.
Exciting things are on the horizon with the MUA as you can see especially by Steve’s comments on what is being considered and being followed up on.
You can keep up to date with these exciting things by joining the MUA’s Town Hall sessions or following their Twitter account @moodleassoc
If you are interested in finding out more about the MUA and how to become members, visit their website today.
Thank you again, Steve and Gemma for your time! We look forward to future Q&A live sessions.
