Why Moodle Academy?

When I first started Moodle over 20 years ago, it was because I saw a clear opportunity to better use the inherent qualities of the internet to improve the quality and flexibility of education all over the world. 

As an open source learning platform, Moodle has benefited from the contribution, experimentation and feedback of thousands of educators and developers over the last two decades, and it’s amazing  to know that there are now hundreds of millions of users across the world.  We have all worked extremely hard to evolve Moodle; it has been a constant process of improvement to features, tools, plugins, processes, funding, relationships, and much more.  

Of course, the driving force for this is our mission - to empower educators to improve our world.  Moodle has become the most customisable and feature-rich learning management system in the world, but truly transformative online learning will always be more than just software tools, it takes educators who know how to use the tools to create great experiences around their subject matter.  

We have always provided our community ways to learn how to teach with, manage and develop Moodle, but now, as online learning and the use of Moodle is becoming mainstream, it is more important than ever to support our education community with the ever-evolving skills they need.

As an evolution to our Moodle Education courses and our in-person MoodleMoots, I am pleased to announce the launch of Moodle Academy, our learning hub where you can learn everything about online education with Moodle.  A community of best practice where you can engage in live professional development, earn badges, progress a learning pathway or gain a certificate to help your career as an educator, administrator, designer or developer.  Like Moodle itself, Moodle Academy embraces a social constructionist point of view, where knowledge develops as a result of social interaction and courses are communities of practice.  Alongside showcasing best practices in online learning on the latest Moodle releases, Moodle Academy will provide our community a hub for learning and interaction - a place for Moodlers to get together and “hang out.”  As it grows, we expect that more and more of our expert educators will contribute to the site and expand the range of things we can all learn there.

The service that Moodle Academy provides is key to enacting the Moodle core mission, our very reason for being, and I know it will become an important place for many of you in the Moodle community. Through improving the quality of teaching practice together, we can increase our total impact worldwide and contribute to better learning globally.

Moodle Academy is just starting on an exciting road.  We hope you are along for the ride, and if you have ideas for the future of Moodle Academy, please get in touch with us, we’d love to hear from you on our feedback page.

Cheers and keep on learning!

Martin