Thoughts for Wednesday

I am feeling in two minds about Moodle right now.

On the one hand it is the future. I viewed the Dougiamas video on Moodle 2.0 and I can see that it is a major step forward from the first version.

It allows so much linking to other online worlds, there are so many ways to add photos, videos, and even links to colaborative workspaces like Google Docs.

Moodle does not aim to compete with other products, it accomodates them.

What about my second mind?

I aleady live apart from my family, they are in the UK and for work reasons I am in Cork, Ireland. So I communicate with them by phone and email - and skype.

I spend my day at work in virtual worlds looking at problems with anti-malware products. I do not interact with people in what I feel is a meaningful, fulfilling way, I solve problems. From my previous post you can see I would like this to be different.

So in the evenings do I really want to be doing what I am doing now? Reflecting to myself on what I am learning? "Communicating" with a group of people I am likely never to meet in person?

I see inherent dangers in working online.

It's a 24/7 world and I haven't learned to switch off. I don't have my family with me to help me do this, and i find it tough being alone. Do I really want to be an online learning facilitator? There is the danger that I will be helping others learn how to learn online and I wil lose touch with any "real-world" activities.

I do have my music which grounds me and brings me real life encounters. I need more of this.

Anyway, tomorrow or Friday I will make another entry here. I want to investigate another way I could use Moodle. This would be to help friends I have made here in Cork with their career development. There are a number of French people who do not realize how different the employment market is in the UK and Eire.

I would like to get them Moodling - perhaps...

But is Moodle the right platform for this. I don't want to lead people into a world I am not happy with myself. It's a media rich world which teams with learning opportnities, but can we find that balance between the real and the virtual worlds.

It remains to be seen.