Intro...Part 2

Whoa! It's been a busy few months. You know that a Mama's work is always being done and this Moodle Mama 2 is no different. For those of you new to Moodledom, let me backtrack a little and re-introduce myself. My name is Sheila D. Gatling and I'm one of the co-founders of Moodlerooms, Inc.

Moodlerooms provides wrap-around technical support services for the hugely popular, free Moodle open source software. As an official Moodle Partner , Moodlerooms provides the support, hosting, customization, instruction, training and other services you need to tap Moodle’s full potential – whether for a single class, a school or a 50,000 student university.

Our Founders

Sheila Gatling, Co-Founder

As a 34-year veteran of the middle school classroom, Sheila is expert in teaching K-12 students, connecting with teacher education programs, and delivering professional development courses. She has been an active unionist, labor negotiator and New York State United Teachers instructor in their Effective Teaching Program. Sheila has co-authored a book entitled, The Black College Guide. She also has significant expertise integrating open source technologies, including Moodle and Linux, into classroom practice in both middle school and higher education environments.

Tom Murdock, Co-Founder

Tom arrives at Moodlerooms from a background of secondary school instruction. For the past 15 years, he has engaged students as a classroom teacher, a boarding school adviser, a wilderness expedition leader, an English department chairperson at two schools, and the administrator of a number of writing and art programs. Tom has been an enthusiastic supporter and contributor to the Moodle project for the past five years.

Gina Russell Stevens, Co-Founder

Gina has practiced as a management consultant for over 25 years. She also completed graduate study in online teaching and learning and is a certified online instructor with expertise in online community building. Her extensive experience delivering organizational development and strategic planning services to urban, minority and woman-owned enterprises has provided synergistic opportunities toward closing the digital divide. In conjunction with her consulting practice, Gina delivered classroom and online training on her models for culturally dynamic^TM learning and communicating to K-12 and higher education institutions, government agencies and corporations.

Lately......

This past Spring, the Moodle Mamas have been very busy introducing new users to Moodle as a tool to deliver services to educational institutions, corporate entities and individual instructors. One thing remains paramount as I Moodle each and every day, the Moodle community is collaborative,helpful to others and generous with their time. Moodlers help one another. That is true of the seasoned and veteran Moodlers as it is of the newly hatched, baby Moodlers I interact with in my Moodle 100 course.

Many new Moodlers are experienced with other learning management systems. It takes a minute for newbies to acclimate to a new navigation system. One of the great things about Moodle is the interactive forum discussion that allows new users to meet others in the course room. Instead of the usual, hello badge used in the f2f class, the introductory forum serves the same purpose as we go around the room, so to speak, introducing ourselves.

Today, June 15th is the start of another cohort of new Moodlers to the Moodle community at Moodlerooms. For the next two weeks, participants will learn about Moodle from the perspective of a learner. It's an exciting journey and similar to the first day of school we all experienced as children.

Stay tuned......