7. Story 1: GAC Corporate Academy
300
9,000 +
offices
employees
100 40
languages countries
8. Story 1: GAC Corporate Academy
20+
18+ certified
uniquely aligned
facilitators
elearning courses
2,3000
2,000+ users
training hours
registered
during 2011
200+ 60+ countries
offices served reached
http://www.gacacademy.com/
9. Story 2: OpenECDL – UOM
Windows Linux
OO.org Writer
OO.org Calc
OO.org Impress
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Thunderbird
Ubuntu Linux
15. Let's sum up...
Moodle has been successfully used for training audiences which are:
• Multicultural
• Different time zones
• Different social and economic background
• Different learning background
• Different IT skills
• National – Greeks from all over the world
• Workers
• “Adults” from the age of 15 to 65
• People with moving disabilities
Hello, in this presentation we are going to see some good examples of the use of Moodle in different contexts, with different audiences and different targets, in order to examine if and how Moodle could be utilized by Public Administration.
Fist of all we got to see what is Moodle. So let's have a closer look at this software.
Moodle is an acronym, standing for Modular Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment It is OSS and freely available -of course- and it can be installed on Windows, Mac or Linux servers that run PHP
Moodle is being utilized By small and large learning communities For e-learning in schools and enterprises Supporting different learning and teaching styles Delivering activities and publishing of resources
Allowing collaboration and communication So it's usefull for both collaborative learning and socialising
So, having seen what's Moodle, let's see now some of successful stories of it
Gulf Agent Company known as GAC is a worldwide service provider dedicated to delivering integrated services to the Shipping, Logistics, Marine and related markets through an international network. GAC consists of more than 9,000 professionals who speak more than 100 languages and are spread in more than 300 offices in 40 countries. The company's motto is “Wherever you go”
On 2007 the Company decided that the best way to train its people is using asynchronous e-learning courses and that the best tool to use is Moodle. Five years later GCA is has More than 18 certified facilitators To run over 20 uniquely aligned GCA elearning courses Only during 2011 have been delivered 23,000 training hours And over 200 offices have been served in more than 60 countries all over the world So far around 2,000 users have been trained.
From 2007 until 2009 the Asychronous elearning team of the Library and Information Center of the University of Macedonia, under the supervision of the university professors: Mr K. Margaritis and Mr V. Dagdilelis created and provided freerly elearning courses on the use of computers utilizing Open Source Software. Specifically the courses were about: Text editor (OO.o Writer) Spreadsheets (OO.o Calc) Presentations (OO.o. Impress) Internet browser and Mail client (Firefox and Thunderbird) and Operating system (ubuntu – graphical interface and linux – console) These courses run separately for Windows and Linux users.
The courses run thought the Library's elearning service which was and still is based on Moodle. As an overal comment we can just say that this innovative project had a great success. Speaking with numbers, during the three years: 14 course provided in total and Over 1000 people participated. This project was part of the PLOEGIS project, a co-funded project from the EU
So when the funding stopped, the courses stopped also. Lucklily the whole project were under a Creative Commons licence and thus this effort hasn't been wasted.
It hasn't been wasted since three people, Vasilis, George and Anna, stangers a year ago, met each other in the some New Zealand e-courses, called MoodleBites and boosted from the ideals of Openess decided to utilise University's material. So far we have updated the content of two courses and upload them in FreeMoodle. FreeMoodle is an organisation that provides completely free Moodle hosting for completely freeMoodle courses. Its motto and ultimate goal is to "Change the world for the better, through Moodle-enabled free courses". So far two coures are provided: the Spreadsheets and the Presentations, both for LibreOffice. The first course has already run three times, while the second twice.
These courses have been welcomed from the greek audience and the "Greek Effort" of FreeMoodle has been awarded in June 2012 with the Stamp of Good Practice, from the Action Mathisi 2.0 Plus. You may find the courses in this link, under the category “Ellinika – Pliroforiki”. (Greek -> IT) Last not least, note that this site is exclusively founded by Human Resource Development New Zealand Moodle Partner, in the memory of the colleague and Moodle mentor Haidee Foxwell – Mealor.
In all these cases the elearning courses contain resources and activities. When participant's performance is good, and his total course score is hight, then he/she is allowed to get his/hes Certificate. An accreditation that justifes that the specific participant gained the knowledge provided and can be implemented. Above all these certifications though the most popular and highly recocnizable worldwide is the Moodle Course Creator Certificate. This Certificate testifies that the holder do know how to use Moodle and how to manage an e-class. It is being provided only by Moodle Partners and although it is an asychronous and online process it accepted for Moodlers all over the world.
So, let's sum up what we have seen so far. We have seen that Moodle has been successfully used for training classes which are: Multicultural Cover different time zones Composed by people who have different social and economic background, different learning background and Different IT skills They can also be used for National training gathering Greeks from all over the world Is particularly helpfull for Workers It can be usefull for everyone, teenagers or elderys People with moving disabilities
So can Moodle be used by the Public Administration? Absolutely yes!
First of all Moodle can be used to train the employees in Public Administration. Due to the financial crisis several Public Administrations in Greece want to move from proprietary software to FLOSS. Although this is not always easy. On the one hand, people often refuse to leave their comfort zone and try something slightly different. Specially when there is not a standard support. On the other hand a f2f training is very expensive and employees don't want to sucrifise part of their free time for this. Thus the asynchronous e-learning method is by far the most efficient one for this cases. Employees can learn how to use a new application dedicating just a couple hours per week, for two months. And this can be done from their office, during the official working hours. But Moodle could be also used as a mean for social policy. Public Administation can use this platform to provide e-learning of low or no cost courses to train their residences and organize e-communities.