Connecting with other Moodlers
These are lonely times. It’s easy to feel shut-in, isolated, alone. While my state isn’t in lockdown, my family is isolating from the outside world as much as possible right now. I don’t think I’ve been more than 20 km from this desk in a month.
It feels like it’s going to be this way for a while, so we are looking for different ways to connect. My work colleagues and I use Microsoft Teams to hold our morning and afternoon scrums, and anytime we need to virtually hang our heads over the cubical wall and talk through a problem. That’s working pretty well, we’re a well functioning distributed team. My family and I meet every Saturday Night for “family chat” in a Facebook room. It took the pandemic to get everyone to meet weekly, something we should have been doing all this time. And this week coming up, I’m going to attempt virtual game night with a few friends and we’ll figure out if it’s possible to play a party game in Zoom.
But how do I connect with other Moodlers? Well, there is the ElearningWorld monthly open Zoom meeting. Now, I have to admit I have trouble attending because the times don’t exactly line up great for me. I tried hard to get to the July afternoon session, but work got in the way.
There are a few Facebook groups you could join. Specifically, the New Zealand Moodle Users group is a good place to drop a line and meet other Moodlers. And they’ve been nice enough to allow non-New Zealanders like me to join.
There’s plenty of other ways we can stay connected, and I’d like you to share in the comments other groups and virtual get togethers that you know about. It’s easy to feel isolated right now, so reach out to each other online. If you have a group of Moodle or EdTech friends, why not organise an online meet-up? It doesn’t have to be big or fancy, just a few colleagues and a cup of coffee and maybe a show-n-tell. Let’s keep our Moodle communities communicating!
Image by Armin Schreijäg from Pixabay
- The New Normal? – 25th September 2020
- MoodleMoot UK & IE and MoodleMoot US – 25th August 2020
- Connecting with other Moodlers – 25th July 2020
Yes, interesting times eh?
I haven’t felt particularly isolated, but that’s because of personal history that means I’m an independent and quiet person (which most people who meet me in professional life wouldn’t believe! lol)
But I can remember when my immediate family went to the UK for 6 weeks (my partner and two young daughters), and I cried in the car driving all the way home already missing them so much!
With Skype, Zoom, BigBlueButton, Facebook, Twitter, etc. etc. we might have assumed that most people would still feel ‘connected’ ?
But I think COVID-19 and lockdowns have also show, very importantly, that as humans we are social animals, and we like to socialise with groups – family, neighbours, friends, workmates, Moodlers !
I’ve heard of a few people having ‘quiz nights’ and suchlike virtually – and that seems like such a good idea – having FUN with others, albeit online, seems like something we should naturally be doing with others, and making the effort to organise 🙂