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Moodle mourns loss of one of it’s greatest supporters

I want to remember Tom Murdoch, who sadly passed away last week.

Tom Murdock

Many of you may know Tom Murdock. Sadly, Tom passed away from heart failure on Friday 2nd November in Denver, USA. Rather poignantly, this was during the time of the US MoodleMoot. He was exactly where he loved to be. Although Tom was only 48, he had a major impact on Moodle during the last decade and a half.

Tom was a school teacher, educator, banjo lover, literature fan, Moodlerooms founder, and Moodle user #596 (which is amazing!) … and a friend and colleague who will be greatly missed by many people.

I’ve shared some photos below of Tom when he attended the Moodle Moot conference here in New Zealand in 2010. He actually brought the first iPad to New Zealand for the conference, which he purchased the day before he flew, on it’s release date in the US.

I remember chatting to him, and telling him how excited myself and Haidee (also in these photos) were in the ‘old days’ when we used to check the Moodle server logs of our first sites each night to see who had been online. And he told us how he used to fall asleep with a laptop balanced on his stomach so he could reboot his Moodle server if it crashed! lol.

Those were such early days of the history of Moodle, and it was so much fun. Some people are “just good people” and Tom was one of them, no question. He will truely be missed by many.

You can read some of his personal thoughts on his blog

http://somewords.org

Tom, Haidee, Shane, Jacqui

Haidee and Tom

Stuart Mealor
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Stuart Mealor

Stuart is interested in all things e-learning, with specific interests in Moodle, e-learning strategy, and business development. His experience in education over 30 years, MBA in International Business, and knowledge of e-learning systems implementation, together with graphic design background, give him a unique skill set for e-learning projects.

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