That’s really interesting how you related the Theme to a sense of belonging. I often think of a Moodle Theme in the same way as a browser Theme these days. I’ve seen all sorts of colour schemes, font sizes, arrangements of buttons, etc. being used by people – in some cases because they have tali red their browser environment, and in some cases because they don’t know better, lol. But it does leave me with a question about how much we can separate the environment of Moodle (browser, Theme, and main course design) from the actual content and learning xpeience?

Great analogies Gareth 🙂

We are also striving for a more personalised learning environment that is tailored to our own individual style. But this can also detach us from the learning group as individuality separates us from the collective that facilitates team learning. It is a fine balance between a sense of belonging to a group whilst at the same time needing to be an individual. Themes are an artistic expression of the environment that we interact with to learn and therefore has the same tightrope to walk upon. Its like a collection of houses in a terraced street, from the outside they are all similar but with small differences, however on the inside there is more creativity in the way they are decorated and populated with functional technology.