Educating for the future: the transformative power of openness (Moodlemoot Global 2022, Barcelona)

Andreia Inamorato and Martin Dougiamas

The numbers do not lie: there were 835 participants in the Moodlemoot Global 2022 in Barcelona,  3 years after the last global face-to-face moot. It was an incredibly mixed cloud of developers, partners, teachers, students, Moodle headquarters folks, social entrepreneurs, and international organisations (such as the European Commission and the United Nations), to cite a few. I was really impressed by the energy of this community – everyone seemed very eager to share and to learn from each other – very much the spirit of open education.

I was very pleased to be invited by Moodle to do the keynote on day 2 of the event: Wednesday the 28th of September.  I love engaging with new audiences, and if you look in this tweet, you’ll see a full room, at the same you can imagine the responsibility I had to bring something new to these folks, whom I have a lot to learn from when it comes to technology development. So, I stayed in my domain, which is the intersection of technology, education, research, and policy,  and brought some ideas about how our society evolves in this post-industrial, digital era.  Martin Dougiamas’ (Moodle founder and CEO) keynote on day 1 synced very well with my talk in my opinion (even chronologically) – and no, we did not know what each other was going to talk about. His talk was a  journey of human development from biological and evolutionary points of view, having started at the ‘cell level’, then primates, etc. He has brought us all the way through to the beginning of the Internet and contemporary artificial intelligence and has shown how humans have the need to ‘connect’ with one another.

Andreia's keynote slides

For PPT download, click on the photo

In my talk on day 2, I had three main areas of focus, which intersect: 1. the complexity of contemporary society, 2. current social challenges (twin and triple transitions), and 3. the transformative power of openness.  My main line of argument was that although we are embedded in a complex society (which will become ever more complex and more technology-driven) everyone can step back and through reflection, find their way to support social transformative innovation, and of course for this to happen being ‘open’ is key – be it at the top-down or bottom-up levels (institutional or individual levels). The keynote has been recorded and I hope to be able to share it on my blog shortly.

And I do need to share this wonderful sketchnote done by Bethany Smith about my talk, which I loved (thank you, Bethany!):

Sketchnote by Bethany Smith

There have also been lots of great talks and experience-sharing sessions, apart from a great area to connect with Moodle partners and see their new developments. And last but not least… comes the Moodle party on Wednesday! It was a real blast! It was a costume party, where one had to wear something to ‘travel back in time’, and not only everyone was really creative with their costumes, but the venue itself was amazing – really contributing as a frame to the party’s theme.

It took place in La Paloma, a venue in Barcelona that had been closed for about 20 years, which reopened this September – so our party was a type of ´coming back for the venue’ as well. Have a look at the pic below from @anitacerrudo  –  and you´ll have a feel for what I mean…

 

Moodlemoot Global party 2022 in Barcelona. Pic by @anitacerrudo

Moodlemoot Global Barcelona 2022:  ” The best Moodlemoot ever”, said Martin Dougiamas – and he announced the moot global to be in Barcelona again next year – olé!