e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: Lou Pugliese

  • Is Moodle “Bigger than Martin”?

    In his recent post on why Moodle matters, Phil wrote,

    For a large portion of our readers who deal mostly with US higher education, it could be easy to dismiss Moodle as an LMS and an idea past its prime.[…]And yet no other academic LMS solution comes close to Moodle in terms of worldwide deployments and learners enrolled.

    Likewise, if you’re not embedded in the Moodle community, you may not know how central Moodle creator Martin Dougiamas is to that project, or even know who he is. And yet, he is huge. I can name maybe a handful of people who are relatively widely known and respected in educational technology. I can name only a few who are admired and even beloved. I can name very few indeed who are not working for universities (although that’s changing a little, now that Jim Groom and David Wiley have both joined commercial ventures). Within the circle that knows him, Martin’s many admirers have been fiercely loyal to and protective of him, trusting him absolutely to steer Moodle the product, Moodle the community, and Moodle the brand. When you add to that the size of Moodle’s adoption footprint, one can make the case that Martin Dougiamas is one of the most consequential figures in the history of educational technology.

    Which is why it is so remarkable that Phil and I are hearing, for the first time ever, from a number of different, independent sources, the phrase, “Moodle is bigger than Martin now.” It is another indicator that Moodle is reaching an inflection point.

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  • Blackboard and MoodleRooms: An insight to private equity

    There has been speculation about Blackboard’s acquisition of MoodleRooms and its announcements about support of open-source learning systems. This is also an opportunity to see decision-making by Blackboard owner Providence Equity. The motivation of a private equity firm is rapid increase in the value of its assets. Some of Blackboard initiatives may take several years to take final form; perhaps longer than private equity objectives permit.

    Blackboard describes their software business saying: “We typically license our individual software applications either on a stand-alone basis or bundled as part of one of our six product lines: Blackboard Learn Blackboard Transact Blackboard Connect Blackboard Mobile Blackboard Collaborate and Blackboard Analytics.” Professional services account for 8% of revenue; product for 92%.

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  • Interview with Lou Pugliese

    For my first attempt at a Skype video interview, I was fortunate to be joined by Moodlerooms CEO Lou Pugliese. Unfortunately, the network gods were not with us; the picture is extremely fuzzy. But the audio is quite good and well worth your time. Lou is an interesting guy. He started out as a journalist, got into online learning early, was Blackboard’s first CEO, worked with VCs for a while, and now is leading one of the fastest growing open source LMS support vendors around.

    On a related note, I’m in the process of doing some more research on the Moodlerooms/Cambridge University Press relationship. I was mistaken when I assumed that it was similar to the Blackboard/McGraw Hill deal. There are some interesting wrinkles to it, which I’ll report as soon as I have the details nailed down.

    By the way, I’m looking for input on these interviews. Is an hour too long? Are you listening to the whole thing? Are there ways that I could make it more likely that you would? Making a podcasting feed available on iTunes, for example?