It’s said so often (and I’m not afraid of a good cliché so I am going to say it as well) where did the year go? It seems like yesterday since I was walking through the doors of Synergy Learning for the first time and since I was sitting down to my first blog post.
In fact it was a year ago!
So as we get ready to see in the New Year I am going to give you ten of my highlights from 2010 – things that stood out in my mind at the time of writing (bearing in mind I am still in the grips of my Christmas recovery!).
In no particular order…
The BETT Show
A great start to any e-learning calendar I was lucky enough to get over to BETT for a day trip. Roy, Alex, Jonny, Ian and Andrea were the core team manning the Moodle stand at London’s Olympia from 13th – 16th January and as always the response was mighty
iMoot
2010 played host to the first iMoot where the who’s who of the Moodle glitterati presented to Moodlers around the world. Among the presenters were Synergy Learning’s Technical Director Alex Büchner and Moodle Trainer Ian Wild.
The World Cup
Vuvuzela’s weren’t the only thing that caught the attention of the Synergy Learning office. Our heated Fantasy Football League was a close one and I was delighted to come out on top and very disappointed for Jonny McAlister who spent so much time at the bottom of the table he contemplated making it his permanent address.
Moodle 2.0
Is it this month? Next month? No, tomorrow you say? Yes that’s right – with more ‘will they, won’t theys’ than a soap extra-marital affair Moodle finally released the much anticipated Moodle 2.0. The biggest Moodle release to date with more new and improved features than could be mentioned in this short post (don’t forget to visit our ‘Route to Moodle 2.0’ page to see how we can seamlessly facilitate your upgrade).
Our Fifth Birthday
Although not the fifth year of Synergy Learning, 2010 was the fifth birthday of the company under the ownership of Roy Kerley and Alex Buchner. We celebrated in style…that’s all I’m saying!
Race for Life
We were very proud of our girls who raised a non-to shabby £700 for Cancer Research by taking part in the Race for Life up at Stormont (Belfast) in May. Inspired by photos they had seen from previous years of girls stumbling over the finish line looking red, sweaty and like they were on their last legs, our girls finished the 5k with dignity and grace – and then swore never to put themselves through a similar agony again!
Award-winning Theme Design
While I am being proud I may as well mention Caroline Kennedy who won Moodle 2.0 Theme contest, hosted by New School Learning, with her ‘Splash’ Theme. Caroline won herself an iPad and Splash can now be found as part of Moodle 2.0’s core code.
iPad
It is worth mentioning that 2010 was the year the newest addition to the Apple family was released and a number of iPad‘s have found their way into the Synergy Learning offices. Received with a mixed response the tablet is sure to impact the future of elearning one way or the other.
New Hosting Platform
This was also the year our Senior Networks Engineer, Peter Hinds, built our new Hosting Platform from scratch. Optimised for Moodle and Mahara, “it is a fully resilient platform comprised of hardware manufactured by industry leading vendors.” Click here to read all about it in Pete’s blog post. Not bad Pete!
Scotland
Our Belfast office is just a stone’s throw from Scotland so everyone was delighted for our Managing Director, Roy Kerley, who was appointed to the Board of the eLearning Alliance – a member-based organisation that supports Scotland’s elearning community. We have enjoyed a lot of new business from that direction and met some great people.
And one lowlight…
We were sorry to say goodbye to Fearghal Murphy who left us for sunnier climes (Florida to be more specific). I would like to wish Fearghal all the best for the future, and given that he’s prone to sunburn I would like to wish him good luck for the present as well!
So there you have it – ten memorable moments from the last 365 days… obviously it is difficult to fit a year into one blog post but not a bad list!
Here’s to the next 365…in the meantime I would like to thank you all for reading and wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year!
Joel
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