There are an increasing number of Mahara events throughout the world each year. Usually, I attend the majority of them electronically from the comfort of my couch in Wellington. Sometimes, I do get the chance though to travel to these events, which is always a special treat for me as I am not only able to present on Mahara, but also listen to other’s present and talk about Mahara as well as get to know the users of Mahara a bit more.

This year, I escaped the Wellington winter, which just started to settle in, to attend the MoodleMoot Mahara Hui Francophone. It’s a stable on the annual Moodle and Mahara conference calendar. It took place in Sierre, Switzerland, from 6 to 8 July 2016. HES-SO Valais-Wallis organized the event and did a great job at it. An army of student helpers was always around for questions, to take photos, to help us presenters in our sessions, to record every presentation, and to make sure that everything ran as smooth as.

Over 350 people from all parts of the French-speaking world attended this event: Participants came from Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia. A special highlight for many was the attendance of Martin Dougiamas for the entire conference.

Being a MoodleMoot Mahara Hui, a good number of presentations focused on Mahara. Nicolas Thorel also led workshops introducing Mahara to those who hadn’t worked with it before. I realized how little I know about what is going in the French-speaking Mahara community. We do get occasional submissions from French institutions to the newsletter, but that does not even begin to cover the extend to which it is being used. Many people do great work in the quiet of their institutions and use the opportunity of a conference to present their work. I will be in touch with them to showcase their work in the wider community.

Fortunately, I could attend the majority of the Mahara sessions, but will review some of them again where I didn’t catch everything due to my rusty French. It is fantastic that all presentations were recorded and will be made available soon. Since I hadn’t spoken French in many years, following some presentations was challenging. I missed a bunch of the jokes, but for the most part, I was happy how well I could follow along.

Events like this are special because I can meet the people who contribute to Mahara in person besides catching up with those I have already had the pleasure to get to know. So I met the original French translator of Mahara, Nicolas Martignoni, and also Philippe Pettiqueux, who’s helped with the French translation as well and is now looking into bringing Mahara into agricultural schools in France with his colleagues.

I’ll follow up with additional posts. For the time being, I’ll leave it at that as I’m still digesting all the impressions and would like to say a big MERCI BEAUCOUP A TOU-TE-S for a wonderful time in Sierre.

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