Mr Bradley Shaw, member of the BlackSticks at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow

Mr Bradley Shaw, our very own Year 8 teacher in the Preparatory School, has been selected to represent New Zealand at the upcoming 2014 Commonwealth Games hosted in Glasgow.

Already a proficient user of Moodle and OneNote in his classes, he contacted me asking if I could help set up a dedicated Moodle page that he could keep updated throughout the Commonwealth Games. Due to the strict social media policies in place by many of the teams competing at the Games, Mr Shaw could not blog on a publicly accessible page, or use social media such as Facebook or Twitter either.

However, by setting up a password protected Moodle course here that requires students to enter an enrolment key, he would be able to keep students and staff updated and provide a unique “behind the scenes” view of life as an athlete at a world class sporting event. I was keen to support this as it ties in with part of our wider strategy of creating globally connected Digital Citizens of our students. The Moodle course has two forums in it currently where students can:

• Ask questions of Mr Shaw (or other athletes he may be able to track down) of what life is like at the Games, and
• Send messages of support to the BlackSticks and other teams that Mr Shaw can pass along.

Live Twitter feed on the #Glasgow2014 hashtag

There is also a photo gallery plugin where new images will be posted from time to time. I also embedded a Twitter feed on the hashtag of #Glasgow2014 to ensure regular updates of images, results and news from the Games directly within the Moodle Course (see this blog post about embedding content such as Twitter feeds into Moodle) Additionally, I noticed that Hockey New Zealand has a Twitter account where they post results from games so I embedded that too:

Live updates from the @BlackSticks Twitter handle that will give game scores and results.

I always like to see Moodle being used for non-academic purposes as it highlights the versatility of this Learning Management System, and we have a number of co-curricular courses such as this one being used now. Here’s wishing the Black Sticks and Mr Shaw all the best at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games!