What a difference a few years makes. This is a powerful acknowledgement of the importance of creative commons, collaboration and open access:"Critics called for a boycott of Blackboard in 2006 after it used a flimsy software patent to sue a rival, and raised fears that it would sue universities that were using their own teaching software tools rather than Blackboard’s products...

At the NZ Moodlemoot recently, Martin Dougiamas used a slide in his presentation that was entitled 'Pedagogical Progression' It's a list of online/blended learning activities in the form of a progression or taxonomy, but it's also a really good checklist for the way we use online learning environments. How much time do you spend on the first three activities? Martin estimates about 90%.

One of the great things about being part of the community of Moodle users (that numbered 50 million last time I checked) is the wealth of third-party add-ons available. One module I think is great is the Game module. It takes any normal quiz, glossary or questions and turns it automatically into any one of 8 games, from hangman to sudoku to something similar to 'who wants to be a millionaire'. One of my great tricks is to get students to build a glossary of key words and definitions for a topic as we go.