Organising for Software Freedom Day 2011
For Software Freedom Day this year in Auckland we are excited to have Orion Health sponsoring us again. They are providing us the use of Orion Cafe on Saturday 17 September from 10 – 4 so if you are in Auckland come along. Other cities around New Zealand are also participating in this international event. See http://softwarefreedomday.org.nz/ for details.
Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Software Freedom Day 2011 is officially Saturday 17th September, but in New Zealand we’re spreading our celebrations over the week or so around that date. Check out the website to find out what’s happening near you.
The principles behind FOSS are underpinned by the users’ freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve he software. You can read more about the four freedoms on the GNU website.
Our goal in this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about the benefits of using high quality FOSS in education, in government, at home, and in business – in short, everywhere!
Moodlemoot NZ 2011 next week
With only a few days until Moodlemoot 2011 I thought I would write a bit about what to expect (in addition to a good time).
Guest International Keynote Speakers:
- Martin Dougiamas – a man who needs no introduction in the Moodle community; Martin will be presenting remotely on “Where 2.0 now?”
- Gavin Henrick of Remote-Learner in Canada and Enovation Solutions in Ireland – Gavin will be sharing his experiences with us in his keynote “Moodle from multiple perspectives”
There will be a great range of presentations throughout the conference, including technical sessions like Dan Marsden’s talk on “Crot and Turnitin: plagiarism detection tools” and school sessions like “Moodle and Teaching as Inquiry” with Mark Osborne.
Perhaps the best bit on the programme – “Open Space” – time for ‘user generated’ discussion – it’s led by you! and the conversation can go anywhere.
As usual, we will have workshops running the day before the two day conference.
- Mobile Moodle workshop with Thom Cochrane and Vickel Narayan
- Beginning Moodle Administration with Teresa Gibbison
- Moodle foundation – essentials for newer users with Miriam Laidlaw
- Using Moodle in NZ schools with Anton Coltham and Jacqui Land
The conference dinner, a not to be missed experience, will be held at “The Floating Pavilion” at the Viaduct.
If you haven’t already registered this is really the last chance, so go to the online registration form here now. I look forward to seeing you there!
Barcamp
It’s time to register for Barcamp.
The fifth annual Barcamp Auckland unconference will be held on the 16th July at Botany Downs Secondary College.
What you need to know:
Define “Barcamp”: Sort of like a conference, but not. AKA “unconference” because instead of having a schedule of presentations set by the organisers, at a Barcamp the attendees organise the schedule and it’s generally more discussion the presentation. Basically, at a barcamp everyone should be participating in the conversation.
The guy behind the Auckland Barcamp is Ludwig Wendzich.
Who goes? You will find developers, hackers, sys admins, makers, teachers, technologists, users, all sorts.
The awesome sponsors who make these possible:
- InternetNZ, platinum sponsor
- Shift and Microsoft, gold sponsors
- Webstock, Pixelfusion and Valentine Addis, silver sponsors
What is different about Barcamp Auckland this year?
There will be a panel discussing the future of NZ’s internet (thinking NetHui anyone?) including
- Clare Curran (Labour MP)
- Gareth Hughes (Green MP)
- Paul Brislen (TUANZ CEO)
- Tim Mullins (IP Lawyer)
- David Farrar (IT Political Commentator)
- Vikram Kumar (InternetNZ)
- Lance Wiggs (Moderator from InternetNZ)
iMoot 2011
Nearing the end of day 1 of the iMoot 2011 and I have enjoyed watching some of the sessions from the comfort of my couch.
There is a bit of something for everyone in the conference programme this year. Today I have listened to Julian talking about his passion for Moodle, even calling it “married to Moodle”. I have heard Sue Dark talking about Totara, catering to corporate Moodle users. I have heard Tomaz talking about Mount Orange School, the demo site, which is a great way for people to try out Moodle 2 and for getting tips on course design. Miriam talked on Moodle and Second Life, and the Moodlebites talk from Stuart helping those who need to do staff development for Moodle 1.9 and newly available for Moodle 2.0 (in English and Spanish!).
If I could handle staying awake until 1.30am I would attend Shane’s talk about the history of Moodle; luckily I can replay the session at a more NZ friendly time.
Anyway, three more exciting days to go, and I think/hope I am all ready for my presentations. :-/
Te Uku Wind Farm
Today we went to Te Uku wind generation site for a tour.
Te Uku is near Raglan (West coast) in the North Island of New Zealand, about thirty kilometres from Hamilton. Project Te Uku is a 64MW generation site built by Meridian Energy and WELNetworks Limited. After spending a few years in the energy industry I have quite an interest in renewable generation and in particular like wind farms, so enjoyed the chance to visit another one.
So there are 28 Siemens 2.3MW turbines on 80 metre towers with 45 metre blades. That puts them at quite a bit bigger than the first wind farm I went to (and worked at) which was 1.65MW NEG Micon turbines on 70 metre towers with 35 metre blades. The Siemens nacelles are round, long and thin. The blades have a very unique curvature to them which I was quite interested in seeing in action after seeing them in photos. 
Like many other wind generation sites this one is working farm land with both sheep and cattle grazing amongst the turbines. There are wetlands and a lot of plants were added as part of the project (something like forty thousand plants).
Te Uku was not particularly windy today which made it hard to hear the blade woosh at all even standing directly under a turbine. The blades rotate at 16rpm so they are quite a slow graceful looking turbine.
Eight of the turbines have aviation lights on top which looked like satellite dishes from a distance. The tails of the nacelles have what look like plane fins on them, a top of which sit the anemometer and wind vane.
Although Te Uku is small compared to some of the other sites I have been to, it is no mean feat to build. I think they said there were 26 km of roads built on the site over 8 months, 18m wide concrete foundations were made on site (lucky one of the farmers owns a quarry to supply the two hundred tonnes of aggregate required), and over eight hundred people worked there during the build (just over half were local I believe). So the project certainly put a bit of money into the local economy.
The bus tour was $5 per person and 100% of that was pooled together for the local schools which is a nice way for us “tourists” to say thanks to the locals for having us for the day. There was a community gala at the domain in Raglan with some impressive kites being flown. It was great to catch up with some of my previous colleagues of Meridian Energy. We had a lovely lunch in Raglan before heading home.
