1st mentor meeting

Today I had the first mentor meeting with Sanna. It's good that she and Maria prepared a study plan and a list of topics to think about. It made the discussion well structured. I could identify the gaps in my knowledge quite quickly (the plan helped to articulate them) and focus on what to do next.

What was new for me is that Moodle as a tool has a capability for developing collaborative environment for students. I thought it was only for storing teaching and students material relevant for a course.

Another interesting thing is that some teachers at the University use Moodle' wikis and discussion forums (social tools I'm interested in). As a teacher I'd like to have access to these examples to see how it works (in terms of reaching course objectives). However I can't do that because usually course spaces on Moodle are protected by passwords.
This is understandable given that teachers would like to protect their "intellectual property" (or afraid of negative assessment from peers). At the same time, it makes hardly possible the exhange of good ideas and experience.
As for me, I didn't protect my course material by a password last year. One reason was that I was interested in the feedback on the course structure ("feedback" reason). Another reason was that even if somebody would like to copy the course that person would anyway need to read all sources I mentioned. So the course can't be copied and taught stright away (and, frankly speaking, I think it needs some improvement). So I was not afraid that the course would be stolen ("proprietary" reason).
I know that this approach is not common. I don't have any illusions either on that the situation may change in very near future. But, anyway, I find it quite strange, especially, given the contemporary mantra of "the importance of knowledge sharing" :)