Interview: Jonathan Moore, co-author of Moodle 1.9 Extension Development

Jonathan Moore is the author of the recently released Moodle 1.9 Extension Development which helps to Customize and extend Moodle using its robust plug-in systems.

Jonathan Moore is Vice President for Business Development at Remote Learner. Jonathan began working with Moodle in 2003. Over the past four years, Jonathan has worked with dozens of clients to deliver Moodle customizations. Jonathan has a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Technology.

Jonathan formerly served as the Director of Technology for Winfield Public Schools. He served in this capacity for almost ten years and has developed a broad set of educational technology and project management skills over the course of his career. His student technology program, Student Technology Assistance Team (STAT), was recognized nationally by Comptia as the best rural student technology program. Earlier in his career, Jonathan worked as a full-time developer and studied computer science prior to pursuing information technology. Jonathan started working with open source technology in 1993 with an early release of Slackware Linux and has used and supported a variety of open source technologies in educational settings.

Jonathan lives with his wife, Michelle, in Lenexa, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City.

He blogs at: http://opensourceelearning.blogspot.com/

Remote Learner, the company which Jonathan works for can be found at: http://remote-learner.net

Packt: Your book is published now. How is the feeling of being a published author?

Jonathan: I don't think it has totally sunk in yet. I feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment. I have wanted to be a writer since I was twelve years old. Mike and I worked tremendously hard over the past year to put the book together. It was especially difficult putting together all the coding examples. Once the coding was finished for a chapter the writing was relatively easy. I feel really good that while it was a difficult process, that I was able to accomplish our goal of writing a great book on how to customize Moodle via its extensible plug-in model.

Packt: What benefits did writing a book bring to your specialist area?

Jonathan: The most direct thing that comes to mind is how much I learned over the course of researching and example creation for the book. Its very much like the saying that you have to teach it to truly learn a subject. I think writing a book on a subject, brings that idea to an even higher level. Longer term this is one more indication of the level of both my personal expertise as well as that of our company Remote-Learner provides in the Moodle space.

Packt: Our authors usually have full-time jobs whilst writing for us. Was this the case for you and how did you approach managing your time?

Jonathan: Yes, I have a full-time plus job. I also had to move for work during the development of the book and had to complete renovations of our home to sell it. Last summer involved a lot of juggling. What worked best was to block out 30 – 60 minutes per day each morning before I did anything else. I made an arrangement with our CEO that I could work about 4 hours per week during work hours towards the book. Once we put this in place and I got in the habit of working on the book first thing in the morning, things went much more smoothly. I had the least luck with trying to block large chunks of time on the weekend.

Packt: Whilst writing your book, did you find that it overshadowed personal life in any way? How did you deal with this?

Jonathan: Yes, it definitely did at times. I would say if my schedule wasn't already crazy before taking on the book, that the book writing process wouldn't be as bad.I definitely tried to limit the number of personal trips I took to see family in-order to have more book time. On the counter side of this, one of my most productive writing weeks was during a vacation we took to Belize and I didn't spend my entire time their hunched over a computer screen either. My major strategy for this was to chunk my work sessions into 30-60 minute chunks and mix those up with some personal time to relieve stress.

Packt: Do you have any advice for other authors who may be interested in writing for Packt, but are still unsure?

Jonathan: I would tell them to work on getting the outline and schedule done quickly so that there is more time to write. I would also tell them to ask for a run through of the entire process from outline, scheduling, writing, all the way through production and printing. I would also tell them that it is a difficult process, but a worthwhile one in the end.

Packt: Do you have any tips for other authors, or tricks that you learnt whilst writing, that you'd like to share?

Jonathan: Make it the first thing you do in the morning. Schedule a set amount of time to work on the book each week and compare at the end of the week if the alloted time is keeping you on schedule. Don't worry about writing perfectly in the first draft, just get the words out on paper. If your book involves coding, start early on the code and expect that the coding is going to take more time than you think it will.

Packt: How did you find the overall experience of writing your book for Packt?

Jonathan: Overall, I am really glad I did it. There were times when frustrations ran high, but everyone worked hard to get through those as painlessly as possible. The team at Packt works hard to answer all the questions and provide good author support.

Packt: During the writing process, did you come across any issues/ difficulties that affected your writing and how did you overcome these?

Jonathan: I ran into problems relatively early in the writing process. While working on my third chapter, I realized that it was going to take much more time than we had scheduled. I think we had 18 or 20 days allocated. It ended up taking 3-4 months to write all the code, condense the code into the size allotment for the chapter, and get a first draft submitted. Luckily the rest of the book went much better and I was able to get back on schedule. I would suggest to anyone that gets into that situation is to just keep working and keep plugging away.

Packt: Was there anything interesting that happened during the writing of the book?

Jonathan: I have written a four part blog on the writing process at: http://opensourceelearning.blogspot.com/. One interesting thing in the writing process was the first bit of feedback from our technical reviewer. At the time it came in I was still about 2 months behind on the schedule and the feedback was really good. I got a personal email from Anthony Borrow, telling me how good the quality of the book was. This ended up being a really critical morale boost to keep me going and to eventually get back on schedule.

Packt: How did Packt’s Acquisition Editors help you - what kind of things did they help you with and how did they support you throughout the writing process?

Jonathan: They helped us come up with some very helpful guidelines for the book when we were stuck on the outline and schedule. The two key things they shared were an upper limit on the number of pages of content and that an average writing can complete about 8 pages of writing per week. Deeper in the process they help clarify bigger picture questions and would help connect us with the appropriate specialists at Packt.

Packt: What projects, if any, are you working on at the moment?

Jonathan: From the writing side I have had 2 more book offers from Packt, but I have decided to take a break on the book writing front. I have started a blog to discuss open source eLearning and I have re-purposed my writing time towards writing articles for my blog. I am speaking at several conferences this Summer: the Goshen Indiana Moodle Moot, the Oklahoma Moodle Moot, and the Australian Moodle Moot. I am also interested in doing an editorial column for an industry publication, but I haven't really pursued it. On the personal front, I am currently training for the Gold Coast Marathon in Australia which will take place on July 4th.

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