Michael Churchward is currently the President and CTO of Remote Learner, a Moodle partner based in the U.S. and Canada. Mike has been a developer of Moodle since 2004, and contributes both core code and add-on functions to the open source project. Mike and his development team are currently working on other extensions to Moodle, and helping to define the new Moodle 2.0 architecture.
Michael began his career building computer-based simulations of internal aircraft systems used in the training of ground and maintenance crews. Since then, he has been involved in many types of software and computer-based learning. Programming Moodle became a natural extension of that career.
Michael lives with his family in a small town in south-western Ontario, and thanks all of them for their patience while he was writing this book.
I thank the Moodle community for their energy and input; my wife, Janet; my sons, William, Cole, and Janson for their constant encouragement; and lastly my parents, Bob and Lorane for pointing me in the right direction.
Jonathan Moore is the 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, delivering 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, in Lenexa, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City.
I wish to thank my co-author, Michael Churchward, for taking on this crazy project to write a book while growing a company. Thanks for taking this leap of faith. I would also like to thank my wife for putting up with a cranky writer this past year, my parents for emphasizing the importance of literacy, Bryan Williams and the rest of our leadership team for their support, and finally the staff of Winfield Public Schools for providing a wonderful place to grow.