Ok, so I take the freedom to give this greet & meet place a start! First of all I am really glad to have the opportunity of being a part of the openEd 2.0 course team, which consists off Apostolos Kritikos, Doug Clow, Eleni Konstantinou, Elmar Husmann, Fanianna Gofa, George Alexakis, Hugo Magalhães, Ioannis Stamelos, James Aczel, Mathias Rossi, Matty Smith, Pascale Hardy, Patrick McAndrew, Simon Cross & Yannis Kalivas.

Some of you already know me from other trainings and earlier projects & I am happy to meet all of you at this course again, as well as I am looking forward to meet all of those people that I have not had the chance to meet earlier!

I am not a part of the actual course moderation team, but have been involved in co-editing the first two modules of this course, which I hope will meet your interest. And off course, I am equally eager in learning from all of you what we still should improve at this course!

Apart from this I am personally very much interested in the thematic area of open courses and in the learning opportunities the open web provides.

That's it for now

Yours
Andreas

Here goes my introduction...

My name is Gustavo Goncalves and I am based in Dallas, TX, USA. I am originally from Sao Paulo, Brazil. I have lived in the USA since 1985.

I have been involved with large infrastructure projects (servers/networks/data centers) for over 20 years. I enjoy sports photography (taking pictures of my daughters competing in sports) and eLearning.

I have participated in two large scale online programs in the past two years: Connectivism and Connective Knowledge 2009 and Personal Learning Envronments Networks and Knowledge 2010.

That's it... the short version.

Gus
www.allthingsgg.com

Hi everyone,

My name is Apostolos Kritikos and I am working as a research associate with the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (A.U.TH), Dept. of Informatics.

My role to the OpenED platform is mainly, its technical support. So while you interact with the platform feel free to report any strange behavior to the "Technical Issues and General Support" category of this forum which can be found at

www.open-ed.eu/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=42&func=showcat&catid=6

and I shall look at it as quick as possible.

Kind Regards,

Apostolos

Hello all

My name is James Wire and I am an ICT practitioner based in Kampala, Uganda. I run a private firm that pioneered FOSS support services in this country ten years ago. I look forward to learning from all you guys and improving on my skills in whatever way possible.

Wire

Hello,

my name is Ioannis Stamelos, Associate Professor at the Aristotle Univ. of Thessaloniki. I am involved in this course as responsible of the technical support.

I wish to all students that will enroll a pleasant, interesting and fruitful course. A cordial welcome to all Greek students, especially to students from Thessaloniki.

I.S.

Hi,
I'm Ousmane SAMBOU, from Senegal. I'm working freelance as a marketing manager and I keep trying to get small businesses to use open source software.
I've been involved in the establishment of a platform for distant learning using Joomla, Moodle and phpBB. I hope to learn new collaborative technologies to modernize the teaching practices in Senegal.

I am Ellis,based in Cypress,Texas and a Tanzanian by nationality.Presently,I am a MS Computer Information Systems major at Prairie View A&M University.

My first taste of Open Source was some years ago when I was an undergraduate CS major at the University of Dar es salaam in Tanzania.Since then,I have been a user of various Open Source Applications and have taken so much interest in every bit of it.

I am glad to take part in this Web 2.0 course and I strongly believe that it's going to be an enriching and rewarding experience.

My name is Willa. I really hope this is going to rock.

Looking forward to learn with everyone.

Hello people My Name is Campira Mulauzi from Chimoio, Mozambique. I am much into FOSS in education and community capacity building. I am involved in ICT@Innovation FOSS ICT in education a very big potential for us even though at the moent we are only a small org. we dream to be a cutting edge FOSS solutions think tank and consultancy hence i will collaborate with others interested in our various projects. I only started in FoSS big time after attending the iCT@innovation training in Maputo Last year. From there i have been introduce to foss forum. so i am like catching up, all my previous knowledge was self taught so i am catching up on any training opportunities available. My career has really focused on FOSS.

Hello All,

My name is Bryan Krusniak and I am coming to this course from the small town of Kirksville, Missouri, United States. I work at A.T. Still University of Health Sciences where I am responsible for technology. My interest in this course is in experiencing international open education and seeing how social and engaging the experience can be while also learning from one another.

It is very nice to "meet" all of you.

- Bryan

I am Ibrahima Fode NDIAYE, a Software QA manager and a co-founder of a cooperative like opensource software company called kitek (www.kiteknologies.net) based in Dakar - Senegal (West Africa). I can't wait to take part of OpenED 2.0 course for the very interesting programs and for the opportunity of sharing experience with people all over the world.

My profile is in herre www.open-ed.eu/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=271&Itemid=9

Nice to meet you all and looking forward to November 1st!

Hi everyone. I'm James Aczel, from The Open University in the UK.

I'm a member of the openED course team, and helped put together the modules. So I'm looking forward to find out over the next few months how we can improve the course.

My particular interest in openED is in exploring to what extent open online collaboration can foster open online informal learning communities. I also chair the Open University's course on educational technology research, which provided the starting point for the openED course.

I'm not part of the moderation team, but I might catch up with you later in the course if you're doing Module 5 A2: Quantitative and qualitative analysis tools.

Best wishes for the course!

James

Hi Everyone!

I am Pascale Hardy, Director of Online Studies for the University of Liverpool and Lead Faculty for Walden University.
I am a member of the OpenED course team, and helped to put together the modules. I am very interested in OpenED and its impact on effective building of Communities of practice.
My research interests include strategic analysis of ICTs and learning development, capacity building, knowledge management, competencies and organizational learning, organization strategies, future studies and scenario planning.

Best wishes

Pascale Hardy

Hi!!My name is Evita..and now i am an one of you!!nice to meet you

Hello!! I'm Xenia from Thessaloniki, ..postgraduate student of ICT Master in International Hellenic University.
Glad to be here...

Hi,

My name is Maria, currently living in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal.

I'm a teacher at a secondary school and I’m looking forward to this course.


Meet you all monday,

Maria

Hello

My name is Nikos Chatzithomas and I am graduate student on "Informatics and Management" of the Aristotle Univerity of Thessaloniki. My thesis' topic is about the impact of national culture on the usage of web 2.0 technologies, so i think that this course is a great opportunity for me.

Regards,
Nikos

Hello everybody
My name is Vicky Nassi and I come from Greece.
I'm working in a software company in the marketing and sales department.
I'm following an MBA course in EEDE and I m really glad to have the opportunity to follow this e-learning course.

Regards
Vicky

Hello Everyone!
My name is Lawrence Lyayuka, most of my friends prefer Larry. I work with University of Dar es salaam Computing Centre in Tanzania - East Africa as eLearning Coordinator.

Looking at the contents of this course, i am very excited. It is a course one cant afford to miss in todays world

With Kind Regards
Larry

Hi everybody!

My name is Alfia,I'm from Russia. Looking forward to meeting you and working together. Wishing success to everybody.

Hej,

My name is Francisco Bacelar Ferreira
I'm Portuguese and an Industrial Engineer.
Been working for a Danish company in Portugal in projects in the energy area.
I'm actually living and working in Denmark for one year now for the same company also in Contracting and Project departement.
I'm also taking a Master Degree in Biosystems Engineering in Denmark.
I'd like to learn more about project management so i'm looking forward for this course.

Best Regards

I am Daudi from Arusha Tanzania-East Africa, am working at University of Dar es salaam Computing Centre as Instructor and Technical staff. Lets move into this course curiously

Hi Gus..
I can't help but wonder. Is the PLENK 2010 the same one that Stephen Downes and company are still presenting at
connect.downes.ca/index.html ? I wanted to take this in.. and had wondered about doing it in pieces when I had a moment.. but moments are scarce. If it is .. what did you think?

Hi everyone
I'm a Canadian expat who is living and working in the UAE as a Senior Education Technology Specialist / Intro to Stats instructor / Intro to IT instructor ...

Recently finished and MA in Online and Distance Education with the Open U (UK) and was most impressed. As you might imagine, I'm quite receptive to the whole online learning thing..

If you'd like to connect, feel free to do so with
my Twitter account @buckinsand
my Linked In account
my web page

I've also done a few presentations on the use of social media by small businesses as a bit of a crossover from education. The latest being "Facebook and Twitter for SMBs: You're kidding right?"

Looking forward to the networking possibilities and exploring more about how social media tools can be used in Business Management.

Cheers

yes, that's the one. Great course. I also took the last year's course CCK09.

The CCK09 and PLENK2010 are mostly geared towards educators - it goes into theories of education, etc.

I highly recommended it.

Hi Gus & James (& all)

Nice to meet you!

The courses of Stephen Downes / George Siemens (and also those courses of other pioneers in this field, such as David Wiley or the ones from P2PU[Philipp Schmidt]) are certainly a benchmark – hope we can live up to it and provide something equally interesting Personally I have been and continue to be inspired by all of those works!

@James – so we actually have been studying at the same time at The OU / IET (virtual peers so to say)! I am just about to finish my PhD there. Good to hear that you had an as good experience than I had of studying at The OU! I bet that the team from The OU that forms a part of this course is happy to hear that their work is appreciated

Cheers
Andreas

Hi all,
My name is George Alexakis and I cooperate with Hellenic Management Association for the development and the training part of the Modules 4, 5P1 and 5P3. I'm here to support anyone who needs a helping hand for these Modules and to evaluate the relevant exercises and case studies.

Good day all, it's never too late to join such an intrigue group.

My name is Keutlwile Leso. Some call me Kaye or just Leso. I'm a Managing Partner of Molemi NGS, a Management Consulting, ICT Solutions, and Training company. We specialise in Business & IT Strategies alignment disciplines such as Enterprise Architecture, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Business Process Management (BPM), Business Intelligence (BI). We also provide IT Advisory, IT Security, and Free & Open Source Strategy & Solutions to numerous clients throughout Africa, Europe, and the United States.

As a Business IT Professional with over 10 years international experience, I was the Architecture Lead in the design of the Intelligent Transport System (ITS) that was developed entirely on Free & Open Source tools for one of the 2010 FIFA World Cup host cities.

Thank you for your time and patience.

Heyho & welcome!

Nice to see you over here at the course and hope you get something out of it!

cheers
andreas