She is an English teacher, a Certified Legal Translator (English/Spanish), and has a Postgraduate degree in Education (graduated with Honors).
She has been working in several schools and institutes with native English speaking students, and as an independent consultant for many international companies working as an interpreter, translator, and VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) course designer.
She has always had a passion for technological devices concerning education. Former videos and cassettes were a must in her teaching lessons, and computer was, and still is, present. Her brother, Gastn C. Hillar, designed some programs and games for her teaching. Lately, she is teaching using Moodle and the Web 2.0. She believes that one of the most amazing challenges in education is bridging the gap between classic education and modern technologies.
She has been doing a lot of research on multimedia assets that enhance teaching and learning through VLE platforms. She tries to embed the learning of students through new resources which are appealing and innovative for them. Thus, multimedia stimulates different thinking skills, as well as multiple intelligences.
She has authored three books at Packt Publishing, which are Moodle 1.9: The English Teacher's Cookbook, Moodle 2 Multimedia Cookbook, and MindMapping with FreeMind.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank all the team members at Packt Publishing Ltd. who worked with me as an incredibly helpful team, Joanne Fitzpatrick who trusted me to update this bookwe worked together so that the idea came into this bookAngel Jathanna who was very patient and helpful with time management, and Amey Varangaonkar who also was an important part of this project.
I want to thank the reviewers of this book who helped with their comments: Aparup Banerjee, Nicolas Dunand, Valery Fremaux, and Rajesh Taneja, they were really helpful.
I also want to thank the technical editors who worked with me in the editing process of the book: Manan Badani, Pankaj Kadam, Pramod Kumavat, Krutika Parab, and Hardik B. Soni.
I owe tremendous thanks to my wonderful nine-year-old son, Nico, who despite his age was very patient and supportive in the writing process of the book. He was on some occasions forced to play and study alone while I concentrated on my writing.
My parents, Susana and Jose (who is also a writer), who always stand by me and support my decisions. My brother, Gastn C. Hillar, who helps me whenever I need him, as usual. My little four-year-old nephew Kevin, my newly born nephew Brandon, and my sister-in-law, Vanesa S. Olsen, with whom we spend time working and exploring Moodle, as well as many other resources.
I would also like to thank all my students, either real or virtual, who make it possible for me to be a teacher.
About the Reviewers
Aparup Banerjee holds a Bachelors in Applied Science in Computer Engineering from NTU, Singapore. He has been in the IT industry for over 15 years. He is happily married in Australia with two inquisitive bright young children and shares the passions of the education industry and social constructivism with his lovely wife Indu.
He has spent the past several years in Moodle "HQ" wearing the hat of a developer, as well as in qualitative roles, carefully reviewing, testing, and integrating changes to the final Moodle software product. He currently helps facilitate and maintain the Moodle Plugins Directory, as well as developing and maintaining other Moodle.org sites. This has brought about a specialization in the education industry, particularly with online delivery and Moodle.
Nicolas Dunand is a systems administrator and Moodle specialist for a higher educational institution, where he is responsible for the administration and custom development of Moodle. He is the maintainer and a contributor of various Moodle plugins. He is also a self-employed web developer and works on private projects ranging from websites to online databases, including secure delivery of confidential documents.
Valery Guilhem Fremaux is one of the leading French Moodle technical experts and a noticeable Moodle contributor for about 10 years. He worked on public statewide programs using Moodle as the core LCMS environment in big size deployment projects (> 800,000 users), and he administrates about 100 Moodle applications for many public and private schools and professional development institutions. Nowadays, he works as an independent consultant dealing with digital learning and Moodle integration,
He has taught at EISTI (Graduate Engineer Degree in IT and Data Technologies) for 13 years and managed the Applied Studies Laboratories in the IT department of the school.
Valery Fremaux has authored and contributed to many IT-related books in France, such as Java basics (Ellipses), Java advanced (Ellipses), a Roger Pressman 5th Edition free adaptation in French (Ellipses), and the WAP forum translation (Eyrolles).
Rajesh Taneja is an experienced software developer with over 10 years of hands-on experience in various IT technologies and languages. He has worked across the world for renowned companies such as Mentor Graphics, Samsung, Calorie King, and Moodle to name a few. He has a passion and a knack to learn and hone technologies. Currently, he is an Analyst Developer at Moodle Headquarters in Perth, Australia and also provides consultancy to various learning organizations. Rajesh loves gardening and working on DIY projects in his spare time only when his toddler son Ansh permits him to do so. You can contact Rajesh through his LinkedIn profile >.