Speaker
Description
For educators developing their own software, open-source platforms like Moodle offer a practical advantage: when existing tools don't quite fit, a plugin is easier to build than a whole new system. This has long been true, with MoodleReader (later MReader) as one example, but with AI agents now able to read, modify, and extend open code, a pedagogical idea can become working software in hours rather than months.
This opens new possibilities for EFL. The AI Escape Room plugin enables an interaction style unachievable with conventional tools: students converse with an AI character who responds adversarially, providing opportunities to practice the language of persuasion, making their case against an opponent who provides a genuine challenge that a human partner or scripted dialogues cannot replicate. Another example, the Textless Forum, replaces typed forum posts with audio and video recordings for asynchronous speaking. Both were created with an AI agent building on Moodle, and demonstrate that custom tools are now accessible to anyone with an idea worth trying.
Author Bio
Adam Jenkins is an associate professor at the Shizuoka Institute of Science and Technology where he is also the system administrator for the university-wide iLearn@SIST Moodle platform. In addition, Adam is known in the Moodle world for his instructional videos about Moodle administration on the WiseCat YouTube channel.