Moodle

I had never heard of Moodle before this class - my EDTEC 572 class. I was intrigued to learn what it was and how it could be used.

I looked at the EDTEC 296 web page which had been mentioned as an example of Moodle but still couldn’t make out what Moodle was or what it was used for. Then I did some searches for Moodle and came up with a few good sources. First off I went to the Moodle web site. Then I looked at probably about 20 of the Moodle sites it recommends. (It actually recommends nearly 2000 sites.) From what was written on the Moodle site, and from what I observed in the several sites I visited, I developed the following opinion about Moodle. Moodle is basically like Blackboard, but free. Many of the sites listed in the United States belong to non-profit organizations. My guess is they want to have many features of a Learning Management System (LMS) but can’t afford one. So, they download Moodle for free and effectively set up their own LMS system.

Very cool. (What do “cool” people say now days instead of cool? I hate to keep dating myself.) So as a teacher you could download Moodle and set up your own course management system exclusively for the classes you teach. Each student could have a login and password. You could also assign each student a “key” so they could only access the classes they were signed up for. They could all use the site to collaborate on their coursework.

I like it a lot.

OK. So I still don’t know much about Moodle. I hope to read much more about it in the coming weeks though. I truly see some important applications for it. I definitely want to add it to my EDTEC tool box.