Has Anyone Used Moodles?

Has anyone used Moodle in their classrooms? Is so how do you like it?

Edited July 20, 2012 by moderator (see edit history)

Never herd of it, what is it?

MOODLE stands for Module Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment.It is an application on the web that provides a platform for learning, it can be considered as a Course Management System, which helps in the functioning of online courses. It is a tool of tremendous help to both teachers and students where it can be adapted for any level of education.

For more information, check MOODLE

Moodle is my favorite for hosting my online courses. Some people consider it a content management system but that would be over-generalization as it is more sophisticated than just managing content. Some describe it as LMS, learning management system which is true as it has the right tools for managing the whole process of the learning cycle.

 

I'd describe it as a structured learning community system for several reasons:

 

Structured:

The content is organized in courses, courses are organized in topics/weeks format and topics or weeks hold both resources and activities.

Also each course has its own teachers and other user roles that are similar to the roles in a proper school.

Learning:

As opposed to teaching. You as a teacher facilitate learning more than actually teaching. The activities are more student-centered and learners have the choice on how to pace their learning in terms of what, how much and when to do their study

Community:

That's the philosophy behind the Moodle setup, an active learning community where learning is augmented through collaboration and sharing knowledge and ideas

As an open source it has a large community and excellent support with a very large pool of plugins and themes.

 

If you're considering hosting your own Moodle then I'll advise you to go for the latest version. The only problem is the PHP requirement for an installation of Moodle to work. It requires PHP version 5.3.2 at least which is not available on many free hosting plans.

 

I came here hoping that I can get a hosting plan with PHP 5.3.2 for that reason.

Moodle is my favorite for hosting my online courses. Some people consider it a content management system but that would be over-generalization as it is more sophisticated than just managing content. Some describe it as LMS, learning management system which is true as it has the right tools for managing the whole process of the learning cycle.

 

I'd describe it as a structured learning community system for several reasons:

 

Structured:

The content is organized in courses, courses are organized in topics/weeks format and topics or weeks hold both resources and activities.

Also each course has its own teachers and other user roles that are similar to the roles in a proper school.

Learning:

 

As opposed to teaching. You as a teacher facilitate learning more than actually teaching. The activities are more student-centered and learners have the choice on how to pace their learning in terms of what, how much and when to do their study

Community:

 

That's the philosophy behind the Moodle setup, an active learning community where learning is augmented through collaboration and sharing knowledge and ideas

As an open source it has a large community and excellent support with a very large pool of plugins and themes.

 

If you're considering hosting your own Moodle then I'll advise you to go for the latest version. The only problem is the PHP requirement for an installation of Moodle to work. It requires PHP version 5.3.2 at least which is not available on many free hosting plans.

 

I came here hoping that I can get a hosting plan with PHP 5.3.2 for that reason.

 

I'm a bit worried about how efficient it is though. The default setup, on the default page, has like 20-30 queries (if I remember right), and have read a lot about people saying you really have to dig into the core to make it more efficient, or else even a moderate amount of traffic will kill the site.

 

Is this really a concern?

Moodle is a great LMS software especially in the academic world, it takes getting use to because it has a slight learning to other CMS software. I have been using it for the last two years as a student and find it a more effective software then Blackboard. Of course, the learning curve goes a bit steeper on the admin side of things because there is a lot things you have to do in order to prepare it for a school to use. Right now I am taking a class were we are developing our own courses and there is just so much you have to consider in order to run your online or hybrid course effectively. It is not hard to learn, it just takes awhile to learn and understand it in order to maximize its usage. The website has a great support community and documentation and so that would be the best place to learn everything you can. Moodle 2.x has been the best version so far in terms of it being user friendly to both the student and the teacher.

LOL. I'm glad somebody else didn't know what a Moodle was so I didn't look like a dummy and have to be the one to ask. And here I got all excited when I saw the post, and thought somebody besided me was starting a conversation about dogs! I figured a Moodle was a cross between a Poodle and a Maltese!

sheepdog,If you wanted to offer courses on pet care, Moodle is probably what you want to use. It enables you to sign up folk who want to take up the course, offer them a structured path to achieving the goals of the course, and deliver content, links to external web pages, tests, and assignments. If there is a pet care certification, you could prepare individuals for pet care certifications. I am guessing that it would take about two months at least to come up with the content and the structure for the course, but once you have a course built, you can offer it to any number of individuals before the next refresh of the course to meet additional course objectives or certification requirements.BTW, I always thought Moodle sounded more like a brand of noodles than a poodle, but now I guess the cross-breed seems more probably :-)