MOODLE

MOODLE

          MOODLE (Modular Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is a free, online Learning Management system enabling educators to create their own private website filled with dynamic courses that extend learning, anytime, anywhere.

          Moodle is one of the most popular open source e-learning platforms. It makes available a very easy-to-deploy environment, which once installed, is ready to be used. Moodle stands for “modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment” (Got Moodle, 2008). It is an LMS that can be run on either Windows or Mac computers. Moodle can be downloaded directly from Moodle’s website (www.moodle.org).

          Teachers who use Moodle can create a blended learning environment and make course content accessible to students online.  This accessibility would assist students who need extra assistance or who have missed classes by providing a way to connect with the curriculum outside of the classroom. Moodle is a tool educators can use for course structure, delivery, and assessment. It gives educators flexibility to design courses in a way that makes sense for the students and provides choice in education.

          Moodle platform has some important features that can be suitable to design a blended course. Firstly, students’ activities are recorded online so that teachers can check later what students have done on the Moodle platform. From these automatic log reports, teachers know not only when students have completed or uploaded an assignment, but also how much time they spent on an assigned task or quiz. In addition, teachers can fully control the deadline and timeframes for assignments, quizzes, forums, chats and so on. Moreover, the flexible and powerful function of course management makes it pretty easy for teachers to offer a new course, hide an existing course, copy and modify existing course materials, and transfer currently enrolled students to another new class, etc. For each course, teachers can upload files to folders that teachers can create, rename, move, modify, or delete. Teachers can easily access those files even if they do not use their own computers. Additionally, Moodle also offers a good range of assessment strategies which teachers can use to design many kinds of quizzes to evaluate students’ learning outcomes as well as encourage peer assessment among students. One more important feature of Moodle is that it provides useful tools such as Wikis, forums, chats, blogs, and workshops so that teachers can apply different formats of social interaction and collaboration to their teaching.

          The system allows teachers to manage students in groups and assign groups to different learning resources and activities. Grouping allows the teacher to manage students groups in the frame of the course. One student could be a member of more than one group. There are 3 modes of grouping – Without groups, Separate groups and Visible groups modes. In the first mode students are not divided in groups. In the separate grouping students can see only resources and activities assigned to his group. In the Visible groups mode students can work only with resources assigned to their group.