Moodle

Having some technical difficulties with the internet right now – Currently In Michelle Moore’s (from Remote-Learner.net) session on Moodle Goes Corporate – Leverage Open Source.

Since Moodle is open source, it’s free, can be shared with developer’s for changes to the code, and is community based with sharing of changes and enhancements. There are lot of talented people in the Moodle community who are passionate about it’s success and contribute time and resources in order to make that happen.
Open source also allows for e free redistribution , but no warranties. Some disadvantages/Myths – it’s not totally free as implementation needs at a minimum of hardware, training, support, and any partner services. It’s not true that it’s entirely secure and sometimes there is poor documentation. However there are no guarantees of continued development and no guarantees of quality (but this depends on the community), yet what you have is what you will continue to own.
Advantages include: it’s free, allows modifications, it’s community developed and supported. You escape lock-in and development is not dependant on marketing or one entity.

Things to look for with Open Source – the reputation (Moodle’s is very good), is there an ongoing effort, are standards high and interoperability available with other platforms, what support is available, what version are they on, and how much documentation is available.

So what about Moodle? It’s at over 40k sites in 196 countries, with 420k community members. There are several avenues for support and community collaboration, and the current version is ?. Documentation is readily available and books are being published for this platform. Bugs are tracked and are submitted by the community.
Exploring Moodle – included are

• Test pages
• Web pages (uses a simple HTML editor)
• Links to files (any e-files)
• Link to any URL
• Display directories or link to collection of files
• SCORM

Communication Tools include:
• Chat with transcript available
• Discussion Forums (only one file per post – zip multiple)
• Blogs with user profiles (no commenting)
• Messaging one to one

Features can be chose individually for the site.

Assessment tools include assignment submittal capability, polling (multiple choice), surveys, though the lessons, online quiz tools, and workshops for peer review.
So far there are no limits to the number of questions to a quiz (100 have been seen, seems like enough) and there are import capabilities so if you have content already created this can be easily submitted to Moodle.

Embedding video and flash is quick and easy using the html editor.

Collaboration tools:
• Database: record collection tool
• glossary (with auto linking with rest of course),
• FAQ,
• encyclopedia,
• wikis

Michelle ran us through some sample course such as a digital photography example, a social format (discussion space) course, and a SCORM course. Things tend to be a bit flat, she states, yet it looks very much like the Blackboard we are familiar with.
Note: LMS, LCMS, and CMS – very confusing acronyms that are being used synonymously in the industry. Learning mgt and Learning content management are v. different, but Moodle really falls into both categories, Content Mgt with Moodle is accomplished with a partnership with Alfresco – the difference is what your needs are, whether or not you need SCORM compliant offerings, do you need flexibility of several platforms or just one?

Customizing Moodle is v. easy and come in a variety of options from look and feel to adding modules or functionality such as linking to a db. Some Moodle partners even offer full customizations of the platform to meet your needs.

Themes can be applied but there are a lot of different ones created by the community available,
Modules and plug-ins that are standard are the book, questionnaires, certificate, and elluminate Live. Reports are available, but partners can generate more robust reporting.

I want to try Moodle – I can see several ways I can apply it in my corporate setting. We have servers lying around that I could potentially run it on and have enough in my tech toolbox that I think I can create something on par with what is already out there.