Proposal for Selecting Moodle as an Appropriate

Learning Management System

 Tobias Blaskovits

61325981

ETEC 565

Dr. John Egan

June 7, 2009

My choice of learning management system for my ETEC 565 term project is the Modular Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment, aptly named Moodle. Initially, cost was the deciding factor when I selected Moodle as my LMS. Although the school district I work for promotes the use of technology for learning, they lack the funds to purchase many of the high priced learning management systems like Blackboard WebCT/Vista, which charge around $20 per learner (Panettieri, 2007). Moodle provides a rival, open-source system for free. Although cost was a primary concern, it was not the only reason for choosing to use Moodle.

Almost equal in importance is the ability of Moodle to meet my educational objectives. As a middle school teacher who teaches face to face math and science classes. I will be using a LMS to supplement technology into my teaching gradually over time.

After examining the theoretical framework regarding technology and learning I feel that the SECTIONS framework provides an excellent outline to consider when choosing a LMS. The SECTIONS model can be used to facilitate decisions with regard to choice of technology at both the strategic and the tactical level (Bates and Poole, 2003).

Moodle’s design is age appropriate for the students that I teach. Moodle provides simplistic layout options and simple navigation, easily changed by the administrator. The integration of Moodle in my teaching will definitely meet the needs of my students and improve the quality of the student learning experience.

By choosing Moodle, I benefit from a LMS with documented reliability and ease of use. Moodle is quoted as being relatively easy for teachers to use compared to its competitors, and provides a level of reliability equal to its competitors (Perkins and Pfaffman, 2006). Another benefit of Moodle is the additional peer support for teachers. Although there is not 24hr technical support available, there is plenty support available in the form of web-casts and social network groups. In my initial assessment, I have enjoyed the working with Moodle in this respect.

The issue of cost has already been mentioned. Moodle open-source and free. However, to host a Moodle site requires access to a capable server. Unfortunately in my case, the school district server is not readily accessible and will not host a Moodle site. Yet buy simply purchasing my own domain and web hosted site this can be easily remedied. The cost of the domain and web hosting was $150 for two years. This is still small amount of money relative to some of the competitors’ prices.

Moodle also provides teachers with a variety of tools to support student learning (Perkins and Pfaffman, 2006). Moodle provides the ability to include many different resources and activities into the learning environment. Moodle offers features such as course information and reading lists, access to electronic readings, news feeds, discussion boards, online quizzes, and multimedia content including video. In addition, Moodle provide many useful tools for teachers to assess student activity and performance. Teachers can choose to use many or only a few of its features. For myself as an educator this makes the most sense, as I plan to gradually build the transition to the online learning environment over time. I have limited time to construct an entire online learning environment.

Quite often there are organizational issues that can affect the decision when choosing a LMS. My employer promotes the use of First Class to build teacher websites, which I already use. Utilizing other software platforms for promoting technology in education is not an issue. However, the demand for disk space on the district server is such that I need to look for alternatives to host my site. I have addressed this issue by obtaining my own domain and web-host with unlimited bandwidth and disk space. In addition, the school network is protected behind firewalls. By hosting my Moodle site on a hosted web server it should remain accessible at any time, from anywhere.

Moodle has been around for a while. In terms of novelty, its popularity is growing. Because it is open source, it continues to grow and evolve as more and more people become disgruntled with the service and profit margins of big software producing companies. The novelty is not likely to wear off any time soon

So far through my initial assessment of Moodle, I have found it to be quite fast in terms of variability. Modules can be edited quickly, and hidden from view as per a time when you want students to see them.

Careful consideration of the effective use of a LMS for teaching is critical. Failure to do so, will result in choosing an LMS that will interfere with student learning, and that teachers will not use it (Bates and Poole, 2003). After careful consideration, choosing Moodle as my LMS was an easy decision to make.

References

Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Chapter 4: a Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. (pp. 77-105). San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.

Panettieri, J. (2007). Addition by subtraction. University Business, August, 58-62. Accessed online May 31 2009 http://www.universitybusiness.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=845

Perkins, M., Pfaffman, J. (2006). Using a Course Management System to Improve Classroom Communication. Science Teacher, 73(7), 33-37.