May 23 2009
Pretzels or cookies?
It used to be on flights that you got a bag of honey-roasted peanuts but the poor peanut has gone the way of the Dodo these days. So too, do technologies and applications come and go. This week we have to decide between Moodle and WebCT/Vista. An interesting set of choices when you don’t really know anything about managing either of them.
I had a discussion with a team member who said that he didn’t want to focus on the cost aspect of LMSs as they tended to cloud the other issues. My concern though is that we, as educators, must be grounded in reality. Unfortunately, in days of dwindling budgets cost may just be the biggest deciding factor for many decisions…including the choice of a learning management system for a school.
My decision to choose Moodle for my LMS was simple. It was free. My school district is out of cash and the reality is that if Iwent to them and said that I wanted to spend money on another platform the answer would not be positive. I have used Moodle before as a student and am somewhat comfortable with how it functions.
Setting up my own Moodle course has been interesting. I have found the toolkit instructions to be very user-friendly and Moodle itself to be fairly intuitive. I have had some trouble getting the discussion to show up as “graded” but will hopefully sort this out.
At this point I am not sure what I am going to design this course for because I am an elementary teacher without my classroom so don’t really have a target to shoot for. This still needs to be worked out.
perhaps make a fun course site then? Doesn’t have to be for your current role–if you’ve fancied trying to create an online stamp collecting course (course, not merely a web site), go for it!!!!