Implementing Content in Moodle
Moodle is a free, open-source, user driven, full featured learning management system (LMS), making it an excellent option for educators working on a limited budget. Moodle is “designed to help educators create quality online content and a collaborative, interactive environment to support their classroom courses” (Maikish, 2006, p 26). Moodle makes extensive use of Web 2.0 tools such as those described by Anderson (2006), enabling both course designers and students to make use of the affordances of collaborative, in-browser knowledge building. Moodle is well received by students (Abdelraheem, 2012), is highly intuitive, robust, reliable and feature rich (Callagher, n.d.), fits Bates & Poole’s (2003) SECTIONS (Last, 2012), affords Anderson’s (2008) community of inquiry and, through quizzes and condition releases, meets Gibbs & Simpson’s (2005) conditions in which assessment supports learning.
Building two modules in the Moodle LMS was an interesting and informative experience. Modules for Computer Aided Drafting and Design 11, a course currently being taught in a blended learning environment were constructed. Our institution has no doubts that putting courses online has benefits; the best way to put courses online is still being debated, so I was primarily interested in exploring how Moodle compares to our current practice of creating online courses with Google Sites, which is evident in my LMS Proposal (Last, 2012).
I found Moodle to be, after some initial confusion, straightforward to use. The initial confusion comes about from the many options and settings that are presented after choosing an activity or a resource from their pull down menus, but once the type of options (almost identical for each resource or activity type) were sorted out it was clearer what needed to be done. The many choices afford flexibility and customization, like timed release and completion tracking. The varieties of resources which are available afford additional flexibility and customization, as do the variety of activities available.
I created a landing page (also known as splash screens), a module with a quiz and a module with scheduled release. I found as I moved from the first module to the second that the web pages became more sophisticated and made better use of the rich functionality available and so I returned to the first module and made some improvements. I am cognizant of Anderson’s (2008) community of inquiry but CADD is primarily seen as an individual, skill development course, and so can be challenging for a teacher to build collaborative activities, even in a face to face class. In an effort to have students make connections and build collaboratively on their design knowledge, design activities involving discussion forums and the social networking site Pinterest were included. Lesson pages were created with an offline web page design tool and then uploaded into Moodle, and assignment descriptions and some of the activities could have been created in the same manner (and perhaps should have been created that way, as it is easy to create a re-useable, off-line template containing all the design and navigation elements in a module). I would have liked to include my Story, but could not work out a non-artificial way to include it in either module created.
In comparison to Google Sites, Moodle is more customizable, has additional functionality, especially the activities (Lessons, Workshops, Wikis, Quizzes, Assignments, Forums, etc) and is similar in technical knowledge requirements for a beginner. However, Moodle has additional levels of complexity which can be taken advantage of by those with a higher level of technical knowledge. For example, web pages created with a web design tool can be uploaded to Moodle and will contain full web page functionality. Additionally the privacy concerns surrounding Google sites (Thompson, 2011) are non-existent (assuming the Moodle site is hosted on a Canadian company’s server located in Canada).
Conclusion
Moodle is not just a viable alternative to Google Sites, but improves the learning in numerous ways. The flexibility of uploading fully functional web pages, the many learning specific functions, the integrated assessments, the support for SCORM and the educational specific collaborative tools simply overpowers Google’s constrained and feature limited Sites implementation. The only place where Google outshines Moodle is in Google Doc’s (now called Drive) support for larger files.
References
Abdelraheem, A. (2012). Interactions quality in Moodle as perceived by learners and its relation with some variables. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education 13(3). 375-389. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Anderson, T. (2008). Teaching in an Online Learning Context. In: Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca University. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/14_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf
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. 77-105. San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers
Callagher, M. (n.d.). High school e-learning: Moodle [web log message]. Retrieved from www.markcallagher.com on September 30, 2012.
Gibbs, G. & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports student’s learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. Retrieved from www.open.ac.uk.
Last, M. (2012, October). Using Moodle in a blended learning environment [Web log message]. Retrieved from https://blogs.ubc.ca/mlastetec565/proposal/.
Maikish, A. (2006). Moodle: a free, easy, and constructivist online learning tool. Multimedia Internet School. 13(3). 26-28.
Thompson, G. (2011, January 10). Cloud computing, the patriot act and you. Ottawa Business Journal. p. 8. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.