What is Moodle?
Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment, or Moodle is open source, which means it is copyrighted but free as long as the user provides the source to others (Menges, 2009). Moodle has become very popular among educators as a virtual learning environment, learning management system, or an open source course management system. In order for Moodle to work, software needs to be installed on a web server on a computer or one from a web hosting company (Moodle, 2011a). Moodle was the brainchild of Martin Dougiamas, a former WebCT administrator. The socioconstructivist pedagogy design of Moodle has created an environment that allows collaborative interaction among students and additions to traditional classroom instruction (Brandl, 2005). This article discusses ways Moodle can be used to enhance online learning. Online curriculum in schools, the differences between Moodle and Blackboard, and how Moodle is used for professional development will be addressed.
From the Open University in the United Kingdom with 600,000 users, to a single classroom, Moodle can conduct courses fully online to face-to-face teaching and learning. As of April 9, 2011, there were 54,466 registered Moodle sites in 213 countries. With 41,524,927 users, 1,137,626 users are teachers with 4,410,988 courses. The top 10 registered countries are United States, Spain, Brazil, United Kingdom, Germany, Mexico, Portugal, Australia, Italy, and Colombia (Moodle, 2011b).
Teachers Using Moodle Effectively
Moodle is used in Pinellas County (Florida) Schools as a place for online courses and collaborative discussions. Pinellas County Schools hosts four types of Moodle sites. The first site is a teacher site where teachers can place files and links, have students work assigned, discuss classroom topics, place quizzes, and more. The teacher site is a closed environment that only class members can see. The second type of site Pinellas County Schools hosts is a school site. The school sites are where schools can have space for announcements, file sharing, and discussions that can only be accessed by school staff. The third type of site Pinellas County Schools hosts is a district office/department site that is similar to a school site, but accessed by a group of district staff members determined by the owner of the site. The last site is the district staff development site. This site is maintained by district staff developers to create online courses (Pinellas County Schools, 2009).
The teachers themselves maintain Pinellas County Schools’ teacher sites in Moodle on their own planning time or at home in free time. Due to lack of time and outside obligations, many teachers do not have a Moodle website. The set up for a Moodle teacher site can scare away many teachers as well, but finding the time to plan lessons, grade papers, meet with parents, and many more things a teacher does influence the decisions of teachers to set up a Moodle site or not. Finding teachers to interview across the grade levels about Moodle was just as hard as finding time to set up a Moodle teacher site. High school teacher Patricia Thomas said,
I use Moodle for all my professional training. I have trained for car-pd [content area reading—professional development], how to make a Moodle site, Elluminate training, smart slate training and classroom response training. The many movies help me when I go to train someone else. I also use Moodle for setting up courses such as physics, chemistry, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) for the virtual high school of Pinellas county. The Pinellas County uses Moodle to run its virtual courses so I actually teach through Moodle the students of Pinellas County. I use Moodle to communicate with affiliated colleges such as University of Florida. They have a module on our Moodle filled with a database of inquiry projects that have been done by our teachers. So I can look up a subject and find if someone has already investigated it and get some answers or if they have not investigated it then I can investigate it myself and post my findings. (Personal communication, April 8, 2011)
Denise Motes, a fourth grade reading and writing teacher, says,
I’ve used Moodle in the past year mainly for my instruction. I did the three courses for Smart Board on Moodle and then created lessons to be used on the Smart Board for vocabulary and word work instruction everyday with my students. I’ve also used Moodle for Florida Continuous Improvement Model lesson plans, ideas for instruction and new ideas in the reading/writing subject areas. (Personal communication, April 10, 2011)
Motes uses her Moodle teacher site to enhance her lessons where she sees fit, as an enhancement to her reading and writing lessons, whereas Thomas uses hers daily as an online as part of the core-teach-ing curriculum.
Kerry Hogan, a fifth grade teacher, said,
I have used Moodle for all classroom subjects, here are just a few examples of how I have used Moodle to enhance my classroom online. I ripped the audio files from the reading adoption’s compact discs into Quicktime files so the students could log in to Moodle to listen to the reading stories. They did this in the classroom, but also had access from home if they wanted to listen again. The idea behind this was to improve fluency through reading the story while listening to the narration. I have exported reading tests from the reading adoption’s electronic files into a format supported by Moodle. Students could take the weekly reading tests online and be provided with instant feedback. It also saved a great deal of time since the tests were automatically graded. I could also do item analysis right away to determine if students were having problems with a particular type of question—for example, if a number of students missed a specific vocabulary word question, I knew I would need to review that word in future lessons. Wikis—we created class wikis for different science and social studies concepts. Students were able to find pictures and facts on the Internet and place them on a wiki. This allowed students to explore the concepts, pick out interesting facts, and practice research and citation skills. For communication, I used Moodle as a classroom newsletter, posting weekly assignments, and a note for parents about what we are studying in the subject areas. The parents did not have login capabilities but could login through their child’s username and password. I also posted surveys for students about different things, including affective surveys. Moodle allowed for easy collation of the survey information. Lastly, I posted links to various resources for student review and practice, such as Coolmath.com and math activities for students to review at home.” (Personal communication, April 10, 2011)
Hogan is one a handful of teachers at the writer’s school who has embraced the practicality of Moodle and infused it with his curriculum. Hogan’s role at the school besides a teacher of fifth grade is also teacher of Moodle to teachers who want the help.
Moodle Versus Blackboard
Moodle is the most popular rival to the course-management system sold by Blackboard Incorporated. Blackboard is expanding into the K-12 education system; in 2006, Blackboard bought its competition, WebCT. Blackboard welcomes Moodle and other open-source competition because interest among the schools will help expand the use of course management systems, a market that Blackboard believes it will dominate. Blackboard launched an enhanced version for small schools and districts for a fee starting at $10,000 which includes online hosting and training of personnel, a lower cost than what larger institutions pay (Trotter, 2008). With school districts trying to save money, Moodle appears to have an advantage over Blackboard. Like the writer’s school district, cutting back the budget does affect programs and with Blackboard’s starting fee, it does not look too optimistic for Blackboard to fully integrate itself into the K-12 education system.
Moodle has released its newest version, Moodle 2.0, and Blackboard released its newest version, Blackboard 9.1, with many upgrades to both platforms. Starting with Blackboard, the company made improvements in course wikis, blogs, and journals that stimulate conversation and reflection. Blackboard’s most notable feature is its Web 2.0 interface that helps educators navigate when adding materials to an online course and helps students navigate when accessing course content. Some additional cost items include Blackboard Connect, which provides alerts to students for due dates, deadlines and academic priorities within a course. Blackboard also has Blackboard Mobile Learn, which allows students to access online courses using handheld devices, such as iPhone or iPad (Walsh, 2010).
Moodle 2.0’s improvements are related to usability. Easier navigation, improved profiles, newer interface for messaging, and a feature for teachers to check students’ work for plagiarism are just a few new improvements for Moodle 2.0. Teachers can now search all public community hubs and download courses to use as templates for building their own courses. Lastly, teachers have the ability to see reports on a student’s progress in a course (Walsh, 2010).
In 2008, the American Association of Community College’s Instructional Technology Council published its 2007 Distance Education Survey Results. The findings included that Blackboard is losing market share rapidly and Moodle doubled its market share in the past 12 months and now has the highest market share after Blackboard. The report notes that Moodle went from 4% market share to more than 10% in a year’s time (Feldstein, 2008).
Moodle and Professional Development
Using Moodle’s online capability to enhance classrooms is not the only way people are taking advantage of the program. School districts are using Moodle to host their professional development courses for workers. In the K-12 educational field, it is no secret that money is short and finding ways to trim budgets is a daily task. Moodle has helped many school districts come up with an alternative way to deliver professional development. At the writer’s school, the word Moodle is still a bit scary for some who have not embraced the idea that everything you need to do your job is located on Moodle. A few years back, the word Moodle was thrown around here and there and many teachers pushed it away, not embracing change. Now, teachers can take the training in their classrooms during their lunch breaks, breaks with no children (physical education, art, music, chorus, guidance, etc.,) before the workday, after the workday, or even at home in their pajamas. Teachers are now singing the praises of Moodle because of how it has made life easier, allowing training at their own pace.
Conclusion
The Pinellas County School District is the 23rd largest in the United States, with over 12,000 teachers needing professional development (Frankich & Just, 2010). With money being slashed from school budgets by state leaders, which results in fewer people running face-to-face professional development courses, what is there to do to meet the needs of 12,000 teachers and not be a financial burden on the school district? The answer is Moodle. Not just for its way of delivering professional development to the school district but for its many other uses.
Moodle may not work for everybody and does have its weaknesses compared to Blackboard, but Blackboard, too, has its weaknesses. Moodle is a great tool to enhance the traditional classroom or use as an online classroom itself. All students can benefit from enhancement of classroom activities outside of class, like what Kerry Hogan did with his fifth grade students. Teachers like him are paving the ways for future generations of students receiving information online. Patricia Thomas is using Moodle full time with her high school students, putting valuable curriculum, movies, and resources online. She is also using Moodle to conduct professional development, just like Pinellas County Schools’ professional development department. Reaching 12,000 teachers is time consuming and expensive. Moodle handles the delivery system, while the developers upload the content. There is a saying about technology, “just wait until next month and it will become cheaper,” Moodle has already become cheaper by being free. It is likely that many companies have seen what Moodle has done to the market and have started developing open-source learning management systems of their own with newer and better features for people to use for free.
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