Moodle

Moodle is an open source e-learning platform. It has a very large user base with 12,165 registered sites in 155 countries with 4,021,531 users in 376,565 courses (as of May 30, 2006). You can also see Current Moodle Statistics online.

Moodle is a software package designed to help educators create quality online courses. Such e-learning systems are sometimes also called a Learning Management System (LMS), Course Management System (CMS), Virtual Learning Environments (VLE), education via computer-mediated communication (CMC) or just Online Education (e-learning).

Origin of the name

The word Moodle is actually an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment, although originally the M stood for "Martin", named after Martin Dougiamas, the original developer. ^*

To moodle is also a verb of unknown origin and infrequent use that describes the process of lazily meandering through something, doing things as it occurs to you to do them, an enjoyable tinkering that often leads to insight and creativity. As such it applies both to the way Moodle was developed, and to the way a student or teacher might approach studying or teaching an online course.

Deployment and development

Moodle has been evolving since 1999 (since 2001 with the current architecture). The current version is 1.6, which was released on 19 June 2006. It has been translated into 61 different languages. Major improvements in accessibility and display flexibility were developed in 1.5.

As of November 2005, nearly 7000 sites from 142 countries have registered their Moodle installation. The real number of current active Moodle installations is unknown, but Moodle is downloaded over 500 times a day. As there are no license fees and growth limit, an institution can add as many Moodle servers as needed. The largest single site has reported over 6,000 courses and over 45,000 students, and the Open University of the UK is building a Moodle installation for their 200,000 users.

The development of Moodle continues as a Free Software project supported by a team of programmers and the user community all over the world. This means, that users are free to download, use, modify and even distribute it (under the terms of the GPL License from GNU).

Specification

Moodle runs without modification on Unix, Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, Mac OS X, NetWare and any other systems that support PHP, including most webhost providers. Data is stored in a single database: MySQL and PostgreSQL are best supported, but it can also be used with commercial databases, ADO and generic ODBC database access, since it uses ADOdb.

Background

Moodle was the creation of Martin Dougiamas, a former WebCT administrator at Curtin University, with postgraduate degrees in Computer Science and Education. Martin's later Ph.D. studies examined "The use of Open Source software to support a social constructionist epistemology of teaching and learning within Internet-based communities of reflective inquiry" and this research has strongly influenced some of the design of Moodle, providing pedagogical aspects missing from many other e-learning platforms. Constructivism asserts that knowledge is constructed in the learner's mind, not transmitted in an unchanged form from books or teachers. The learner is able to learn based on his or her own experiences. A teacher operating from this point of view creates a student-centered environment that helps students build upon their existing skills and knowledge, rather than simply publishing and then assessing the information they think students need to know. However, some of the main features of Moodle are the ability to add items such as texts followed by multiple choice questions, quizzes and suchlike - which are effecively "publishing and then assessing information".

The social constructionist philosophy of Moodle builds further on constructivism by asserting that such learning occurs particularly well in a collaborative environment that everyone builds together. In Moodle, this includes features that support role sharing, such as permissions options that allow each participant to be a teacher as well as a learner. The task as a 'teacher' can change from being 'the source of knowledge' to being an influencer and role model of class culture, connecting with students in a personal way that addresses their own learning needs, and moderating discussions and activities in a way that collectively leads students towards the (sometimes negotiated) learning goals of the class.

Constructivism is sometimes seen as at odds with accountability-focused ideas about education, such as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in the United States. Accountability stresses tested outcomes, not teaching techniques, or pedagogy, but Moodle is also useful in an outcomes-oriented classroom environment because of its flexibility.

Moodle features

Moodle is easy to install and upgrade. There are some autoinstall packages to facilitate the installation including Fantastico and the Moodle package for the Debian Linux Distribution. Moodle is free and has no license costs. It can be installed on as many servers as required at no additional cost.

Moodle has many features expected from an e-learning platform including Forums, content managing (Resources), Quizzes with different kinds of questions and several activity modules. Moodle also has several contributed modules, including SCORM, WebQuest and the Document Management System.

The contributed SCORM module for Moodle can also use external SCORM players and module creators such as Reload. Moodle can import and convert IMS QTI, WebCT and Blackboard quizzes. Moodle can be integrated with a corporate system via external database authentication. There is a Postnuke plugin to integrate with Moodle.

Moodle is modular in construction and can readily be extended to create activity modules. PHP, an easy script language to learn, can be used to author and contribute new modules. Moodle's development has been assisted by the work by open source programmers ^*. This has contributed towards its rapid development and rapid bug fixes. Currently there are developments to improve documentation, language teaching and Moodle course exchange.

Moodle is supported by a community of users and developers. It is a free alternative to commercial e-learning platforms.

There are many research papers, articles and reviews on Moodle. ^*

Moodle statistics and market share

As shown above, Moodle has a very large user base with 9,237 registered sites in 147 countries with 2,587,905 users in 242,342 courses (as of February 11, 2006). You can also see Current Moodle Statistics online.

Moodle market share according to Alexa Web Traffic for LMS Suppliers: Moodle only below Blackboard, above all other LMS, including WebCT.

Higher education LMS market share: Moodle (54%), Blackboard+WebCT (45%), Sakai (.63%).

External links

PHP programming language | Free learning support software

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