Rapid eLearning with Moodle
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Why pay thousands of dollars for proprietary commercial off-the-shelf systems to produce Internet-based course sites when you can use excellent free open-source software like Moodle?
For example, the entire elearning portal (shown below) at NETCoach Asia was built using Moodle: 
So were many other elearning potals in Singapore and many other countries worldwide.
Readily available and easily installable, Moodle had been designed using constructivist/constructionist pedagogical principles. Today, the software is so popular that there are over 19,000 sites worldwide, including large universities such as Open University (OU) in the UK, Athabasca University (AU) in Canada and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the USA. As Dr. Derek Briton from AU put it, “Moodle’s great strength is that it provides all the functionality and features of sophisticated, expensive, learning management systems [through] a user-friendly, intuitive interface that requires only a gentle learning curve… Also, student reviews of Moodle are exceedingly positive, and for [an institution] that is student-focused, that is important.”
In fact, in the words of Jason Cole, an OU product development manager, “…the educators in the developer community have given Moodle some features that the commercial vendors haven’t even thought of. That’s the advantage of an educator-driven, open source system versus a marketing-driven, for-profit system. In the table below, Mr Cole compared the features in two leading commercial CMSs versus Moodle:
|
Feature
|
Blackboard
|
WebCT
|
Moodle
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Upload and share documents
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
Create content online in HTML
|
N
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
Online Discussions
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
Grade discussions/participation
|
N
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
Online Chat
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
Student peer review
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
|
Online Quizzes/Survey
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
Online Gradebook
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
Student submission of documents
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
Self-assessment of submission
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
|
Student workgroups
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
Lessons with paths
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
Student Journals
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
|
Embedded glossary
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
Course Objectives
Upon completion of the course, you shall be able to:
- Discuss meaningfully the economical and pedagogical benefits of using Moodle.
- Install, configure and administer Moodle.
- Manage courses and classes.
- Create and manage content on Moodle.
- Create and use activity modules in Moodle to teach a class.
Who Should Attend
Managers, executives or trainers from organizations with low IT budgets. Anyone who wants to learn about learning management systems, as well as how to install and manage their own course sites quickly and easily. No programming knowledge needed.
Course Duration: 2 days
To register: Visit the NTU CCE site, choose the right course and date, scroll to the bottom and click the “Register Here” link.
