Chosing Moodle as a VLE for e-coaching and e-teaching

Chosing Moodle as a VLE for e-coaching and e-teaching

by Elvisa Drishti -
Number of replies: 13

Hi everybody

I am master's student (full-time mode) and as the final step of completing this course my team and I have been allocated to a privately owned UK-based company to deliver a consultancy project in IT soultions.

The company we are dealing with provides training and coaching in the field of sales and marketing for different clients. As their client base has increased drastically the last 2 years they are considering using the VLE to provide their services in terms of blended learning.

In this context my team and I thought that Moodle would be one of the solutions for this purpose.

In case someone has had a similar experience of applying Moodle for the same purposes could you please give me some feedback and especially which were the criteria that pushed you to co choose Moodle when compared to other software like Blackboard, Frog, etc. ?

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In reply to Elvisa Drishti

Re: Chosing Moodle as a VLE for e-coaching and e-teaching

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Hello Elvisa. Although I am mainly involved in the academic sector, in the last few months I have helped a firm of solicitors, a well-known heating engineer company, an agricultural business and a journalist training company all set up and learn Moodle for similar purposes to you. They had all done their research ahead of meeting me and had all come to the conclusions that they liked Moodle because of (a) price -even if you have it hosted for you, it still works out cheaper than commercial VLES and (b) control -you can if you wish (and some did) host it and upgrade it and customise it yourselves and (c) flexibility - Moodle's modular format allows for different establishments to use different modules according to their needs and it is not difficult to "plug them in" to your own installation. To that I personally would add that because it is Open Source the support doesn't end at the end of a working day. You can get free support and documentation on here any time of the night or day - and commercial VLEs simply do not have this. While there are other open-source VLEs around I doubt they have the same support system of the same global magnitude.

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Chosing Moodle as a VLE for e-coaching and e-teaching

by Elvisa Drishti -

Hi Mary
Thanks a lot for the reply and for sharing your experience with Moodle. It is totally the kind of thoughts I wanted to hear.
But us as a team have to start the whole process from scratch as we also have to do the research in their behalf because no previous research was taken. So basically we have to built a set of criteria on the basis of which then we will chose the one that best fulfils them. In other words, we have to justify why Moodle and not another platform.
But your experinces helps me to think that other similar companies have chosen Moodle so it is a good start.

Regards.
Elvisa

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In reply to Elvisa Drishti

Re: Chosing Moodle as a VLE for e-coaching and e-teaching

by Glenys Hanson -

Hi Evisa,

Just in case you haven't already done so, a Google search for "comparing vle" will come up with a lot of results. Of course, each organisation's situation and needs are very specific but other people's criteria for choosing can be enlightening. Beware though that some comparisons seem to be very superficial and based on very cursory examinations of the different products.

If I were in your position, I would write one or two extremely precise questions about what you want a VLE to do and post them on the forums of the different VLEs and compare the responses you get.

Cheers,

Glenys

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In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: Chosing Moodle as a VLE for e-coaching and e-teaching

by Colin Fraser -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Testers

Hi Evisa, you may also want to look at this discussion. It has links to two universities who gave serious consideration and comparison to other products. The links are a year old now, but should still be accessible. These may help you frame the questions that Glenys has suggested.  

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In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: Chosing Moodle as a VLE for e-coaching and e-teaching

by Elvisa Drishti -

Hi Glenys

I have already searched google and other databases for criteria of comparison of VLE but I didn't seem to find what was relevant to my project.

I will follow your advice and post those questions on different VLE blogs and see what I will find.

Thank you for your help.

Elvisa

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In reply to Elvisa Drishti

Re: Chosing Moodle as a VLE for e-coaching and e-teaching

by Piero Fornoni -

Hi, Elvisa

I am a single "teacher"  that  believe  the education online should go mainstream and complement the traditional way of teaching.

 

In my opinion also these criteria should be included in your evaluation:

A ) compare how easy is for a single teacher, professional to prepare the lessons online and get its website operational with the different systems.

B ) the cost of point A ) :cost of licences and operational support , including the time to look for documentation.

C ) which system is the most user friendly ,considering as users the students and the teachers .

D) How secure are the different systems .

 

 

Piero

 

 

 

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In reply to Piero Fornoni

Re: Chosing Moodle as a VLE for e-coaching and e-teaching

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers

For what it is worth...

I am a "single teacher" who prepares lessons online and has worked with different systems.

My cost is around $50 per month.

Moodle, compared to Blackboard, Desire2Learn, and (the old) WebCT, is best.

Security is an interesting issue.  I believe that my system is very secure. 

 

I can provide more information about this, if needed.

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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Chosing Moodle as a VLE for e-coaching and e-teaching

by Elvisa Drishti -

Hi Rick


The point you made about security is very relevant to my client so your advice is very valuable to me.

I would welcome any type of information about this issue if you are willing to provide it.

 

Thank you
Elvisa.

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In reply to Elvisa Drishti

Re: Chosing Moodle as a VLE for e-coaching and e-teaching

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers

I read as much as I can about security.  The book "Moodle Security" by Darko Miletic was very helpful.  For example, I follow the guidelines about putting the moodledata folder outside my web folder.  I also change the "rights" on some folders and files on my (Apache) server.  I am not a server administrator or expert, but I have learned how to do many of the "simple" things like changing rights.  I also change some settings in php.ini.

On my server, I am the only administrator and therefore don't have to worry about anyone else changing settings.  Only I can make mistakes smile.  (This is consistent with your original question about being a single person).

In my Moodle, I disable Guest logins and disable "internal messaging." Also, I am the only teacher and administrator, and therefore the only one with any elevated rights.  Everyone else is a student.  I have my students "self-register" and turn on strong passwords.  I try to upgrade my Moodle regularly, maybe one every five to eight weeks.  I don't use any plug-ins.  I only use the distributed version of Moodle. 

If a true Moodle administrator were to review what I have done, they could probably find some holes in my security.  However, I have been running this way for six years and I haven't run into any problems (yet). 

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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Chosing Moodle as a VLE for e-coaching and e-teaching

by Colin Fraser -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Testers

Rick,

Don't sell yourself short here, what you have done is better than most "professional IT experts" would do, they get lazy. In your circumstances it is probably the best that you can do, and that is sufficient to meet your need. I administer two very small Moodles and have stuck with the minimalist approach, the only additional plugin I use is the Book, and I do not have many problems. My update policy is once per year, over their Xmas shutdown periods, which allows for maximum testing time and minimum disruption if it goes wrong. Unfortunately, I am not the only Administrator, which causes a problem every now and again, but generally, I provide oversight and technical advice, and try to fix any serious issue that comes up. I have edited the database, tweaked some code in a couple of places, changed themes, upgraded one to v2.2 in December last year and am now having an issue with some of the restored courses and TinyMCE. I too disabled Guest logins, but kept messaging (dealing with adults is easier here). I design courses when they need me to, train new staff occasionally. All this averages out at a couple of hours a week at most, which means I am still free to have a job. These are not-for-profit organizations so the labour is donated, which I am happy to do, but they generally give me a decent sort of Xmas present anyway. In what way can I make security better? By doing exactly what you have done, which I mostly do anyway. So, what makes you think that you are not a "true Moodle Administrator"?

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In reply to Colin Fraser

Re: Chosing Moodle as a VLE for e-coaching and e-teaching

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers

Colin, thanks for your kind words, and for reinforcing some of the ideas about this topic.  I have not kept track of my hours, but I might spend an average of 3-5 hours per week administering Moodle, and 10 hours a week teaching with Moodle.  I spend most of my time creating educational content for the courses that I teach.

Yes, there seems to always be some things that require additional attention, such as when courses don't restore correctly, but that is just part of the overall job.  With Moodle, at least there is a community of supports who will listen and try to help.

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In reply to Piero Fornoni

Re: Chosing Moodle as a VLE for e-coaching and e-teaching

by Elvisa Drishti -

Thank you Piero for sharing your opinions. It really helps.

 

Regards

Elvsia

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