Moodle VS Khan Academy

Moodle VS Khan Academy

by Frank G -
Number of replies: 5

Greetings all 

I am thinking about home schooling my kids. I have heard in the past about Moodle, and was looking into it. I also found that in my State, there was very little information for new home schooling parents. I suggested to use Moodle to create an "online parent community" for my region, but people kind of backslashed at me and said to use Khan Academy, instead of re-inventing the wheel. 

Can someone please give me lights on how one can complete the other ? 

Or is Moodle not ready for home schooling?

Thank you for whoever can help. 

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Frank G

Re: Moodle VS Khan Academy

by Richard Jones -
Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Hi Frank

Khan Academy has all the content in place so whether that's right for your needs you can only tell by looking at it.  Maybe it's just what you need.

Moodle is a blank canvas in that respect - there is no pre-existing content, you have to create it then administer it.  That can be a lot of work and certainly, with existing curricula, you probably will end up re-inventing the wheel.

You could check out Moodle Cloud https://moodlecloud.com/ just to see what you could do with it.

I'm guessing the people who advised you are probably right given that you would have to spend time learning Moodle before you could even add worthwhile content.

HTH

Richard

Average of ratings: Very cool (2)
In reply to Frank G

Re: Moodle VS Khan Academy

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
+1 Richard

As an analogy Moodle is a well-equipped classroom. But no subject content, no teacher! Khan Academy is a section of the library, a collection of digital content.

Now you can figure out how to tackle your task. Not forgetting that Khan Academy is only a section of a library and also there are other (kinds of) classrooms. And don't lose sight that you are caught between two worlds, the old analog world and the Net.
wink

Or to put is differently, first have a clear idea of What the home schooling should do and then search for the How, which includes the tools and resources.
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Frank G

Re: Moodle VS Khan Academy

by Dan Marsden -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Plugins guardians Picture of Testers Picture of Translators
We went on a home schooling journey for two of our kids that were struggling in main-stream schooling - turned out to be the best thing we could do for them, although was a pretty big committment and sacrifice for my wife and I. I wish your family all the best along your journey!! smile

We connected with a few home-schooling groups and found them to be really diverse with some very strong personalities! The methods of teaching varied a lot between families, and what suited some families really well, didn't suit others. What really surprised me was that our kids didn't engage all that well with the technology-based platforms for learning, (as much as I tried to make it work for them!!) and in the end what worked best for ours was paper-based curriculum - we ended up using A.C.E. for their core subjects which they enjoyed and made some massive progress with.

While a Moodle installation might help you gather a number of existing contacts and give you a space to share and communicate, because you are "new" to the journey, I wonder if it would be better for you to see if there are any social media based groups (facebook etc) that you could join and become involved in first - once you have mananged to engage with a number of other home-schooling families you'll be able to find out if it would be useful to have a more structured space to share specific resources in a platform like Moodle.

Good luck!
Average of ratings: Coolest thing ever! (2)
In reply to Dan Marsden

Re: Moodle VS Khan Academy

by Frank G -
Thank you all for the kind and positive responses. I will give a shot to Khan Academy first, and will give some time to Moodle down the road.
Maybe people are right, and I'm trying to reinvent the wheel. I was looking for something where I could integrate pre-existing classes (Khan), and add my own video training on what Khan does not cover. But I'll wait for now. Thank you again!
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Frank G

Re: Moodle VS Khan Academy

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
I was corrected by a collegue: Khan academy is not only content, it also has a class structure with students and teachers. In that respect the functionality overlaps with Moodle, which is solely a class structure (no content).

Overall people often start with the technology and try to fill in how it could be utilized rather than having a clear idea of what one needs and then look for the tools. Dan's reply has far reaching observations of the whole business from a higher perspective.
Average of ratings: -