During my research on moodle and other e-learning communities, e came across with the following question.
What is the big advantadge whem comparing moodle with internet sites?
Nowadays sites can do everything that is done on moodle. So why should we use moodle instead of a regular site?
Yours trully,
Nuno Regadas
Greetings, Nuno!
I might be mis-interpreting what you mean by "internet sites". I am thinking you mean static webpages? If so, I can think of a several things--
1) I need a walled garden. Assigned accounts and password protection are musts for me. This is much easier to manage with Moodle.
2) I need a a fairly consistent user interface to tie together a variety of tools. This makes life easier for instructors and students. My people would not be happy if they had to skip around between separate forums, wikis, resources, and quiz tools (especially when every one probably has a different password and a different requirement for structure of usernames. . .)
3) Most faculty (and students) just cannot deal with FTP and HTML. Having the upload and linking tools perform reasonably transparently is a huge benefit.
I am sure there are a lot of other reasons!
atw
I might be mis-interpreting what you mean by "internet sites". I am thinking you mean static webpages? If so, I can think of a several things--
1) I need a walled garden. Assigned accounts and password protection are musts for me. This is much easier to manage with Moodle.
2) I need a a fairly consistent user interface to tie together a variety of tools. This makes life easier for instructors and students. My people would not be happy if they had to skip around between separate forums, wikis, resources, and quiz tools (especially when every one probably has a different password and a different requirement for structure of usernames. . .)
3) Most faculty (and students) just cannot deal with FTP and HTML. Having the upload and linking tools perform reasonably transparently is a huge benefit.
I am sure there are a lot of other reasons!
atw
hi there Wyatt,
thanks for your help.
Yeah, i meant webpages..not only static ones.
Those are great reasons to use moodle. But, for instance, if you want to "sell" moodle to a school, university, whatever, on what key points do you focus on?
My main dought is this: how can I sell a product that can be easily substituted by a dynamic webpage?
Most of the times moodle is looked as if it is a "warehouse" of documents. A place to store all the information needed to give a class. But it is much more than that. And frankly, it has to be, because, there would be no point on existing.
Thks once again.
Nuno Regadas
thanks for your help.
Yeah, i meant webpages..not only static ones.
Those are great reasons to use moodle. But, for instance, if you want to "sell" moodle to a school, university, whatever, on what key points do you focus on?
My main dought is this: how can I sell a product that can be easily substituted by a dynamic webpage?
Most of the times moodle is looked as if it is a "warehouse" of documents. A place to store all the information needed to give a class. But it is much more than that. And frankly, it has to be, because, there would be no point on existing.
Thks once again.
Nuno Regadas
Moodle *is* a dynamic web site ... there are over 20 different types of activities possible 
Hi there Martin,
that's a good point you've mentioned.
But I'll try to explain what I'm looking for.
I'm building a moodle course, not from a teachers perspective, because that task is carried out by two other colleagues, but from a multimedia, design and implementation point of view.
Add some marketing to the equation and pum...that's what I'm trying to do right now.
I spoke to a lot of teachers, and almost all of them told me that these management platforms are to strict from a design, and even in information architecture perspective. What you do in moodle you can also do in a dynamic website.
In terms of a pedagogical point of view, what has moodle more to offer, than the common quiz, and other applications like this.
How can I sell moodle to a teacher, if i want only to focus on pedagogy?
Although moodle has a lot of advantages in a technological view, i cannot sell it just for that..
that's a good point you've mentioned.
But I'll try to explain what I'm looking for.
I'm building a moodle course, not from a teachers perspective, because that task is carried out by two other colleagues, but from a multimedia, design and implementation point of view.
Add some marketing to the equation and pum...that's what I'm trying to do right now.
I spoke to a lot of teachers, and almost all of them told me that these management platforms are to strict from a design, and even in information architecture perspective. What you do in moodle you can also do in a dynamic website.
In terms of a pedagogical point of view, what has moodle more to offer, than the common quiz, and other applications like this.
How can I sell moodle to a teacher, if i want only to focus on pedagogy?
Although moodle has a lot of advantages in a technological view, i cannot sell it just for that..
Nuno,
Your argument/question is a good (and common) one. I have found (for me) the answer is that it the other tools can be great too (I love Drupal for example). Sometimes there might be teachers whose course functions in a way that would find Moodle's structure restricting. That is why you see instructors using Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, any of the hosted wikis (i.e. pbwiki, and wikispaces), or many other CMSs to run their courses. So yes, the best tool for a class could be something other than Moodle.
That said,here are a few (among many others) reasons why I find Moodle to be a compelling option for teachers (A.T.'s #1 and #2 reasons are right on as well):
1. Offers a consistent interface (one stop-shop) for all activities which helps reduce student confusion and allow them to focus on course content and activities rather than learning many new tools (try using multiple tools with a group of learning disabled students )
2. A gradebook and/or online grading/rating system (you don't get that from WordPress, Drupal, etc). Assessment in any form is an important teaching and learning activity and is nice to be able to do so right in the same environment rather than using an external tool (consider trying to easily check the number of contributions per student to a particular discussion topic for example).
3. Easy reusability - I wonder how teachers running multiple groups through the same course or reusing content from a previous course do so in other systems. (Not having to recreate the wheel is always an important consideration for a teacher).
4. Collaboration and Sharing - it is easier for teachers to share activities (such as quiz questions, discussion forums, etc, or even entire courses with the metacourse concept). This might vary in importance depending on the grade level (e.g. K-12 versus post-secondary).
5. Pretty much all of the functionality you can get or add-in to different dynamic websites you can do from Moodle (blogs (comments are coming), wikis, messaging, forums, quizzes, uploading files, polls, etc) and it just comes with Moodle, you don't have to add more modules or go to several websites. Click a button and you add the activity with some custom options to help tailor the learning activity to what a teachers needs for his or her students.
6. Scalability - when discussing using other tools, how do you facilitate this across a large university, school district, or even school. There are few, if any, dynamic systems that can scale to handle scores (or hundreds!) or classes with thousands of students. A few might be able to but generally one of two sacrifices will have to be made: 1. To ensure scalability features and flexibility will have to be limited or 2. individual teachers do their own thing with the tools they choose (the ultimate in flexibility for them) and the much more difficult option to support.
Long post, but these are at least some of the advantages that I think Moodle offers by comparison to other dynamic websites (i.e. Web 2.0 tools).
Tnks Brett for your contribution.
Those are good arguments, no doubt about it.
you've mentioned Drupal that I've had never heard about. I'm researching form my final paper in college, as well as putting into practice all the stuff that i've came across with.
I'm really glad to see that this topic is being discussed, because nowadays, like I said, e-learning platforms are being underestimated by those who should or could use them. Teachers and also students don't usually like to work with this platforms, although they are great in some points, not that great in others.
I'm not against moodle, or other types of platforms such as WebCT. But I think that this platforms will have to suffer a lot of transformations so that we can say that they are great e-learning tools.
I don't know if you or other member that have answered to this topic know plone. You can find it in http://plone.org/
Plone has a different philosophy comparing with moodle. But in some cases it can do all the things moodle does. Please bear in mind that I'm not against moodle. But in the future I really think that a more flexible platform, in which we can change all the graphics and organization, allowing, at the same time, an easy control of all the tools, that I thing is the future.
But please, share your opinions with me. They have been quite helpful.
Thanks to all of you that have contributed to this topic.
Nuno Regadas
Those are good arguments, no doubt about it.
you've mentioned Drupal that I've had never heard about. I'm researching form my final paper in college, as well as putting into practice all the stuff that i've came across with.
I'm really glad to see that this topic is being discussed, because nowadays, like I said, e-learning platforms are being underestimated by those who should or could use them. Teachers and also students don't usually like to work with this platforms, although they are great in some points, not that great in others.
I'm not against moodle, or other types of platforms such as WebCT. But I think that this platforms will have to suffer a lot of transformations so that we can say that they are great e-learning tools.
I don't know if you or other member that have answered to this topic know plone. You can find it in http://plone.org/
Plone has a different philosophy comparing with moodle. But in some cases it can do all the things moodle does. Please bear in mind that I'm not against moodle. But in the future I really think that a more flexible platform, in which we can change all the graphics and organization, allowing, at the same time, an easy control of all the tools, that I thing is the future.
But please, share your opinions with me. They have been quite helpful.
Thanks to all of you that have contributed to this topic.
Nuno Regadas
Nuno,
I'm not really familiar with Plone, but I have heard of it. In fact Martin supposedly considering building Moodle off Plone (or something like that - see http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=66331#p300261 for my reference) but chose to instead build something using PHP instead which has resulted in what Moodle is today. Drupal is a content management system/framework similar perhaps in purpose or function to Plone, except that Drupal is built in PHP versus Plone (which is Python). There are probably other differences as well, but those would probably be better in a Plone or Drupal forum or message me and I would be happy to share some additional details on Drupal
.
As you mentioned, other platforms can allow for more flexibility in certain areas. While Plone and other CMSs can be melded into many different things (perhaps even an e-learning tool ), Moodle's focus is being a great course management system and e-learning tool. While that choice may causes some limitations, it also produces some advantages (which Amy and I have tried to highlight).
As with every institution/organization you certainly have to weigh the expertise of the instructors along with the strengths and weaknesses of the different systems out there. Your organization may find Plone meets more of its needs, for our K-12 school district we've found Moodle's capabilities and structure is a better match for our teacher skill set and our e-learning needs.
I'm not really familiar with Plone, but I have heard of it. In fact Martin supposedly considering building Moodle off Plone (or something like that - see http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=66331#p300261 for my reference) but chose to instead build something using PHP instead which has resulted in what Moodle is today. Drupal is a content management system/framework similar perhaps in purpose or function to Plone, except that Drupal is built in PHP versus Plone (which is Python). There are probably other differences as well, but those would probably be better in a Plone or Drupal forum or message me and I would be happy to share some additional details on Drupal
As you mentioned, other platforms can allow for more flexibility in certain areas. While Plone and other CMSs can be melded into many different things (perhaps even an e-learning tool
As with every institution/organization you certainly have to weigh the expertise of the instructors along with the strengths and weaknesses of the different systems out there. Your organization may find Plone meets more of its needs, for our K-12 school district we've found Moodle's capabilities and structure is a better match for our teacher skill set and our e-learning needs.
You write: ..I'm building a moodle course, not from a teachers perspective, because that task is carried out by two other colleagues, but from a multimedia, design and implementation point of view...
One of the great options of Moodle is that any normal teacher can merge resources - without your help 
- "in line" in any running text by using the filter-option: just type a word, select it and paste your resource behind that word with the chain-button.
It may be of the type FREEMIND MINDMAP (.mm) MULTIMEDIA (.mp3 .wmv .ram .rm .avi .swf .flv .mov mpg . ) GEOGEBRA MATHS (.ggb) 3D MOLECULES (.mol .pdb .csmol .xyz .cml.pdb) STARLOGO (.slogo) NETLOGO (.nlogo) and TeX or Algebra-formula..
The most important aspect is that you can force the PC of the user at his home to use the internal/in line players of Moodle instead of some exotic pop-up player...
The other part of your statement..
With the new hype of web 2.0 applications of the type C3 (Create, Cumulate & Communicate) more and more people raise the question why we need an VLE..
(See Top 1000 web 2.0 for example YouTube)
Lets answer that question..
To simplify the world..
You have three kind of modern teachers..
1. Yes, you are right that many modern teachers find Moodle (or any other VLE) too complex and/or restrictiv. They find it better to say to their students to go to the www and google some information. If you call that education, well, then keep the cartoon.
2. Another group of teachers combine this with an electronic wall of assignments. They consider the combination of a good classroom briefing on a digital crayonboard and grading of assignments, stored in electronic portfolio's as good modern education. (Microsoft was marketing this view with Learning Gateway, but now advices to combine it with a good VLE.. on this moment they even pay Martin to make Moodle fit in that MSSQL-plan.)
3. The last group of modern (and often older) teachers are interested in the learning process of their students and want to coach students DURING the creation of artefacts, not only grading them afterwards. The critical aspect is to have access to process information. Especially older teachers tried this often earlier during their educational career, but realise that only with the help of a good VLE which can offer multiple process-monitoring information of their students like good logs and other process-views, they can logistically survive if they allow students to work in more freedom.
With Moodle you can arrange, monitor and survive a good educational setting with many degrees of freedom for students. Show me how you can imitate that with web 2.0
Web 2.0 and moodle can complement each other. I don't think I could maintain my own website even using web 2.0 tools and do all of the things that my classes need and the things that I need as a teacher.
Hi I want to be able to use web 2.0 tools. Many of my pupils spend a lot of time on line, but have limited access to the tools that we take for granted in school, word processors, mind mapping, education specific tools like basic control programs. I want them to be able to continue any part of the work we start in school when ever they want to.
Open source software is one way forward but often parents can be reluctant to go this way as is is not something they are used to or familiar with, something we can address as a school through publicity but it takes time.
Remote access to school resources is another way forward as it would give access to all of the tools that we use in school. But skills wise they learn to use education specific software or expensive software that they may never use outside of school. This is controlled by our resources (capital) and the education authority and ICT support provision.
Web 2.0 is another option. Pupils can create, share and collaborate on tasks some of which are not available in moodle for example mind mapping, google spreadsheets and docs + many others that are, blogging chat, forums, quizzes. If I can use web 2.0 tools then they are skills that the pupils can take with them as they do now with Microsoft specific skills.
Moodle is the way that we choose to coordinate activities. Providing resources, discussing, collaborating, testing, assessing, evaluating, recording, monitoring and providing feedback.
My pupils all seem able to remember their user names and passwords for bebo, personal email and my space, but for any extra web 2.0 tools that we use they forget if we don't use them regularly (daily). I am looking forward to single sign on or open identity to allow users to use the same log on details from moodle to access other resources and post me links to their work. (could moodle provide open identities in the future?)
Then they/I can choose the best tools but still have moodle to lead, direct, communicate, monitor, evaluate and record etc.
I am only just introducing Moodle to our school but the staff that have used it find it easy to use and learn. (not yet creating much for themselves but are interested) I don't think any of them would consider their own website etc as there would be too much to learn and too much to maintain. In Moodle they can use resources they have and then learn how to use the tools available to improve on the ways that they and pupils access the work. Changing the way that they teach along the way.
Rick.
Hi I want to be able to use web 2.0 tools. Many of my pupils spend a lot of time on line, but have limited access to the tools that we take for granted in school, word processors, mind mapping, education specific tools like basic control programs. I want them to be able to continue any part of the work we start in school when ever they want to.
Open source software is one way forward but often parents can be reluctant to go this way as is is not something they are used to or familiar with, something we can address as a school through publicity but it takes time.
Remote access to school resources is another way forward as it would give access to all of the tools that we use in school. But skills wise they learn to use education specific software or expensive software that they may never use outside of school. This is controlled by our resources (capital) and the education authority and ICT support provision.
Web 2.0 is another option. Pupils can create, share and collaborate on tasks some of which are not available in moodle for example mind mapping, google spreadsheets and docs + many others that are, blogging chat, forums, quizzes. If I can use web 2.0 tools then they are skills that the pupils can take with them as they do now with Microsoft specific skills.
Moodle is the way that we choose to coordinate activities. Providing resources, discussing, collaborating, testing, assessing, evaluating, recording, monitoring and providing feedback.
My pupils all seem able to remember their user names and passwords for bebo, personal email and my space, but for any extra web 2.0 tools that we use they forget if we don't use them regularly (daily). I am looking forward to single sign on or open identity to allow users to use the same log on details from moodle to access other resources and post me links to their work. (could moodle provide open identities in the future?)
Then they/I can choose the best tools but still have moodle to lead, direct, communicate, monitor, evaluate and record etc.
I am only just introducing Moodle to our school but the staff that have used it find it easy to use and learn. (not yet creating much for themselves but are interested) I don't think any of them would consider their own website etc as there would be too much to learn and too much to maintain. In Moodle they can use resources they have and then learn how to use the tools available to improve on the ways that they and pupils access the work. Changing the way that they teach along the way.
Rick.
I spoke to a lot of teachers, and almost all of them told me that these management platforms are to strict from a design, and even in information architecture perspective. What you do in moodle you can also do in a dynamic website.
Nuno, I'm surprised that the teachers you talked to were opposed to LMSs. I bet that you spoke to teachers that are very tech-savvy. Most teachers don't have the time to build their own web sites.
Not to mention the fact that when every teacher uses his or her own web site, there is no standard security for an educational institution, no central location of data services (and hence no central strategy for data recovery).
These are the kinds of guarantees that a school needs. In that sense, LMSs address the needs of educational institutions, not single instructors. Perhaps a single instructor who knows and likes creating web applications would prefer Plone. But Moodle can handle enrollment, grades, and assessment for an entire school, university, or corporation. That is the real difference. It'd take a LOT of work with Plone to make it do, in this sense, what Moodle does out of the box.
Talk to a few administrators, and see what they have to say about 100 faculty each having 100 separate instructional web sites. Talk to a few tech departments in educational institutions, and see what they have to say about managing enrollment for 2,000 students on 100 separate Plone sites.
A
Hi all,
first and foremost tnks for being so active in this forum.
All of your ideas have been great.
But let me tell you that much of what has been said here, is about technological advantages. I don't say, neither the teacher that I've spoken to, that it is easy to create a dynamic website with all the capabilities of moodle.
But it is true that most of all the opinions mentioned are about tech features, not about people and their learning.
I've made the same question over the Portuguese moodle community forum, and some of the answers have been similar. But there have been some exceptions on both sides.
Moodle has the advantage of being ready to use. It does not need a lot of tech knowledge. But, it is a hard to learn piece of equipment if your not a well prepared user, in terms of web, like most of the older teachers.
Ger Tielemans, you've mentioned that I couldn't do, with web 2.0 features, the same I could do with moodle. Well, I wasn't talking of substituting moodle with social software of some sort. When I said that you can easily substitute moodle with a dynamic website, the key point of my question was not to talk about technological pros and cons of moodle. Not in a million years.
But, most of the times, moodle is used as a storing system that has all the files that teachers want to give to their students. My first post, at the start of this forum, had a question. I didn't make it because I'm naive. Like I said it has more to it than it seems.
Let's talk education.
We have the technology, we have all that we need to improve students learning. However, moodle, that could be the one to do the leap to a different, more efficient, and new educational program, the same moodle has yet not been used to do such a thing. As far as I can tell.
When I talk about the advantages of moodle compared to a website, i want to know your opinion about new learning strategies that can be implemented in moodle. I want to think outside the box.
For instance (take this examples):
Although, there have been some studies made about moodle accessibility, it is still difficult, for a common user to deal with moodle php code. Acessibility is improved in html code. As far as I know moodle's html code is generated by php.
Regarding to design, we can say that one of the major advantages of all sites, is design. When I talk about design features, I'm not talking about some "cosmetic operations" that only clean up the mess. I'm talking of all the studies made by designers in accessibility, usability, and emotional design. And comparing moodle to a website is not a ridiculous thing to do, because if I've mentioned new learning strategies, I could also speak about emotional design. Design in e-learning environments is one of the most important aspects to look after. It is one of the things that moodle simply cannot sell at this point.
Moodle is very strict on all of these things that I've just mentioned. Most of the times, these aspects are delegated to second place when compared to one or two technological features. This is specially vicious if we get to know that we don't even use 1/3 of all the moodle blocks. Most of them are made, and never again used. Because there's no point in using them. Most of the blocks just become one more block among others.
I say all these things because, being moodle an open-source software, it's being improved day by day. And for me, the future of all these LMS is to become a more open to changes software.
Being said and done, what do you reckon it's moodle part in the developing of new, more effective and efficient learning strategies?
What type of learning strategies could be implemented?
Yours,
Nuno Regadas
first and foremost tnks for being so active in this forum.
All of your ideas have been great.
But let me tell you that much of what has been said here, is about technological advantages. I don't say, neither the teacher that I've spoken to, that it is easy to create a dynamic website with all the capabilities of moodle.
But it is true that most of all the opinions mentioned are about tech features, not about people and their learning.
I've made the same question over the Portuguese moodle community forum, and some of the answers have been similar. But there have been some exceptions on both sides.
Moodle has the advantage of being ready to use. It does not need a lot of tech knowledge. But, it is a hard to learn piece of equipment if your not a well prepared user, in terms of web, like most of the older teachers.
Ger Tielemans, you've mentioned that I couldn't do, with web 2.0 features, the same I could do with moodle. Well, I wasn't talking of substituting moodle with social software of some sort. When I said that you can easily substitute moodle with a dynamic website, the key point of my question was not to talk about technological pros and cons of moodle. Not in a million years.
But, most of the times, moodle is used as a storing system that has all the files that teachers want to give to their students. My first post, at the start of this forum, had a question. I didn't make it because I'm naive. Like I said it has more to it than it seems.
Let's talk education.
We have the technology, we have all that we need to improve students learning. However, moodle, that could be the one to do the leap to a different, more efficient, and new educational program, the same moodle has yet not been used to do such a thing. As far as I can tell.
When I talk about the advantages of moodle compared to a website, i want to know your opinion about new learning strategies that can be implemented in moodle. I want to think outside the box.
For instance (take this examples):
Although, there have been some studies made about moodle accessibility, it is still difficult, for a common user to deal with moodle php code. Acessibility is improved in html code. As far as I know moodle's html code is generated by php.
Regarding to design, we can say that one of the major advantages of all sites, is design. When I talk about design features, I'm not talking about some "cosmetic operations" that only clean up the mess. I'm talking of all the studies made by designers in accessibility, usability, and emotional design. And comparing moodle to a website is not a ridiculous thing to do, because if I've mentioned new learning strategies, I could also speak about emotional design. Design in e-learning environments is one of the most important aspects to look after. It is one of the things that moodle simply cannot sell at this point.
Moodle is very strict on all of these things that I've just mentioned. Most of the times, these aspects are delegated to second place when compared to one or two technological features. This is specially vicious if we get to know that we don't even use 1/3 of all the moodle blocks. Most of them are made, and never again used. Because there's no point in using them. Most of the blocks just become one more block among others.
I say all these things because, being moodle an open-source software, it's being improved day by day. And for me, the future of all these LMS is to become a more open to changes software.
Being said and done, what do you reckon it's moodle part in the developing of new, more effective and efficient learning strategies?
What type of learning strategies could be implemented?
Yours,
Nuno Regadas
I have been reading this thread with great interest. I work at an organization that provides support to teachers working in adult literacy. We have been experimenting with moodle for the last year and have developed some courses for learners. The project I'm working on is to develop a moodle space that will be a community of practice for practitioners wanting to learn more about Web 2.0 tools.
At the same time as this is going on I'm helping to develop a blog using WordPress to communicate ideas to practitioners. Working with Word press was almost delightful. Although there are constraints to a blog, unlike a dynamic stand-alone website, it felt like there was way more flexibility in terms of developing graphics, and inserting all kinds of interesting plug-ins. The process was pretty smooth and fast. Now I'm looking at moodle to figure out what kind of tools and plug-ins we will need to for a successful community of practice site. I am finding to be kind of clunky compared with Wordpress, but I know that it has all kinds of bells and whistles and features that word press could not offer. I just wish that moodle had the ease of use the wordpress has. And I wish that it was easier to put graphics into.
Still, I'm thankful for the posting about the advantages and features of moodle, because it will make it easier for me to measure those advantages against the disadvantages and to better appreciate the advantages!
It would be wonderful if a user could attach a plug-in that would say, display flicker photos, and that could integrate other social software.
An interesting perspective, I started in about the same place myself.
Many of you have contributed very good information to this thread. I approach this with a somewhat different perspective. Basically, Moodle it is what you make of it.
Moodle is a platform or an enabler; it handles the underlying details and allows me to create courses, post content, train and track results.
I’d be surprised if I’m using 10% of the Moodle feature set. And in reviewing the forums, others are using a different set of features then I am. There are many ways to implement Moodle. I have found that flexibility tends to add to complexity. Many others with different teaching stratiges embrace many of the Moodle Blocks I don’t even use. Choice is a good thing.
Moodle is an open source platform, so it allows for changes to fit specific needs. A web site would as well, but you will also need to build the basic (complex) infrastructure that Moodle starts with. While starting from scratch is a viable option, the point here (open source) is to stand on the shoulders of others and contribute back to the community.
But, for instance, if you want to "sell" moodle to a school, university, whatever, on what key points do you focus on?
You don’t sell Moodle or anything else; you sell a solution to a specific problem(s) (or point of pain). The platform you use to implement the solution on is almost irrelevant. I chose Moodle after an exhaustive search and many sales people promising me the world only to find that the free trial, was lacking and my specific needs were expensive to implement. The Moodle forum community is there for the world to research and they are open and helpful.
Most of the times moodle is looked as if it is a "warehouse" of documents.
It is what you make of it. Moodle does not change the quality of what I do with content anymore that any other platform, web site, or Webinar would. How you implement it is up to you.
I'm building a moodle course, not from a teacher’s perspective but from a multimedia, design and implementation point of view. Add some marketing to the equation and pum...that's what I'm trying to do right now.
Being said and done, what do you reckon it's moodle part in the developing of new, more effective and efficient learning strategies?
Moodle in it self will not deliver a more effective and efficient learning strategy. Moodle can enable teachers to engage students by using a wide variety of methods, which in turn may deliver a more effective and efficient learning environment. Moodle is a path to instruction not to an end. Technology itself will not improve teaching ability; in this case it just enables the teacher to reach a wider more distant audience.
Open source software is one way forward but often parents can be reluctant to go this way as is not something they are used to or familiar with, something we can address as a school through publicity but it takes time.
You’re not selling Open Source, your addressing a specific problem(s). Users don’t need and in most cases don’t want to know about the underlying technology. What problem can this solve for me (today) is the question that should be addressed.
Web 2.0
I work with professional adult learners. They want relevant information when they need it. They will attend a course when it is first posted. Then they will go back to refresh the information just before going out to make a Sale. At this time I am reluctant to embrace user posted content, however, I am experimenting with prescreened content, with good results to date. The folks I work with are the; I’m on the way out the door and I need this now.