I can't count even begin to count the hours....and if I did I think it'd make me want to cry....the thing I wish I had done differently is to bite off smaller chunks of a year than I did....e.g. create four courses (one for each quarter) per section....and only worry about a quarter of a year at a time. 9 weeks is far less intimidating than 36...and much easier to change. Lay out the main topics first, and fill in the little stuff as you go along....it doesn't all have to be ready at the get-go.
I think the biggest change that came about for me was a pedagogy shift. It's very tempting, and very easy to use Moodle to replace paper-and-pencil tasks in the course. But if that's all you use it for, you're not getting the most out of it. The realy beauty comes from the forums and other interactive assignments. Those activites that allow the students to interact with you and their peers are where the best learning occurs. Here's some things I took away from participants in a course taught by Dr. Scott Price (who is a silent moodler in the Fullerton, Ca. School District moodle at http://moodle.fjuhsd.k12.ca.us) (these aren't necessarily things that he taught...just things I jotted in a notebook during class discussions)
1. Students should write about four times more material than you can ever grade. "Thoughts are not merely expressed in words; they come into existence through them" -- Lev. S. Vgotsky
2. Keep peer grading to a minimum on essays and the such....people who don't know how to write aren't going to learn a great deal from a bunch of other people who don't know how to write.
3. Require participation -- everyone has to make a first round post by midnight Tuesday....and you've got to respond to two other people's posts by midnight Friday (or whenever)
4. Make an agreement with your students not to use webslang B4 it Bcomes a problem. Also require high contrast fonts that are easy to read
There's a group called the International Society for Technology in Education that publishes a journal called Leading and Learning in technology. You might enjoy the attached files.
Now, with that business dispensed with, on to the other stuff "I do think moodle is more complicated than other CMS's ....every forum and portal I have installed will automatically send out emails without a need to set up cron. why not moodle?" them's is figtin' words pilgrim
Sure, there is a learning curve when using any software....but Moodle is about as easy as they come. Once you get the hang of it, you can create a new site from scratch on a properly equipped server in 'roud about 10 minutes. You've only got to edit about seven lines in one file...it doesn't get much easier than that. You want a pain, try installing http://plainblack.com WebGUI (the stuff Reuters and Yahoo uses). And the support forums are supportted to a ridiculous extent by people who want to give back to the project. If Martin was any other type of guy, we'd all be paying through the nose to use it, and I tell you, most of us would be happy to do it. There's a fella that lurks about named Zig (Zbignew I believe) who created a script that turns algebra equation into graphics....so the math teachers who write @@f(x,y)=x^2/(3+y)@@ and have it turn into a nicely formatted graphic on the fly....good luck finding another CMS that can do that.....anywhere else, that'd cost you thousands of dollars to get done and take people months to do it. Zig had it from concept to the first working version in about 2 days. There's a synergy in Moodle that you won't find elsewhere.
The cron task isn't too intimidating once you get in to it....and again, it's something you can set and walk away from, never to worry about it again. There's good documentation for it and if you get stuck, there are people here to help you. But I think once you get into it, you'll end up saying "that's it?"
"every forum and portal I have installed will automatically send out emails without a need to set up cron. why not moodle?" -- I believe what you said here...because lots of CMS are severly crippled in what they can do. While you might not have had to set up cron on those systems, how many of them would automatically back themselves up nightly? Or give you 30 minutes to edit your post before shuffling it off. Also, how many of them automatically maintained the database by deleting obsolete users? Cron makes your life easier...much, much easier.
And if you do have troubles....post 'em.....the likelihood is that someone will know how to help.
Mark
