Moodle

From Bazaar Wiki

1 Type of application / System Requirements
2 Purpose
3 What it does
4 How can it be used for creation of OERs
5 How can it be used for consumption of OERs
6 How can it be used for reuse of OERs
7 License support
8 Standards / Compatibility
9 HOW TO USE IT
10 Links / examples / Who is using it
11 Sandbox
12 Comments / Discussion

Type of application / System Requirements

Moodle is an open source Learning Management System running as a server application. Moodle is distributed under GPL Licence

Moodle can run on any PC that can run php and can support a SQL database such MySql. It can be run on Linux, Windows and Mac operating systems.

You can download Moodle, plugins and language packs here. For a compete guide about first time installation and system requiremens follow this link http://docs.moodle.org/en/Installing_Moodle

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Purpose

Moodle's purpose is to help educators create online courses with opportunities for rich interaction. Moodle is designed to support a social constructionist framework of education.

Main features of Moodle are :

Promotes a social constructionist pedagogy (collaboration, activities, critical reflection, etc)
Suitable for 100% online classes as well as supplementing face-to-face learning
Simple, lightweight, efficient, compatible, low-tech browser interface
Easy to install on almost any platform that supports PHP. Requires only one database (and can share it).
Full database abstraction supports all major brands of database (except for initial table definition)
Course listing shows descriptions for every course on the server, including accessibility to guests.
Courses can be categorised and searched - one Moodle site can support thousands of courses
Emphasis on strong security throughout. Forms are all checked, data validated, cookies encrypted etc
Most text entry areas (resources, forum postings etc) can be edited using an embedded WYSIWYG HTML editor

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What it does

Moodle is an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. Moodle was modelled on the social constructionist pedagogy, which means that it attaches most value to knowledge-building interaction via on-line discussion. This is why the forum tool is central to Moodle courses. However, Moodle is a flexible environment that will support many other teaching and learning approaches.

Moodle has four levels of access.

The Administrator, who has access to all courses and determines the look of the entire site. The admin can also put messages of general interest on the Moodle login page. All Moodle users receive these messages in their e-mail. The admin creates courses and user IDs.
The Creator is a kind of super teacher who has the right to create courses.
The Teacher has full control within his/her course(s) for course building, management and for teaching, but cannot create student IDs.
The Students can use Moodle for learning purposes only, most of the options open to teachers remain hidden to them.

Moodle contains a choice of different on-line study tools such as:

Resources
Forum
Book
Directory
Journal
Assignment
Quiz
Lesson
Wiki
Workshop
Choice
Glossary
Chat
Survey
Questionnaire
Scorm package
Hot Potatoes Quiz
Internal Mail
Project

Certain Moodle tools have a very specific use, like the Choice or the Survey tools. Others are very flexible and can be put to many uses, such as the forum or the glossary tools. The choice of tool is mostly up to the teacher who builds the course, but students can always suggest the use of certain tools for certain activities if they have good experiences with those tools.

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How can it be used for creation of OERs

Moodle is designed to support a social constructionist framework of education so the system itself encourages users to contribute content during a course using forums, wikis, glossaries and other activities. So the these activities enable the creation of OERs.

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How can it be used for consumption of OERs

Most courses contain a certain amount of educational resources uploaded or linked to by the teacher. The educational resources in a course can comprise uploaded HTML pages , web pages , MS Word documents , presentations , Excel spreadsheets , PDF-files , images , sound (Flash player required for embedded MP3 sound), Flash animations , video (QuickTime player required for embedded video), or a combination of these.

Moodle has import features for use with other specific systems, such as importing quizzes or entire courses from Blackboard or WebCT.

Almost any type of OER is can be used within MOODLE

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How can it be used for reuse of OERs

The built-in repository enables file storage and sharing so you can upload Open Educational Resources and share them within a group, with all registered users and also with the public. Moreover, it is possible to import OERs in any format (HTML, SCORM/AICC, presentations, SWF/Shockwave, mp3, video etc).

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License support

For each piece of content you can by hand specify an Open Content license.
There is no built-in support for adding Open Content licenses to content.

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Standards / Compatibility

Authentication, using LDAP, Shibboleth, or various other standard methods (e.g. IMAP)
Content packaging, supports SCORM and AICC and there is a plan to follow the IMS Learning Design specification in version 2.0
Quizzes and quiz questions, allowing import/export in a number of formats: GIFT (moodle's own format), IMS QTI,XML
Syndication using RSS or Atom newsfeeds - external newsfeeds can be displayed in a course, and forums, blogs, and other features can be made available to others as newsfeeds.