Moodle is a free Open Source course management system (CMS) licensed under the GNU Public License and designed specifically, with pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities. The software can be downloaded for use on any computer, including Web hosts, yet it can scale from a single-teacher site to a large University application for 200,000 students.

The objective behind this software is to produce internet-based courses and Web sites. It’s an ongoing development project designed to support a specified framework of education. As a side note, the word, “Moodle,” originally was an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. According to the Moodle site, “It’s also a verb that describes the process of lazily meandering through something, doing things as it occurs to you to do them, an enjoyable tinkering that often leads to insight and creativity. As such it applies both to the way Moodle was developed, and to the way a student or teacher might approach studying or teaching an online course. Anyone who uses Moodle is a ‘Moodler’”

Who Is it For?

Moodle is designed specifically for teachers and educational institutions. Users can design educational Web sites and course digital content through this CMS. The Moodle site is built from the software, so users can become accustomed to the site’s parameters to learn more about what to expect from this program. Users are allowed to copy, use and modify Moodle provided that they agree to provide the source to others; not modify or remove the original license and copyrights, and apply this same license to any derivative work.

Features

Moodle provides teachers with the ability to conduct online course content through forums, assignments, calendars, blogs, and more. All these features, which can be viewed at the Moodle site, can be applied easily through “blocks” that can be added, hidden, deleted, and moved up, down and left/right when editing is turned on. A wide range of over 16 different block types can provide additional information or functionality to the learner by the teacher. Additionally, many non-standard blocks developed by Moodlers can be added to a teacher’s tool list.

If the teacher is the site administrator, that teacher can use editing rights provided by a course administration block. This block has submenus that offer backup/restore options, enrollments, format, reports, grades, activity logs, files and other useful organizational tools.

Compatibility

Moodle can be installed on any computer that can run PHP and that can support a SQL type database such as MySQL. It can be run on Windows and Mac operating systems and many Linux programs such as Red Hat or Debian GNU. The Moodle site is, basically, a manual; therefore, anyone who chooses to use this tool for educational purposes can browse through any topic to learn more about administrative and user guidelines.

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