Group: Mark Leonard, Lynn Pregitzer, Alexander Sevilla, Shawn Warren
The Moodle System
Mark Leonard, Lynn Pregitzer, Alexander Sevilla, Shawn Warren
Pepperdine University
GSEP
755 E-Learning
Elio Spinello
December 12, 2010
The Moodle System
Educators and trainers, no matter the setting, are tasked with creating effective environments that maximize learning outcomes for their participants. As advances in technologies have changed the education and corporate training landscape in recent years, these learning environments are now often connected to eLearning platforms. A large number of academic institutions and corporations provide their educators with standardized platforms, or learning management systems (LMS), in order to provide a comprehensive, well designed and fully supported eLearning solution.
Unfortunately, not all educators, institutions, or corporations are able to utilize a standardized, institution wide LMS. This may stem from the significant barrier to entry costs of a system wide LMS implementation. In other cases, an LMS may be provided, but lack the specific needs of a particular educator or trainer. Technically proficient educators may prefer to create their own open source learning environment as an alternate to a system wide LMS, if given the authorization to do so. In the higher education community specifically, according to a 2009 Campus Computing Survey, while 92 percent of institutions have a campus wide LMS in place, university CIO’s estimate that 55% of classes make some use of a LMS (Green, 2009).
In both of the instances described above, educators are challenged with creating their own eLearning platform. Our team elected to take an action based, constructivist epistemological approach to this specific issue, creating a unique learning activity that would deepen our understanding of eLearning design (Land & Hannafin, 2000). Our goal for the eLearning environment design project was to create a basic eLearning environment using an independent, open source model, and then evaluate the process, the constraints and the outcomes. The learning community includes all educators and trainers who do not have access to a system supported LMS, or have found that their standardized LMS constrains the learning objectives, goals or outcomes they wish to achieve. Through the completion of this design project, we would join an existing community of practice (CoP), educators utilizing open sourcing rather than a standardized LMS. This CoP is emerging as a vocal proponent of open source alternatives to expensive and constrictive LMS model. The open source model also enables members of this CoP to share stolen knowledge, and utilize this information to improve our eLearning environment and its impact on participants (Brown & Duguid, 1996).
Moodle Versus Sakai
Two learning environments, Sakai and Moodle, were considered for this project. Although Sakai is a robust environment actively used by major universities across the nation, the group chose Moodle as an alternative to the mainstream LMS’s. It should be noted that the effectiveness of a customizable LMS depends heavily on an effective user interface and the incorporation of meaningful and smart usability features (Krug, 2000) . The ideal system depends on the organization’s mandatory selection criteria to meet its unique needs. Therefore the group chose Moodle to study its adaptability to a specific demographic, namely the individual educator and small to mid-sized school districts with limited resources. (On a surprise note, after the presentation the group learned that Pepperdine University does in fact have a Moodle server set up for its e-Learning Technology program.)
In choosing Moodle, the group listed four mandatory criteria. The platform must be:
• flexible and capable of growth
• implementable by an average individual with limited technical skills
• affordable and not require specialized computer hardware.
• effective in a computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) strategy.
Flexibility and Growth Capacity of Moodle
Flexibility is inherent to open sourced software, of which Moodle is one, because of the sharing between developers that collaborate while working on new solutions. The freedom to modify the original source code results in a continuously evolving infrastructure. The open architecture also promotes a community that builds tools called plugins that enhance the core application’s capabilities. The collaboration results in a commitment to a community with a vested common interest. The open source model is a platform which avails the user to over 700 add-ons to create a central learning domain. Another quality of an open source platform is that deployment (whether partially or fully completed) is fully under the control of the end user. The ultimate advantage is that the end user can choose any number of plugins to customize the Moodle site to meets the organizations unique needs. Plugins, or moodles—as the group calls it—are mainly free, but there are additional plugins that can be purchased. A listing on the Moodle website shows that there are about 700 known Moodle plugins. The power of open sourced systems is that the possibilities of new and creative applications are unlimited. Another very important characteristic of an open source environment is that the platform can be scaled for use by a small school district to a large university environment. The ability to scale to a group of 3 individuals in the EDOL class made Moodle an ideal choice for the presentation
Easy to Implement
General literature review states that the basic implementation of Moodle is easy to implement (Brooks-Young, 2008; Lawrence, 2009). Part of its popularity can be attributed to its reputation as a learning system that beginner users without technical training can implement. However, the groups’ experience was contrary to this common assumption. The group found that the environment is easy to build for basic tasks only. To take advantage of the vast array of the sophisticated tools, an experienced user with programming background is needed. For the project presentation, the group relied on the expertise of Mark Leonard, an experienced software/web designer who spent over 15 hours developing the project environment from the ground up. Mark also had the technological knowledge behind server hosting to set up Moodle on a laptop. Mark did, however, have access to a range of resources. Online support, community forums, and coworkers that utilize Moodle were available to help. In addition, third party training programs, manuals and training events are available for purchase as well.
An Affordable LMS
In comparison to learning systems such as Sakai which can cost $10,000 or more, Moodle can be implemented from about $1,500. As stated earlier, the open source software is available at no cost, but there are three main expenses associated with any learning management system. There must be a computer server to host the site; there are user training and support costs and maintenance associated with keeping the site up to date and in working order.
Server hosting fees for Moodle can vary widely. The group project was hosted on Mark Leonard’s MacBook Pro for demonstration purposes, but this was limiting, as it could not be deployed for use by others. As an alternative, free sites are available, but these require the use of premade templates which do not allow for customization and place advertisements on the environment. For the most effective implementation, an analysis of the importance of degree of flexibility, the number of courses and storage space should be conducted. A balance of the three factors will determine the ideal server host of the organization. Server hosting services can cost from $150 to $5,000 per year, depending on these factors. ClassroomRevolution.com, Moodlerooms, Inc. and Remote-Learner USA are examples of reputable server hosting services in the United States. Now that Moodle is used in over 200 countries in 78 languages, hosting partners are available worldwide.
Effective CSCL Strategy
Since its inception in 2001, the community of Moodle users has grown to over 38 million users worldwide (None, n.d.)(moodle.org/stats). Perhaps Moodle’s biggest attraction is that the efficacy in learning outcomes is similar for both non-technical and sophisticated users. Participation from the global Moodle community has established it as a central tool for learning organizations. It continuously evolves as developers add new features to the infrastructure. The group found that Moodle possessed the same qualities as major learning management systems and therefore be as effective.
Moodle Plugins
“Apps” are the buzzword these days. Public attention to iTunes and like sources that provide consumers with a variety of games, entertainment, productivity, and business resources—the list of categories are almost endless with many interwoven and coupled with existing software and programs. Moodle is no different; with its many apps or plugins to incorporate into the LMS, the open source provides indefinite possibilities for a learning environment. Our group’s project implemented three such plugins; Elluminate, Blog, and Freemind (mind-mapping program).
The first plugin is Elluminate. The use of this synchronous option is to demonstrate the versatility of Moodle in incorporating web conferencing tools. The need, adeptness, usability of the tool, and preferences of the members of the learning environment determine the web conferencing plugin. The liberality of the platform determines a function depending on the form. Thus the context of the learning environment determines its applications.
The second plugin in our design was the blog. The use of blogs sparks the question, “Can blogs enhance learning environments?” (Huffaker, 2005). Research gives evidence that “blogs can be an important addition to educational technology initiatives because they promote literacy through storytelling, allow collaborative learning, provide anytime-anywhere access, and remain fungible across academic disciplines” (Huffaker, 2005). The platform our group presented promotes utilizing various tools, such as the blog, to meet the needs of a learning environment. In our group’s case, the blog was used as a diary, which can neatly provide “individual expressions and collaborative learning” (Huffaker, 2005). Once again, the use of this tool is determined upon the context.
The last is Freemind (mind-mapping software). This tool is unconventional in learning environments, at least in regards to Sakai and Blackboard. However, the use of it reinforces our groups approach with Moodle as an open-source platform supporting the independence of an institution or individual’s needs. Because Freemind is an asynchronous tool, the members of the learning environment can contribute to the CoP, giving further independence as a LMS. Furthermore, the Freemind plugin is but one possibility of a mind-mapping tool. If this tool becomes obsolete in the design, then Moodle allows for revision or a complete transformation of the tool.
Conclusion
Some of the learnings from this project was that although Moodle can be implemented with less resources than other major LMS, it was clear that there are definite costs associated with the initial development, deployment and for ongoing maintenance. It was also found that the more fully featured platforms required a technically skilled expert as the platform became much more complex. Nevertheless, educators have the perennial dilemma of staying current with quickly changing technological learning environments with even less financial resources. A recent article states that the pace of changes in technology will demand that schools adopt some sort of LMS in the near future. (Garg, 2010) As the computer industry shifts towards incorporating mobile devices to complement learning platforms, Moodle again will be ideal as plugins continue to be built for the platform. The group concludes that Moodle is a viable solution for the small to mid-sized schools and is capable of supporting an integrated collaborative learning environment.
References
Brooks-Young, S. (2008). Got Moodle? T H E Journal, 35(4), 28-29.
Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (1996). Stolen Knowledge. Situated Learning Perspectives, 47-56.
Garg, A. (2010). Future of Learning Technology - 2015. Insider Higher Ed. Retrieved from http://www.upsidelearning.com/blog/index.php/2010/05/07/future-of-learning-technology-2015/
Green, K. (2009). LMS 3.0. Insider Higher Ed. Retrieved from http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/11/04/green
Huffaker, D. (2005). The Educated Blogger: Using Weblogs to Promote Literacy in the Classroom. AACE Journal, 13(2), 91-98.
Krug, S. (2000). Don't Make Me Think: New Riders.
Land, S. M., & Hannafin, M. J. (2000). Student-Centered Learning Environments. In D. H. Jonassen & S. M. Land (Eds.), Theoretical Foundations of Learning Environments (pp. 1-19). Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erbaum Associates, Inc.
Lawrence, R. (2009). The moodle model. e.learning age, 16-17.
None. (n.d.) Retrieved December 4, 2010, from moodle.org/stats/
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