Maximizing the benefits of Moodle
Because there are many educational tools today, it might be hard to
maximize each one of them. Take Moodle for example. Technology and the
classroom are great combinations, and websites and management systems
like Moodle can open the door to an entirely different playing field.
Moodle intro
Moodle is an Open Source course
management system that lets non-technical teachers set up and maintain
(with complete ease and convenience) a website for students to
interact, contribute ideas and collaborate.
Classrooms are now extended into the Web, giving students a common
place to interact and share classroom resources. Moodle even lets
students post news articles, collect assignments, post electronic
journals, and much more.
Pushing the envelope
A few years ago,
maintaining a website would mean coding HTML or getting extremely
technical from the get-go. There were files uploaded to the
server, and skills to learn—and most teachers didn’t have the time to
do so.
With a CMS like Moodle, teachers utilize their ability to teach ideas using technology, the Internet and media.
Of course, when taken at face value, Moodle helps teachers save time
and paperwork, as quizzes are graded automatically, and feedback can be
relayed to students at half the time. But more than that, it lets
students learn together and independently at the same time.
Some teachers personally testify to Moodle’s ease and convenience.
One had been using Moodle for just two semesters, and her page already
had a discussion forum, chat and a quiz. For her online classes, she
grades students’ writings during group chat exercises. Things like
these take teaching completely out of the box, and into the vast portal
of the Internet.
Quizzes are also done with open notebooks. Their Moodle glossary is
a compilation of the students’ learnings, all hyperlinked to anywhere
it is used in the site.
Another advantage of Moodle that can be maximized is its popularity.
From the thousands of teachers from different schools and universities
all over the world, that means a lot of connections and collaborations.
A few years from now, hopefully Moodle will help more teachers
connect to their students, and organize the vast knowledge we all
possess individually.
Sources:
Riordan, Matt. “Moodle: An electronic classroom.” Retrieved July 15, 2009 from
http://moodle.bethlehem.edu/mod/resource/view.php?id=199
Rowe, Joe. “Building Educational Web Sites with Moodle.” Retrieved July 15, 2009 from
http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/internet/archives/page9155.cfm
(Published 27 July 2009, Smart Communications, Inc.)
