MOODLE+History

=Moodle History =

What is Moodle? It is a **M**odular **O**bject **O**riented **D**ynamic **L**earning **E**nvironment, the brain child of Martin Dougimas. Dougimas was an adminstrator for Web CT, one of the first for profit Learning Management Systems. Dougimas designed Moodle to support social constructivst pedagogy. The main site for Moodle is http://moodle.org/. The brick and mortar company is located in Perth, Austrailia and the headquarters website is []. The goals of the learning system are tools which will support collaboration and inquiry based learning.

Moodle was designed as an open source system as opposed to other Learning Management Systems such as Blackboard. Moodle runs free of charge with a General Public License. It is a template based system to which content must be added much like Blackboard. Moodle provides tools that provide various functions such as chat, lessons, assignments, quizzes and similar features. The system also allows for restricted access through passwords or time frames. Moodle supports video, audio and flash as well as //Elluminate Live//.

There is a wiki that is a part of the learning system which supports collaborative learning and the feedback file is also a component of the system. These tools support the overall goal of social constructivist pedagogy.

Moodle runs on any Unix, Linux, Window, Mac OS, Netwar, and any other system that supports PHP. It is used in more than 115 countries and supports over 60 languages (Cole, 2005). Moodle's own video on the front page of this wiki makes the claim to currently be in 200 countries and 80 languages. Moodle can serve something as small a single teacher but it can also provide services for a 40,000 student university (Cole, 2005). Moodle was listed as one of the top 10 tools for learning on the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies website.

One of the issues with integrating technology into education is support. Moodle is supported by Moodle Partners which is dedicated to supporting and developing mutual goals for Moodle through software development and/or funding. While not directly related to Moodle, Moodlerooms has developed a market for those seeking more concrete technical support. This company will help with the customizing of the Moodle software. Moodle is quite likely the largest competitor for Blackboard, the giant in online learning systems. Moodle is not, however, the only open source free online learning system. Another such system is Sakai. Moodle is more widely used than Sakai but it has only a fraction of the features. For a side by side comparison check: []. In the technophobe world of education being simpler appears to be an advantage for Moodle.

Brandl, K. (2005). Are you ready to Moodle? //Language Learning & Technology.// 9, 16-23. Cole, J. (2005). //Using Moodle.//Sebastapol,CA: O'Reilly. Hanley, M. (2009). Center for Learning and Performance Technologies retrieved 11/08/09 http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/michaelhanley.html Moodlerooms. Retrieved 11/08/09 from http://moodlerooms.com/.