moodle

www.moodle.org

Moodle is a “software package for producing internet-based courses and websites. It is Open Source software – which basically means that Moodle is copyrighted, but that there are freedoms. You are allowed to copy, use and modify Moodle provided that you agree to provide the sorce to others, not modify or remove the original license and copyrights and apply this license to derivative work.” Its focus is on giving educators the best tools to manage and promote learning.

philosophy

Also as per the Moodle website, the philosophy behind the design of Moodle is based on 4 main related concepts:

• Constructivism – people construct new knowledge as they interact with their environments
• Constructionism – learning is particularly effective when constructing something for others to experience (e.g. taking lecture notes, constructing a slideshow to highlight new information)
• Social constructivism – groups collaborate to construct knowledge for one another
• Connected and separate – relates to the deeper motivations of students within a discussion:
• Separate behaviour – when someone tries to use objectivity and logic to defend their ideas (i.e. factual and objective) and find holes in their opponent’s ideas
• Connected behaviour – more empathetic when someone makes an effort to listen and question to try to understand another point of view
• Constructed behaviour – when a person can use either approach as appropriate to the situation
• Connected behaviour is a powerful stimulant for learning, bringing people closer together and promoting deeper reflection and re-examination of existing beliefs.

use by educators

Educators may choose to use Moodle:

• As their platform to conduct fully online courses
• To augment face-to-face courses (blend learning)
• To use the activity modules (e.g. forums, databases and wikis) to build a collaborative learning experience
• As a way to deliver content to students
• To assess students’ learning using assignments and quizzes

the site

Moodle demonstrates the following features (1, 2): 

• Assignments - enable teachers to grade and give comments on uploaded files and assignments created on and off line.
• Blogs – in Moodle you have your own blog (short for web log) and you can create blog tags
• Calendar – allows you to show events in various categories (user, course and site). You also have the option to show upcoming events, assignments, etc and recent activity in the course.
• Chats - allows participants to have a real-time synchronous discussion via the web.
• Choices - teachers ask a question and specify a choice of multiple responses.
• Customizable themes – customising your course!
• Databases - enables participants to create, maintain and search a bank of record entries.
• Forums - provide the opportunity for asynchronous discussions. Students can create or contribute to a topic with their own comments. Options also include: grading posts, setting an open/close date, no reply, one reply only, etc
• Glossary - The glossary module enables participants to create and maintain a list of definitions, like a dictionary. Entries can be set to create highlighted hyperlinks within the course itself.
• Journal – allows every student to maintain a personal journal that only they and the teacher have access to
• Lessons - present a series of pages to the student, who is usually asked to make some sort of choice below the content area. A lesson activity allows the teacher to create an adaptive learning experience, without direct teacher interaction.
• My Home – customisable dashboard for providing users with links to their courses, activities within them (e.g. unread forum posts and upcoming assignments).
• Quizzes - allow the teacher to design and set quiz tests, consisting of multiple choice, true-false, and short answer questions and more. Each attempt is automatically marked, and the teacher can choose whether to give feedback and/or to show correct answers. 
• Reports – user activity on Moodle can be monitored using the LOGS option. 
• Resources - Teachers can provide course resources in various formats - pages edited in Moodle, uploaded files or web links. Note: This text is an example of a resource type called 'label'.
• SCORM packages – SCORM is a collection of specifications that enable interoperability, accessibility and reusability of web-based learning content.
• Surveys - teachers can use surveys to gather data from their students that will help them learn about their class and reflect on their own teaching.
• Wikis – A wiki is a collection of web pages that anyone can add to or edit.
• Workshops - enables peer assessment and self-assessment activities

pros

• Free
• So many tools - really is a "one stop shop"
• So much information around on how to use this LMS to become a better educator
• Great support network

cons

• Will need a "server"
• So many tools - it will take persistence in order to use this LMS to its full potential

resources

Check out Stephan Schmidt’s Moodle Video Tutorials