I looked up and followed threads on course management systems on the classroom 2.0 website. Course Management Systems or CMS are also known as virtual learning environments. It's a software system that is designed to support teaching and learning in an educational setting, as distinct from a Managed Learning Environment (MLE) where the focus is on management. CMS work over the Internet and provide a collection of tools such as those for assessment communication, uploading of content, return of students' work, peer assessment, administration of student groups, collecting and organizing student grades, questionnaires, tracking tools, wikis, blogs, RSS and 3D virtual learning spaces.
There are many couse management systems available but Moodle was the one that was discussed the most on the treads I followed. Moodle is a free and open source e-learning software platform and users had mixed reviews of Moodle. Many users had trouble installing it and needed admin help and support. For the most part, most of the teachers liked Moodle and gave positive feedback. A few things they said included "I still have a lot to learn. The hook to get the staff involved has been the testing features. It is a huge time saver for them allowing them to focus on new pedagogies and learning new technology skills." Another Moodle user said "Best bits for me: forums, glossaries, and how it easily embeds audio/media. Testing features I didn't get into, as I have a php script I'm used to using. I crashed and burned with the Moodle wiki so am now sticking with wikispaces. Blogs - not great in Moodle yet I think, so I have avoided them. Also students would like a 'homepage' - and social features like this ning site, which don't exist in Moodle." It really seems like Moodle is an all around great CMS. I would love to learn more about it because I have never even heard of Moodle before this assignment but for a new teacher it would be a good way to manage my classroom courses.
Great job! Thanks for explaining about Moodle. I've come across several references to it recently and wasn't sure what it was. It was good to find out some of its strengths and weaknesses. I will certainly need to find a classroom management site when I start teaching at at the high school or middle school level.
ReplyDeleteThis post was informative, I have a few friends that have used Moodle and they at first disliked it strongly, however, they have said that once you get the hang of it, it is a great tool and will make teaching so much easier. I shall look Moodle up now and tinker with it because you refreshed my thoughts on the tool. Very nice post, I enjoyed the pro's and the con's.
ReplyDeleteMoodle sounds like a really concise way to manage courses, especially since it has so many features and they get teacher input.
ReplyDeleteMoodle was mentioned in something I was reading the other day, and I had no idea what it was, so thanks for explaining this technology for the rest of us to learn what it is too! I'm definitely going to have to look into using it.
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