What is Moodle? Moodle is a course management system (CMS) - a free, Open Source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities.

How do you get Moodle? You can download and use it on any computer you have handy (including webhosts), yet it can scale from a single-teacher site to a University with 200,000 students!

Here is an introductory video about Moodle:

The Benefits of Using Moodle

Enhances students engagement
Students and parents can access their moodle from home.
Once the resources are added to moodle, they stay up there for as long as you want.
Teachers can develop quizzes and tests that are marked immediately and provide immediate feedback to the student
Does not take up any room on hard drives or USB
DECS will set up each schools moodle
Can switch activities on or off so you can make sure the students are focusing on what you want them to
Allows for quick feedback from students and teachers
Easy to add resources and Web 2.0 activities.
Training is easily accessible from the team at Education.edu.au
Unlimited space availiable

Disadvantages of using a moodle

It is a time consuming process.
It can seem daunting at the start
First time users may need training and assistance
Uploading resources is a slow process
Could encourage absenteeism because student may think they can simply do the work on the moodle.
Some teachers have not developed their moodle to further student engagement.
Due to DECS limited access, many of the benefits of moodle are blocked

How can Moodle be used in the classroom?

Creates an online classroom environment
Allows the teacher to set revision tasks for students
Allows students to learn at their own pace
Allows for students that are sick or struggling to catchup on work
Lets students that want to extend their learning to do so
Encourages student engagement
It is interactive and this is being further improved by new developments
Aspects of the programme support the organisation of both the teacher and student
Can be beneficial to students with learning difficulties
Suitable for Upper Primary through to Senior Secondary students

Middle school teacher Molly Tipton uses Moodle in her year 8 social studies class, in this video Molly explains how she uses Moodle in her classroom and the benefits of using Moodle.

Allira and I wanted to discover practical applications of moodle. We wanted to find out if Moodle is a helpful tool to use with students and as part of unit plans. To help us find out more we interviewed a high school teacher from the western suburbs. This teacher is currently using Moodle and has talked to us about the pros and cons. Below there is a link to Ms Lonergan discussing Moodle. If you wish to learn more detail about Moodle in the classroom, click on the link to read the complete interview.

Interview

We also contacted Yvonne Murtagh who is involved with, and passionate about Moodle. Yvonne was able to provide us with some useful links and offers some advice for teachers with comments and questions about Moodle. Click on the link below to read the comments.

Teacher Comments

We feel that even though the initial setup can be time consuming, Moodle is an excellent tool for teachers and well worth the effort. It can allow for greater student engagement when used effectively and can assist students no matter the level the student is at. For further information about using Moodle please follow these links.

The Moodle site www.moodle.org

The Moodle Man Blog www.moodleman.net/

Are You Ready to Moodle? http://llt.msu.edu/vol9num2/review1/default.html

De Anza College Facaulty Review http://faculty.deanza.edu/taylorvalerie/stories/storyReader$489

How Moodle can change a school http://vimeo.com/4964277

Graeme and Gareth's website (link currently unavailable)

This page was created by Kate and Allira with contributions from Graeme and Gareth. A special thank you to Ms Lonergan, Yvonne Murtagh and Mark Bailye for their time and contributions.

We invite all CEGSA members to leave comments about our page.

Name	Version	Size	Date	User
Interview.wav	1	12648492	9/21/09 10:15 AM	nort0079
Teacher talks Moodle!

Comments:

From tsweeney - 10/24/09 8:29 PM

Hi Kate and Allira,

Thank you for your great work on investigating Moodle. Your web page provides valuable up to date information about this rapidly developing tool. I think one of the major challenges of using Moodle is to ensure that teachers use it as a blended learning tool to complement face to face teaching (not simply uploading content for independent learning). I hope readers know that there is now a CEGSA moodle available for members to use if they attend a CEGSA short course. This means that all teachers can access Moodle even if their school does not have access to a server (i.e. Catholic and Independent schools).

Last Modified 11/6/09 9:28 AM

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