I feel like Moodle’s approach and methodology is similar to how we examined the role of technology in Contemporary Instructional Technologies course as well as Virtual Worlds. Throughout the semester we reviewed different case studies/ programs on how technology was incorporated into learning environments. Some of these were instances of face-to-face (F2F), online, and blended /hybridized learning. One of the revolving questions that kept popping up was whether we were forcing learners to adapt to the technology in order to learn, or if the technology was being used to augment the instruction/ learning environment / event.

I would suggest that Moodle has kept this in mind in both their philosophy and pedagogy. This is evident in a number of ways in based on their flexibility of access and use. In addition to the number of resources including analytics, quizzes, discussions, and surveys they allow users to have mixed roles in the learning management system. This not allows peer-to peer learning and feedback, but facilitator to learner learning and feedback.

In my experience in fine art printmaking I found that often I learned from my peers just as much as the instructor. On the same note when I began showing less seasoned printmakers new techniques, I learned something myself, particularly the importance of clarity in my instruction. I can draw many parallels here as to why Moodle emphasizes our role as learners even when we are in the teacher capacity. 

I think this level of flexibility in Moodle is important, not just from a philosophy and pedagogy standpoint, but also an instructional design perspective. I would attribute Moodle’s success to not only their philosophy and pedagogy, but flexibility of the platform. When choosing a proper good LMS, it has to fit the needs of multiple clients with multiple needs. While there may be some formal training involved, we shouldn’t have to force facilitators and learners to adapt to the platform, we should be using the platform to fit the needs of our learners and facilitators.  

What I found interesting about Moodle is that it caters to many different languages. The system translates the default language to fit the individual’s preference. I discovered that the official language for Moodle is Australian English. Codes are assigned to different languages and a language code list is provided by Moodle. Moodle 3.3 provides language packs. These language packs which are maintained by people who use and contribute to Moodle. For people to utilize these language packs, they first should install it before they can customize it to their needs. A workflow of the language customization is provided for people who are interested with it. These packs are dependent with the server, meaning if an individual wants to install, restore, or make a backup, a local file is provided to manually restore it from a different server. Troubleshooting corrupted language packs caused by plugins can also be seen in this section to fix the plugin with the language packs. 

I was very impressed with the history of Moodle.  From humble beginnings in 2002 to having over 100 million users in 2017 truly shows me a clear example of the growth of Learning Management systems.  I had never heard of Moodle until four weeks ago.  Reading that so many people are already using it and loving it is a final confirmation for me of the direction of learning in today’s rapidly changing digital world.  

  The history of how the designers intended for Moodle to be used is inspiring, and articulates well the value that Moodle provides to the learning process.  Encouraging a change in the learning process or culture to achieve social constructivist behavior, when groups are constructing knowledge for one another, identifies the need for open-ended LMS environments.  It excites me to see more technology that allows for group work and sharing of information and data using group or collaborative efforts to learn from each other in a up-to-the-minute timeline to all the time accessibility.~

Moodle opens on the “Front Page” (“Landing Page”) where you go directly from your browser.  This page “usually includes information about the establishment itself and can be highly customised. (Note that it is also possible to lock the front page down so that all a user sees when they click on the Moodle URL is a log in screen.)”  I think that for some applications, there might not be a need for more than a log in screen for your courses in Moodle.

The interior of Moodle consists of “pages.”  This is where courses are, and their individual pages – such as activities and learning resources.

My impression is that Moodle is like a book – The title page of a book equates to the front page of Moodle, courses are like chapters, and the course pages are like sections within that chapter.  

Also noted in this “About” section were the comments: 

§  “You don't enter Moodle with the "teacher" or "student" role.  

§  Everyone who logs into Moodle has no special privileges until they are allocated roles by the administrator according to their needs in individual courses or contexts.”

This is important to understand, because as the administrator, we are responsible for assigning privileges to the learning management system.

Please see this page for more information: https://docs.moodle.org/33/en/Moodle_site_-_basic_structure

-LTI Certified. So, if teachers want students to be able to access externally hosted content and applications in their Moodle platform, this interoperability allows that. The good news is that this feature saves teachers time and duplicated effort. Vital parts of many courses can be provided without administrators or teachers authoring, hosting, or maintaining custom integrations locally. All the teacher has to do is find the right LTI v2.0 (Learning Tool Interoperability) compliant application and use it. 

-Open Badges (in Standards)by Mozilla.  Open Badges project uses a student-friendly motivational idea, digital badges to recognize, verify, and give students a running record of learning accomplishment on the Moodle platform. Rather than just a list of grades, students earn badges for each learning goal or level they reach. Teachers set the criteria, and students can earn a growing “trophy case.” Motivation! 

-Quiz question import/export. This feature allows users to import (and also export) questions into their Moodle database in many different formats, and also from their local network or computer.  It is easy to see that over time, a teacher who uses this import, storage, and organizational feature could develop a sizeable number of differentiated assessment items. For a math teacher, particularly, this would make it easier to put together valid assessments, with tested, reliable, and varied items. No more on relying on last year’s test!

-PoodLL Filter. Not found in Standards, however, but in Plugins, this is my favorite. Why ? This plugin allows for audio and video recording right in Moodle. Though it requires a subscription fee of $79.00 a year, I will probably use this. Teachers and students can also leave each other questions, images, and content in a whole host of different formats. The point here is that for an asynchronous app, the entire PoodLL Set, when used as a system, makes a great adjunct to live interactivity. 
~

Moodle seems like a very respectable company, and they seem to genuinely care about their audience and users. 

They were also kind enough to let us all know that Kangaroos are herbivores in their “future” contents. They seem to have a good sense of humor!

As a parent, I would have to say that my favorite accessibility perk was to be able to login and get a glimpse of “my kids” work progress. I currently have two children taking online courses. Each of them is using a different LMS so this section varies for each of them. I like the Moodle site because it seems to blend what I like about both of my kids’ parent portals. With Moodle, a parent is not only able to see the students profile and grades, but can monitor activity as it is being completed. The parent can also see the student’s blog posts and communicate with the teacher directly. If I could, I think I would want both of my kids to use Moodle.

http://school.demo.moodle.net/mod/page/view.php?id=44 

Moodle stands for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment.  Developed to enhance distance learning its founder and Lead Developer Martin Dougiamas, began his search/development after having attended the School of the Air in the late 1970’s in his homeland of Australia.

           Dougiamas and Peter Taylor worked on the prototype for Moodle in the early 2000’s, with Moodle 1.0 being released the following year. 2002-2003 brought to Moodle its initial users and the need for Moodle to be translated in the multiple languages and themes. Moodle.org came into existence for the community at large with Moodle.com created for the commercial world.

           Moodle at this point, was ever evolving and growing at a rapid rate.  The first Moodle Moot (Moot - an assembly held for debate) was held that year and the following year, with the official Moodle Moot Mojito (say that a few times, after a few of those) coming to existence.

            By 2007, Moodle had positioned itself as one of the leading and awarding winning open source Learning Management Systems.  Its growth had gone from 1000 users in 2004 to over a million users by 2010, having been translated into over 100 different languages.  This year also brought to Moodle the release of 2.0, with new updates following every six months after the 2.0 release.

            Along with new releases every six months, came Moodle MOOC, a forum developed to give users the ability to work with Moodle’s basic features.  The Moodle MOOC also occurs of a bi-yearly basis since 2015.

            Finally, to give you an idea of the growth of Moodle, there are over 100 million users as of 2017, with Moodle now being cloud based, releasing Moodle Desktop and establishing the first Education team, just to name a few enhancements.

For version 3.3 Moodle looked to improve the functionality and navigation. This was done by creating a new course overview feature.  This allows students to better see their overall progress and upcoming activities.  This is done by showing a timeline of activities due and listing of future activates.  For activities that are active, student can click on the link to complete the activity. The display can be sorted by date or courses within the timeline tab.  There is also a course tab.  This tab allows the student to view their overall progress for each courses based on percentage of completion.  The student can also view completion status of future and past courses.

New integration with Office 365, Google G Suite has been developed.  I thought this option was pretty interesting as it appears to be a push toward better interface of Moodle in the workplace.  Another aspect to this functionality is OAuth2 authentication. This will allow users to login using an alternate external services, such as Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter or alternate services that support OAuth. 

The Font awesome project.  I had to go out to the Font Awesome project site to get a better understanding of what this is and how it is a benefit to Moodle.  These are scalable vector icons that can be changed in size, color and drop shadow.  From the developer side, these icons improve the efficiency of Moodle and from the end user perspective these icons are higher contrast and allow for easier to read icons.  What I like about this functionality is that it allows for the same icon to be used throughout Moodle, allowing the user to key in on important sections or topics that you want them to recognized.  I see this a something similar to the Idiots Guide books where they had the icon of the exploding bomb telling you to pay attention to a certain section.   

Other updates include, Set A Grade Reminder, Specify assignment file types, Collapse comments in assignments, Better activity completion management.  

Additionally, the Moodle site structure is very similar to a basic website structure. I have minimal experience with website development and maintenance, but even from an end-user standpoint, the “Front Page” is similar to a landing page, which usually contains information about an organization or business, i.e. logo or other identifying information. The links and blocks within the site (courses) are very similar to basic website navigation features. 

I also found the Moodle key terms easily relatable and cannot wait to put them into action!