Moodle

Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is a content (or course) mangement system.

As a learner, when I was first assigned by my instructor to become part of a group and as a member of a group, conceded to assume a responsible to participate as a team player.

We, the group, were to go off into our own little virtual space and create things for each other (social constructionist), and the end product was designated by the instructor to be the basis for our grade.

Moodle, provided the activity modules we had available to create these documents. We chatted real-time (asynchronous discussion), it was interesting to watch, how some students would take what seemed like forever, to post a comment, others would ‘step on others’ midstream, but we stuck it out, and covered, who would do what and when, so we could complete this crazy teachers directions.

Next, we moved on to our Wikis which allowed us students to work together on collaboratively-authored project, and put the plan into action, several times we had to refer to the automatically generated text document from our chat session to review our plan.

As the weeks progressed we uploaded assignments. we participated in workshops, journalized on our own blogs, and uploaded graphic files, spreadsheets and flash content to incorporate in our group documents.

Our group glossary came in very handy, come time for quizzes which offered the instructor several options for automatic and manual scoring. I don't know how all of my co-workers fared in the course, but I aced the class, and learned a whole lot more than I would have, had I been left on my own.

The first thing I did after that class was get an online hosting service, my own url, and installed Moodle on it, who’da ever thought I’d own my own virtual learning environment?


There is a wonderful post online entilted The Pretty Good Teacher, that inspired me.

I don't know what will come of my own Moodle campus, but I do know that the possibilities are limited only by myself. I love Moodle, and have a lot to learn in as short as time as possible. I’m comfortable that, I’m in the right place.

"The revolution of Socrates is to change education from the transmission of culture, to the
development of self-reliance. If you want to function at the highest effectiveness as a teacher, then it is not enough to teach a subject to a student. Your goal must always be to teach the learner to be a teacher. Then the student is functioning at his highest relationship to the content, and to himself." - Jensen, Brad.