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Course Management Systems are “software 'packages' designed to help educators create quality online courses”. So says Martin Dougiamas, the leader of the Open Source Moodle CMS project. Another perhaps more definitive label for this class of software would be Virtual Learning Environments or VLE, a term which is widely used in Europe. Because what we are interested in are ways to enhance and deepen the learning experience for students in our classes and a "learning environment" based on a medium which young people are extraordinarily comfortable with, that is the WorldWideWeb, can provide that experience in creative hands. What is required is a software system that is easily accessible to faculty & students (thus a web based application), that possesses functionality suitable for basic course management but also has the capability to host advanced pedagogical activities, and above all, that is easy to use with intuitive operations. Moodle is that software.
The basic premise of a course management system (CMS) that makes it so powerful and attractive is that it is an authenticated system - that is, users (students and faculty) have to log on with a username and password and non-members (ie guest) can be denied access. Thus a CMS provides a safe place for locating copyrighted materials online, conducting discussions online in private, disseminating grades to students amongst other things. In short, all the processes involved in managing a course can be accomplished online in a secure environment.
Let's itemize some of the basic course management functions:
There needs to be an easy way for students to enroll into an online course and to switch between them when they are within the system. Faculty need to have an easy method to get their class enrolled and to add or drop students where necessary.
It would be pedagogically powerful if the system were able to display teaching units of a syllabus as an integral part of the presentation of the course on the main display page (eg Moodle's weekly & topics view).
This constitutes the content for the course. Instructor needs to be able to add online resources in the form of documents, presentations, spreadsheets, web URL, audio or video.
Instructor should be able to have students submit writing assignments as a document file (uploaded) or other file (spreadsheet / presentation), or a web URL, or an inline response. There should be an easy way to set a due date. An enhancement would be the ability of the instructor to add comments and return the assignment document to the student.
Instructor should be able to grade individual assignments and other online activity and make grade available privately. An enhancement would be to have the grades summed automatically.
A place or places where the teacher can make general class announcements. A bonus would be having these announcements also delivered by email to the class.
What's happening on the course and when - assignments due, extra lab sessions, field trips planned, etc?
Add discussion topics, respond, grade student's participation.
Multiple choice / short answer auto-graded quiz feature for student assessment or topic revision
More advanced pedagogical activities could include such elements as:
Can be used to provide “Just In Time” teaching: the instructor sets a question testing the student's comprehension of the topic to be completed just before the next class session. He looks at the responses online just before class starts and then he can address any issues during that class session.
Students submit assignment and then grade each other's work. Faculty assesses both original work and the student's efforts at assessing others.
An online journal can be used to enable student's to reflect upon a topic and then develop their response over the length of the course. Examples could include “listening logs” for music pieces, or development of understandings of concepts in genetics.
The wiki paradigm (a 'digital whiteboard' open to writing on by all participants) is normative for this kind of activity.
I've heard about Blackboard - why aren't you using that?
Blackboard is perhaps the best known of all the commercial course management vendors but in practice many small colleges have had a rocky time with technical support and accelerating costs (Earlham School of Religion has just migrated from Blackboard to Moodle this year). On the other hand, Earlham has had good experiences with Open Source systems (such as the Squirrel webmail package) and there is the potential of being able to integrate Moodle with our current Webdb course registration system.
Moreover Moodle has international scope and support. Development of the software is coordinated from Australia, with folks from Spain, Finland, Germany, Canada, Columbus OH, amongst other places contributing. Not only are 40 languages supported but it is used in over 1500 installations in 92 countries, many of these being large educational institutions. The Moodle forums provide instant online support and there are now international conferences called Moodle Moots.
Moodle's social constructionist philosophy undergirds the whole system and is in a high degree of harmony with Earlham's educational mission.
This sounds very exciting, how can I get my class onto Moodle?
Since Moodle has not been “rolled out” to all faculty yet and is still in testing phase (see caveat below), ITAM & ECS are making it available to faculty who have expressed a willingness to spend some time getting to grips with the system and who are eager to make reasonable use of it with a class. With this in mind, if you would like to use it in the coming semester, here's what you do:
- Contact Mark Pearson to arrange an office visit - I'll create the course beforehand and spend as long as you want going through the basics.
- Email the 'enrollment key' for your course to the class (you can use Webdb to do this) - or distribute it on the first class day
- Students login to moodle.earlham.edu using their normal EC username & password, they click on your course name, enter the 'enrollment key' and then they are ready to go Moodling.
Caveat
Moodle is currently in a testing phase at Earlham and we (ITAM & ECS) are happy to have faculty try using it with a course. Bear in mind that although the software is reasonably stable there may be some flakiness in operation and since ITPC will be reviewing the status of course management systems in the spring of '05 we cannot pre-empt their decision. Thus we cannot guarantee that Moodle will be the definitive system that Earlham standardizes upon; this will be a decision made by the ITPC committee in the light of faculty experience with the system in this fall and next spring semesters.
Useful links:
Teachers using Moodle:
(you'll need to get a free login & password to visit these - on the moodle.org site just click login, then New Account & follow instructions)
