Moodle

Today, I'm attending the third and final day of Moodle In The Classroom. This is a workshop sponsored by the IT people of the Minneapolis Public Schools. I've found that Moodle is amazing.

Photo courtesy: http://moodle.com/hq/

I've been using Blackboard in the class that I co-teach at Saint Mary's. Blackboard is good but it seems that it is limited in comparison to Moodle. In addition, Blackboard is a for-profit company.

Moodle on the other hand is "open source" and anyone is able to develop for Moodle. That means that anyone with a good idea can add something to the Moodle resources. I don't have the skills to do that, but the possibilities are endless if you know what you are doing.

The only problem with Moodle is that I work in the inner-city. Access at home to Moodle is tough. There is the problem of hardware and the problem of internet access. Even in the school building, there is the problem of having enough computers for each student to have one. I'm lucky to have 15 laptops but that isn't enough for a whole class.

All of that makes me wonder how I can implement Moodle in my class. A couple of thoughts: 1) use Moodle for challenge activities, 2) use Moodle for college explorations.

Any thoughts? Add them in the comments below.