With another school term kicking off, some of us hold our heads over the muddle of Moodle

The first time I interacted with Moodle was before my undergraduate course started. The faculty was insistent that I come to terms with the labyrinth-like system beforehand, which was slightly worrisome. How difficult could it be? It turns out it wasn’t, but — much like everything else around us — understanding Moodle’s structure was important in understanding its function.

We have all sorts of management systems to help make our work and lives easier to, well, manage. While content management systems help us organise our blogs, portfolios and social media, learning management systems (LMS) get our virtual education filing system sorted in one nook of the Web. One can liken Moodle to a ‘virtual classroom without the germs and threat of detention’.

Structure is everything

Moodle’s own site couldn’t describe it better, explaining, “There are about 20 different types of activities available (forums, glossaries, wikis, assignments, quizzes [and other such resources] and each can be customised quite a lot. The main power of this activity-based model comes in combining the activities into sequences and groups, which can help you guide participants through learning paths. Thus, each activity can build on the outcomes of previous ones. There are a number of other tools that make it easier to build communities of learners, including blogs, messaging, participant lists etc, as well as useful tools like grading, reports, integration with other systems and so on.”

Moodle is a free-to-use LMS developed by Martin Dougiamas, and its first version was put out in 2002. As time progressed, the User Experience became more seamless yet more intricate, while upping its security protocols to keep the learning environment safe and private. More importantly, Moodle has become more accessible, thanks to active translations in over 120 languages — an ideal component for the international students. Bearing in mind the different tech-adapting capacities out there, Moodle is customisable; it can be very simple with minimal features or incredibly intricate, and this usually depends on the courses as well.

High-grade experience

For my undergraduate course in journalism, Moodle was automatically translated to the preferred language of the individual student logging into the system. Individual feedback of graded work would be provided as well. However, this didn’t cut back on in-person student-teacher advisory sessions, and Moodle shows no intention of interfering here.

Multimedia resources included videos of guest lectures, which were easy-to-access during revision time, meticulously-researched case studies from restricted libraries and sometimes live lectures in case you’re sick or away.

On that note, therein lies the problem with Moodle: the impact it has on physical attendance. I won’t lie, there have been many a time when I pondered whether a lecture was ‘worth attending’ if the recap would anyway be uploaded to the LMS within minutes.

Moodle is what you make it, guys. But it definitely doesn’t take something away or try to replace good old holistic learning.

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