Since I am on the extreme margin of involvement of course management systems at Maricopa, I’ve not intensively followed the latest CMS stuff, but hear that Sakai is bubbling and there is even more spots of interest on the adoption of Moodle.
Leon at Y.uk? emailed about 2 new Moodle articles on his blog, “Innovative Practitioners and Moodle”
Listen to our latest two casts from innovators in education Ian Usher and Drew Buddie.
as well as “Skype interview with Miles Berry about Moodle”:
If you have wondered about Moodle and how it is being used in schools – listen to our third podcast over Skype with Miles Berry of St Ives School in Haslemere Surrey.
Apparently there is a Moodle gathering coming up called MoodleMoot (the rate of Moodle word creation is peaking, it is just such a fun word. Do you fell that little giggle when saying the name of your current mega dollor CMS? Do warm feelings flow through your veins?).
In addition, there was an very interesting poster presentation by someone from Humboldt State University at last week’s NMC 2005 Summer Conference:
A Comparison of Satisfaction with Open Source (Moodle) and Commercial LMS Software
What are the respective advantages of commercial learning management system (LMS) software and an opensource alternative? Courses at Humboldt State University, California State University Chico, and San Francisco State University were each offered to students using Moodle and the host campus’ commercial software. This side-by-side comparison of Moodle with Blackboard and WebCT during fall 2004 resulted in feedback from the instructors, developers, and students on satisfaction levels with each LMS.
Humboldt, a Blackboard site, is now apparently offering both Moodle and Bb side by side at http://cdc.humboldt.edu/lms/.
I was able to track down most of the data and slides presented in the poster at http://www.humboldt.edu/~jdv1/moodle/all.htm. More or less there is more student satisfaction with Moodle, though I am not statistics savvy enough to be affirmative.
What is not there was a resolution passed by their student body, “RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF HUMBOLDT STATE UNIVERSITY CONVERTING BLACKBOARD, THE CURRENT ONLINE LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (LMS) TO MOODLE” (March 21, 2005). Apparently, given the large numbers of “Whereas’s”, Humboldt students are rather outspoken (other California colleague agreed with the active nature of this school). The presenter noted their Bb contact goes for a while longer, so no sudden moved are needed, but reported the support needed for Moodle was rather low.
These would by Chinese curse equivalent of interesting times for big CMS stockholders, eh?
UPDATE
Check out New Zealand’s Moodle For Schools site (thanks Richard E for the ichat message!)
The Open Source Courseware Initiative New Zealand (OSCINZ) is a e-Learning Collaborative Development Fund (eCDF) project that aims to develop and implement a unique New Zealand learning management system (LMS), based on quality open source code provided (and tested) by leading educational providers.
As part of the testing of this LMS we are currently offering a number of “fee free” courses for secondary school students and are listed on the left. They are all foundation level courses and completely online.
Moodling along….
New Zealand is doing a lot of work developing the Moodle LMS and will take advantage of the recently announced partnership between Moodle and LAMS (Moolams? which I don’t think they do :-))
http://lamsfoundation.org/integration/moodle/
Schools are also being catered for with the experimental but fast growing
‘Schoodle’
http://schools.elearning.ac.nz/moodle/
It will be good when someone works out exactly how much the ‘Free’ open source Moodle and LAMS are goiing to cost in the longterm. Methinks the cost that once all the transfer, training, configuration, modifications, development, hardware, backup etc are taken into consideration it will not be very different to the cost of commercial offerings 🙁
Good to be able to evaluate alternatives to Bb and WebCT.. keeps the team on its toes 🙂
I also have a Moodle blog the Moodle Journal, which is itself an account of the highs, lows, successes and failure in our deployment of the Moodle VLE here at Bromley College
I found this summary following a link from l4l and what a good picture it paints.
Peoples may be interested in a new project to get moodle to the BETT show to stand face to face with the ‘big’ VLE providers….
http://www.helpusgettobett.com/
/shameless plug 🙂