Moodle is my learning management system (LMS) of choice. I’ve contributed two widely used plugin modules to it (the SWF Activity Module and the Media Player module) and use it with groups of volunteer students for my research in course content development and online learning approaches and strategies.
What is Moodle?
“Moodle (abbreviation for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is a free source e-learning software platform, also known as a Course Management System, Learning Management System, or Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). As of October 2010 it had a user base of 49,952 registered and verified sites, serving 37 million users in 3.7 million courses.
Moodle was originally developed by Martin Dougiamas to help educators create online courses with a focus on interaction and collaborative construction of content, and is in continual evolution.”
Source: Wikipedia.org
Why Moodle?
There’s a wide and varied selection of LMS’ available. I chose Moodle because it’s built around the Social Constructivist theory of learning, the most widely used, has the largest online community of users and is open source, meaning that I can use the software without paying anyone licence fees and I can modify the source code and add to it in any way, for example the two plugin modules I’ve developed and contributed to the project. It also has a large library of other plugin modules that can provide most of the functionality I need for learning and teaching with second language acquisition.
Where can I find it?
My R&D Moodle is at matbury.com and includes a demo course (Login as a guest) where you can find examples of my work.