INDUSTRY

By Tracy Culumber, NCSA -- If you have recently visited the NCSA cybereducation homepage and clicked on the "NCSA Moodle" link, you were not alone. Teachers, students, teleconference participants and administrators from all over the world are praising the user-friendly NCSA easy-download Moodle-modules and are finding innovative ways to incorporate the software into the workplace and the classroom. The Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment, affectionately known as "Moodle," is a course management system (CMS) developed to provide educators and administrators with a means to advance their courses. Through the use of non-proprietary code, Moodle allows educators to create, customize and maintain collaborative online classrooms, whether they require massive chat forums or one-on-one document sharing. Edee Norman Wiziecki, coordinator of educational programs at NCSA, said NCSA's education group has used Moodle in several of its professional development activities. They found it to be one of the best software packages for ease of installation and use. Wiziecki explained that Moodle gained prominence at NCSA in recent years after several undergraduate interns at the center designed a portfolio module, and the Moodle-in-a-box download and tutorial. "While we did not develop Moodle, we have packaged it along with its component technologies (EasyPHP, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) and pre-configured them in a way that will allow you to conveniently install Moodle with one executable file," Wiziecki said. "We do it so teachers don't have to." August Knecht, NCSA "Moodle-in-a-box" Web administrator and author of the tutorial, explained that installation for Moodle used to be a little difficult, but it has been "stripped down" into a 10 minute Moodle-in-box download. Knecht said in the last six months alone, the software has received over 530 downloads. "We had way more downloads for Moodle-in-a-box than I was expecting in such a short amount of time," Knecht said. "It's free, and people seem to like free." Wiziecki and Knecht regularly receive the questions and praise of Moodle users from across the United States and around the world. In an August email to Wiziecki, Professor Emanuel Gruengard, head of the systems engineering Department at the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Israel, requested permission to translate the tutorial into Hebrew. He wrote: "One of the things that we do miss are good presentations to the newcomers. We have seen several of these, but it seems to us that your 'NCSA Moodle Tutorial' is one of the best introductions by being both concise and at the same time detailed." Gruengard said his department easily made several modifications to the NCSA Moodle, and they are pleased with the results (See its Web site ). Andreas Riepl, a teacher at a public business college in Austria, said there is an initiative in Austria to start ePortfolios with students. "I am propagating Moodle heavily because this constructivist system aids my teaching," Riepl wrote in a September email to Wiziecki. "Your Moodle-module I found fits in well." Janice Coleman-Mathus, a fifth-grade teacher in Bontemps Elementary School in Chicago, began using Moodle after participating in the REVITALISE (Rural Educators using Visualization to Inspire Teacher Advancement and Learning to Improve Science and Mathematics Education) program two years ago. She recently contacted Wiziecki to organize a Moodle workshop for other Chicago educators. "I would definitely recommend the software to other teachers," Coleman-Mathus said. "(Moodle) fosters and facilitates further communication between students and teachers." She explained that at this point, relatively few students have been exposed to Moodle due to the lack of computer access in elementary classrooms, but the software is gaining popularity as a means of communication between instructors. Wiziecki said Moodle has proved to be an innovative way for teleconference participants to pose questions about presentations without interrupting the speaker. NCSA recently used the Moodle chat feature for a number of teleconferences between National Science Foundation project directors and members of the EPIC (Engaging People In Cyberinfrastructure) community and during the recent Katrina summit. For more information regarding Moodle-in-a-box see: its Web site.