I’m such a Moodle noobie

I’m currently sitting in the first session of the Connecting & Collaborating Conference in Holland, MI. It’s a wonderful conference that allows hands-on 90-minute sessions to really get a good idea of how applications and tools work. It’s the conference that inspired me last year to stop being a podcast noobie and use Audacity with my students for podcasting, and it’s been a terrific success!

Sitting in on Patrick Malley’s session on Moodle Collaborative Tools, I’m realising that I’m yet again in the “noobie chair” (that would be the battered one in the corner that smells of old gym socks). Moodle is one of those amazingly convenient tools for managing courses, assessments, assignments, glossaries, workshops, and anything else you could think of in the classroom. Students can use it to move seamlessly between different courses, assignments, and projects, while educators can use it to efficiently manage assessments, facilitate discussions, and provide a collaborative resources for their classes. The best part is that it’s free! As an open source program you can download it and host it on your own server or website. Which means the bad news is you have to either be technical enough yourself, or have access to someone who’s technically minded. But once you have it up and running, I’ve had many educators tell me what an amazing resource it is for classroom and course management.

Unfortunately, I have had neither the time, nor the inclination to sit down on my own and figure out how Moodle works, or where I could use it in my classroom. Sure, I found the time to figure out blogging software to make this website, and forum software to run the forum here, but Moodle is still very much an unkown entity for me. I’m very glad that I’m here and making the time to figure out just where I could use it, and how I could use it. So, just in case you’re a Moodle noobie too, check out all of the wonderful Moodle resources provided on the Connecting & Collaborating Conference Wiki