60 • Issue 65 November 2009 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •

T E C H N O L O G Y

Five things you always wanted to know about

Moodle(but were afraid to ask)

Nicky Hockly has beeninvolved in EFL teaching andteacher training since 1987.She is Director of Pedagogyof The Consultants-E, anonline training anddevelopment consultancy.Nicky is co-author of How to Teach English withTechnology, published byPearson Longman, which wonthe 2007 Ben Warren Prize.

In this series, Nicky Hockly

explains aspects of technology

which some people may be

embarrassed to confess that

they don’t really understand. In

this article, she explores Moodle.

1 Moodle? Is that noodle beforerunning the spell check?

Moodle is a virtual learning environment, orVLE. This is just a fancy-sounding namefor an online platform which keeps anumber of tools and resources in the sameplace. Think of one space online, whereyou can have communication tools suchas forums, blogs, wikis and chat rooms, aswell as a place to store documents, videoand audio. That’s Moodle. Basically youlog onto a web page, and there it all is.

Moodle, which stands for ModularObject-Oriented Dynamic LearningEnvironment, was created by MartinDougiamas, who was teaching at auniversity in Australia with another VLE. Alot of the things that he wanted to dowith this VLE were simply not possible,so he decided to create one which wouldbe more flexible. That was the start ofMoodle, and he invited fellowprogrammers and friends to contribute toits development. For a short engaginginterview with Martin Dougiamas, inwhich he explains the origins of Moodle,go to www.usq.edu.au/learnteach/learnres/vsarchive/mdougiamas.

2 Why is Moodleso popular?

There are many other VLEs, but one ofthe main reasons for Moodle’s popularityis that it is ‘open source’. This meansthat it is continually being developed byprogrammers from all over the world,who contribute their time and work forfree. It also means that it is free to use.Moodle is not the only open source VLE;another popular one is Sakai. There arealso licensed VLEs, which can be veryexpensive.

Moodle gained rapidly in popularitywhen large educational institutions, suchas the Open University in the UK, adoptedit. A graphic on the Moodle.org site showsthe exponential growth of Moodle fromjust a few users in 2003 and 2004, to over40,000 registered sites by mid-2009.

3 What has Moodle got to dowith me?

Moodle is an excellent platform throughwhich to offer fully online learning.However, it is also used by classroomteachers as support for face-to-facecourses. So, for example, you can use it asa place to store extra resources for a class,such as documents, audio or video. Youcan post homework assignments, extralanguage practice activities and links towebsites of interest. You can even get yourstudents to use the blog or wiki functionsto collaborate on projects out of class time.

Classroom teachers can also useMoodle to offer blended learning (partface-to-face and part online). It makessense to take advantage of face-to-faceclass time for speaking activities (amongothers), as speaking is the hardest skill topractise effectively online. However, freevideo conferencing platforms such asDimdim (www.dimdim.com) and WizIQ(www.wiziq.com) allow teachers to offerstudents opportunities for speakingpractice at a distance. You can easilyintegrate these with Moodle.

4 How can I use Moodle?

Although Moodle is web-based, it is notsimply a website that you just go along toand log in. You first need to download itfrom the internet and install it. You can dothis on your own computer, but then onlyyou will have access. This is fine if youwant to play around and learn how itworks on your own (although note thatinstalling Moodle is not for the fainthearted– you do need some basic technicalknowledge). For your students to be ableto access your Moodle site, it first needsto be installed on a server, so that it canbe accessed from other computers.

5 So where do I start then?

Most teachers start using Moodle via theirinstitutions. The technical team downloads

and installs it on the institution’s server,and teachers can then access and use it.Remember that as with any new tool, andespecially if you are new to online andblended learning, you will need sometraining in how to use Moodle from atechnical standpoint (this is not thatdifficult), but, more importantly, you willneed to know how to design effectiveonline materials with a range of interestingand varied task types (this is the partmany teachers find more challenging).

So, first get your institution to haveMoodle installed on their server. Thenpersuade them to provide some training,not only in how to use Moodletechnically, but in online materials, courseand task design. You could do this via anonline training course, or you could getsomebody to run face-to-face workshopsfor you and your colleagues.

One of the great things about Moodlebeing open source is that there is a largeinternational community of usersproviding informal support and feedbackfor each other. This community can befound at http://moodle.org. Wheneveryou have a Moodle-related question,search the forums there to see if anyonehas already posed this query. With sucha large community of users, it’s almostguaranteed that somebody will alreadyhave asked the same question, andsomeone else will have answered it, soyou can draw on their experience. Weourselves have solved many of our ownMoodle issues this way. Happy moodling!

Contact Nicky at nicky.hockly@theconsultants-e.comand let her know of any other ICT areas you’d like herto explore in this series.