It's important to understand where Moodle has come from so that we can get ourselves into the right frame of mind, and have the right mental model before we start to use it. Why? Firstly, we don't want to do anything that willfully cuts across the way Moodle was intended to be used. Secondly, if we do try to act in some way against the underlying Moodle "philosophy" without realizing, then we would only be making life hard for ourselves.
Martin Dougiamas worked as webmaster and administrator at the Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia. Frustration with the commercial learning management systems available at that time led, in 1999, to the creation of Moodle as part of his PhD, entitled "The use of Open Source software to support a social constructionist epistemology of teaching and learning within Internet-based communities of reflective inquiry".
Dougiamas' educational background has an important influence on Moodle. Martin was brought up in the deserts of Western Australia. The primary school he attended was the School of the Air, a correspondence school whose classes were conducted via ham (shortwave) radio from a school based a thousand kilometers away. Martin's class only met up once a year (for the school carnival) and his teaching materials were dropped off and homework collected by a four-seat Cessna aircraft that called in at the Dougiamas home every fortnight. If you're interested to learn more then watch the interview with Martin conducted by Michael Feldstein at http://mfeldstein.com/interview-with-martin-dougiamas/.
What marks Moodle as very different to other VLEs is the approach to learning Moodle supports. The system has been designed (as the PhD title reveals) to support "a social constructionist epistemology". In other words, students learn together by sharing their knowledge. That's why you'll find in Moodle tools to:
Encourage discussion: forums and chats
Support collaborative working: wikis
Manage peer review and assessment: workshops
Although you'll find lots of literature encouraging you to use Moodle in a particular way (that is, to support the social constructionist pedagogy), you're in no way prevented from using Moodle to support other learning styles. Moodle is wonderful for distance learners (for example, the Open University in the UK are now using Moodle to support its 250,000 distance learners), and it may be structured with a particular pedagogy in mind, but there are fantastic features and tools built into Moodle to support all styles of teaching, as we shall see in this guide. For more information on how Moodle supports different learning styles check out "Moodle Teaching Techniques (Creative Ways to Use Moodle for Constructing Online Learning Solutions", William Rice, Packt Publishing.
Since 1999 Moodle use has exploded (see http://moodle.org/stats/ for the figures). So by converting your courses to Moodle you are in very good company. To join the ever-growing worldwide community of "Moodlers"—to discuss your work, to get help, and to learn more about best practice—visit http://moodle.org. My background is in maths and science and you'll most often find me in the Mathematics Tools forum.
Moodle.org is, in fact (and perhaps not surprisingly), a Moodle. What this means is that if you aren't familiar with Moodle then Moodle.org can be a little daunting. If you are new to Moodle then I would recommend visiting Moodle.org when you have gained a little more experience with the system.