Book Image

Moodle 3 E-Learning Course Development - Fourth Edition

By : Susan Smith Nash, William Rice
Book Image

Moodle 3 E-Learning Course Development - Fourth Edition

By: Susan Smith Nash, William Rice

Overview of this book

Moodle is a learning platform or Course Management System (CMS) that is easy to install and use, but the real challenge is in developing a learning process that leverages its power and maps the learning objectives to content and assessments for an integrated and effective course. Moodle 3 E-Learning Course Development guides you through meeting that challenge in a practical way. This latest edition will show you how to add static learning material, assessments, and social features such as forum-based instructional strategy, a chat module, and forums to your courses so that students reach their learning potential. Whether you want to support traditional class teaching or lecturing, or provide complete online and distance e-learning courses, this book will prove to be a powerful resource throughout your use of Moodle. You’ll learn how to create and integrate third-party plugins and widgets in your Moodle app, implement site permissions and user accounts, and ensure the security of content and test papers. Further on, you’ll implement PHP scripts that will help you create customized UIs for your app. You’ll also understand how to create your first Moodle VR e-learning app using the latest VR learning experience that Moodle 3 has to offer. By the end of this book, you will have explored the decisions, design considerations, and thought processes that go into developing a successful course.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Title Page
Dedication
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Moodle's philosophy of learning


For those of you who are interested, the underlying learning philosophy for Moodle is that of "connectivism." Basically, it means that people learn from one another, and Moodle's framework is structured to maximize interactivity with other students and the content itself. When Moodle first debuted, the philosophy usually involved forums, with some potential for real-time chat. However, with the ability to include webinars using BigBlueButton and other add-ins, the possibilities of synchronous (real-time) and asynchronous interactivity have expanded.

One thing to keep in mind as you develop a course that incorporatesconnectivistm as learning philosophy is that you'll be working with the affective (the emotional)  as well as the cognitive domain. This means that  you will be engaging the emotions (which is good for motivation). Connectivism also means that you can also encourage the sharing of experiences and allow people to build on prior knowledge and experience. In fact, building courses that allow students to scaffold their knowledge with experiential and prior learning can give rise to a very solid approach. Your students will be able to do more with the knowledge, particularly if the course has to do with applied knowledge and skills.

In this chapter, we will learn the following:

  • How to launch a plan to create your learning site
  • How Moodle's philosophy of connectivism creates conditions for learning
  • The fundamental architecture of Moodle
  • The way people learn with Moodle
  • What makes Moodle unique