What is Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment (MOODLE)
MOODLE is a free and open-source e-learning software platform. It provides feature for Learners and content management. In the past decade, it has become very popular for the delivery of e-learning content and student management. You can get access to information related to Moodle for the website http://www.moodle.org (Please refer to Figure). Alternatively, you may download the Moodle software and create your own server having Moodle.
To access the MOODLE and learn about it from the Moodle website, you may need to create an account. The process of creation of an account with Moodle is somewhat similar to what you do for creating any Internet based account like email account.
The popularity of MOODLE may be attributed primarily to the fact that it is free and it allows dynamic content creation facilities. It has a number of tools available for managing a number of students online. In addition to content management, MOODLE provides a number of tools for building interaction among the learning community. Thus, allowing collaboration and peer to peer learning in the learning communities.
The best way to learn MOODLE is read tutorial on MOODLE from the MOODLE website. The main content page for this website is shown in Figure.
Finally, please note that these days there are several standards which have been developed for standardization of learning contents. MOODLE supports most of these standards. A detailed discussion on these standards is beyond the scope of this Unit.
Advantages and Disadvantages of E-Learning
Before we discuss about advantages and disadvantages of e-learning, you should know that e-learning is just another model for learning. It is not that it can replace all other forms of learning models. However, it provides several opportunities that may be of benefit for creating certain learning instances. Some of these opportunities are:
It allows possibilities of course material but that require constant support of a course team.
The level of participation of student in learning may improve as it provides anytime, anywhere learning, but in any case the student has to be motivated by the course team from time to time.
E-learning does improve the IT skills of individuals and may improve their time management skills.
The content like recorded lectures may be viewed by a student at any time, however, the interactive support that requires teacher at the other end may still be available in slotted time only.
It allows you to measure student activities very easily, but beware too much of interference in student style of learning is not advisable.
E-learning gives flexibility in curriculum design and reuse of contents, however, the expert team has to work constantly to make that happen.
The general understanding of e-learning as cost effective mechanism is often misleading. Please note that first e-learning is about teaching-learning process. Any good teaching-learning process is rigorous and requires substantial costs.
WHAT IS ELECTRONIC EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
In the present era, you can get access to a large number of electronic educational resources through the web. These resources may be on different specialized areas. These resources include the electronic journals, encyclopedias, dictionaries, digital libraries, educational resource databases, indexing and abstracting databases and electronic books. However, please note that some of these resources require paid subscription. These resources allow you to browse through the abstracts, search on various topics, and access the complete information for research in specific areas.
Some of these electronic resources are listed below:
E-Journals and Databases
ACM Digital Library
EBSCO database
IEL Online
JSTOR
Lawyers Collective Magazine
Lecture note in Mathematics
Maths Sci_net
Project Muse
ProQuest
Springer Link
Taylor and Francis
WTO E-library
Indexing and Abstracting Databases:
LISA
J-Gate
E-Books
Credo References
Idea-Reference Resources
NetLibrary
WHAT IS WIKI
Wiki's are a powerful tool for creating collaborative knowledge resources created by the community. A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to create and edit contents. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has simple text syntax for creating new pages. Wiki's are also used to create websites, to enhance the features of community websites and for knowledge management. The collaborative encyclopedia, Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.com) is one of the best-known wiki's. It contains very large number of articles – all created and moderated by the community. Ward Cunningham developed the first wiki software - WikiWikiWeb in 1995.
Characteristics of Wiki
A wiki invites all registered users to edit any page or to create new pages within the wiki Website.
Wiki promotes meaningful topic associations between different pages by making page link creation very easy.
Wiki promotes discussion and also keeps the history of changes of a document
You can write documents in a wiki using a markup language. You can see a wiki page using web browser. Wiki pages are connected through hyperlinks. So in general, a wiki is database for creating, editing, browsing, and searching through information.
Another example of wiki ( as stated in section 3.2) is Vedyadhara, also called the IGNOU Open Course Guide (iocg) wiki. The figure shows the home page of Vedyadhara of IGNOU http://vedyadhara.ignou.ac.in/wiki/
Vedyadhara is a website that uses specific wiki software for user creation and editing of web pages. In the case of IGNOU, the wiki software used in Media Wiki – the same software used by the famous Wikipedia. It is a simple system that enables creation of web pages without knowing the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). It requires only common word-processing skills, and knowledge of some Media Wiki tags to work. Vedyadhara may be used in the future for administrative and academic activities such as:
Curriculum Design documents
Compilation of documents
Keeping daily records as well as personal information
Developing Learning Materials in a collaborative manner
Vedyadhara will provide following information about various courses:
Course Objective
Course concept map which links to learning module
Sequence of learning modules
Course support and counseling details.
Course calendar
Assignments are uploaded
Course evaluation approach
References, web references
Video lectures by IGNOU and other lecturers.
Instruction team and contact details.
It further plans to have prerequisite quiz for students to check that they have a basic knowledge for taking up that course and feedback system given by students to the course team.
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