Using Moodle : Teaching with the Popular Open Source Course Management System

Using Moodle is a complete, hands-on guide for instructors learning how to use Moodle, the popular course management system (CMS) that enables remote web-based learning and supplements traditional classroom learning. Updated for the latest version, this new edition explains exactly how Moodle works by offering plenty of examples, screenshots and best practices for its many features and plug-in modules.

Moodle gives teachers and trainers a powerful set of web-based tools for a flexible array of activities, including assignments, forums, journals, quizzes, surveys, chat rooms, and workshops. This book is not just a how-to manual. Every chapter includes suggestions and case studies for using Moodle effectively. By itself, Moodle won't make your course better. Only by applying effective educational practices can you truly leverage its power. With this book, you will:

• Get a complete overview CMS in general and Moodle in particular. Review Moodle's basic interface and learn to start a course.



• Learn to add Moodle tools to your course, and how different tools allow you to give quizzes and assignments, write journals, create pathed lessons, collaboratively develop documents, and record student grades.



• Discover some of the creative ways teachers have used Moodle. There are plenty of ideas for effectively using each tool.



• Effectively manage your Moodle course, such as adding and removing users, and creating user groups. Learn to use Moodle's built-in survey functions for assessing your class.



• Find out how to administer an entire Moodle site. A system administrator usually handles these functions, but if you're on your own, there's a lot of power behind the curtain.

Using Moodle is both a guide and a reference manual for this incredibly powerful and flexible CMS. Authored by the Moodle community, this authoritative book also exposes little known but powerful hacks for more technically savvy users, and includes coverage of blogs, RSS, databases, and more. For anyone who is using, or thinking of using, this CMS, Using Moodle is required reading.

Jason Cole is currently the academic technology manager at San Francisco State University, where he's responsible for managing a Blackboard implementation that has over 15,000 users. A member of the Moodle community, he has developed a student data integration tool for the system, and contributed to discussions regarding a document management system and object model for version 2.0. Jason earned a Ph.D. in educational technology from the University of Northern Colorado.

Helen Foster is a Moodle administrator for the site with the most users (over 500,000 with around 1,500 new users daily) - Moodle.org - and is a facilitator for the Using Moodle course, which provides free 24-hour support for Moodle users worldwide. Helen currently works full-time for Moodle as the Community Manager.

Helen has a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of London and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from the University of Cambridge.