I’ve been using the learning management system (LMS) moodle since 2003. I’ve created some of my own ways to work with students in blended- or hybrid-course formats, and I’ve been peeking in on presentations at various conferences. Since I started down that road, at least three books on moodle have been written. This post is the first of three reviews.
Rice’s Moodle
The rest of the book is a fairly thorough run-down of setting up courses of different kinds, adding course content relevant for your courses, creating activities that are appropriate for the types of learning you seek, and accessing user and evaluation data from courses as they progress. The final chapter has an overview of adding modules and plug-ins to enhance moodle’s features; it also runs through some of the essential maintenance tasks that will keep your data safe in cases of trouble or moving on to the next school term.
Overall, if you have access to this book at a library or on a colleague’s desk, this book will go a long way towards getting you up and running with your own moodle system. Moodle is currently at version 1.9, and the version used in the book is moodle 1.4. The upgrade in features and changes in several moodle components require a major revision in the book. If you need to buy something, you might do better with the Cole and Foster book (review on the way), although this latter volume does not include the installation information of the Rice book. As always, the Moodle Documentation and online help forums may help with any questions you may have along the way.
Tags: book, learning, moodle, open source, review, teaching, technology