scholar @ jklmelton

Jason Cole and Helen Foster have written the second edition of their book Using Moodle. As I wrote in the first review of this series, if you’re out to get a book on moodle, this might just be the one. While it does not get into the details of installation, it does have a comprehensive overview of moodle version 1.8 and its many components. And, because it is based on a later version of moodle, it details more of its current features.

Cole and Foster start off with an explanation of what moodle is and the philosophy behind both its software development and its educational design. The book moves on to setting up moodle accounts and courses; then it adds information on adding course content and managing a moodle course. The major modules are discussed, most of these have their own chapters with detailed information on setting them up and creating effective activities. Unlike the Rice volumes, however, Cole and Foster include separate chapters for the assignment, blog, and database modules.

If I had to choose one out of the three books (obviously I didn’t have to ), I would get this one. It has a good balance of the basic for new users and solid suggestions for more advanced users to create useful activities. Unfortunately, with last week’s release of 1.9, it’s time for a third edition of Using Moodle.

Rice’s Moodle Teaching Techniques is the next logical step for someone who knows his way around the Moodle LMS. While Rice’s first book gives a good overview on getting started with moodle, this book helps users to create many interesting learning activities. The chapters are based on some of Moodle’s included modules. If you’re looking at a blank moodle course page and having trouble figuring out what to do, this book can take you through adding an activity and tweaking the settings to create learning tasks for your students.

There is a complete run-down of how forums can be used to open up dialogues with individual students or bring students together in relevant course discussions. Chats, extremely processor-intensive in my own experience, can be used to bring a ‘guest speaker’ to a course or help students with course questions. Quizzes can be used for self-assessment of course material or checking learning under timed conditions. Lessons can introduce new content, check understanding, and provide remediation. Wikis can be created and uploaded before class time with course outlines which students can then augment with their own notes, a process Rice calls “guided note taking.” Several other modules are discussed and each one has at least one clever approach to the teaching/learning issue. All in all, this could be a very useful book for someone who needs some ideas for their moodle installation. Check it out.