Moodle Essentials

Let's look at what Moodle actually means:

Modular
This means that Moodle is made up of flexible blocks (modules) that can be added or deleted to a course page as needed. Some of these blocks are highly customisable, too, and can be adapted to fit your content needs. This means that courses can be very individually tailored and that they can easily and quickly be changed to adapt to curriculum demands and learner needs.

Object Oriented
This is a programming term, essentially meaning that the software is built on reusable blocks of code (objects). This bit is only really relevant to those who get involved in coding Moodle; it is less relevant to teachers, course admins and learners.

Dynamic
Moodle stores all the components of a course page, i.e. the resources, activities and blocks, in a database. When you open your course page or click a link, Moodle checks the database and retrieves all the elements that make up that page. The system dynamically builds the page for you depending on your access rights: for example, Teachers can see editing buttons and hidden content whereas Students cannot.

Learning Environment
Moodle is built around the Constructivist model of learning and is therefore very learner-centric with a mixture of Resources and Activities. In addition, webcontent can be drawn into the course by means of RSS feeds and embedded media.

The Art of Instant Moodles View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: moodle)

Moodle was founded in 2003 by Australian PhD student Martin Dougiamas. Moodle is an open source project, which means that anyone with the right coding skills can contribute to the code that runs Moodle. http://moodle.org is the biggest Moodle site in the world; the Open University has the second largest Moodle site in the world with over 250,000 active students. The OU supports the Moodle project with additional components, plugins and coding expertise. The Moodle core now exceeds a million lines of code! Moodle has been a huge success. The package is used extensively around the world in schools, colleges and universities. In some parts of the UK, especially in the West Midlands, Moodle is now the dominant Learning Management System.