A plan to create your learning site

Whether you are the site creator or a course creator, you can use this book to develop a plan to build your courses and curriculum. As you work your way through each chapter, you will learn how to make decisions that meet your goals for your learning site.

This will help you create the kind of learning experience that you want for your teachers (if you're a site creator) or students (if you're a teacher). You can also use this book as a traditional reference manual, but its main advantages are its step-by-step, project-oriented approach and the guidance it gives you about creating an interactive learning experience.

One of the most exciting new developments with Moodle is that Moodle now has a cloud-based virtual learning environment (VLE) called MoodleCloud. It is free for you to use for 2 weeks if you have fewer than 50 registered users (students, instructors, and so on). You can still customize the course, and you can build in a great deal of flexibility and functionality. It does not have the same number of options as a self-hosted site that you can customize with some of the Moodle partners, but it is straightforward, affordable, and easy to use. MoodleCloud allows you to experiment with designs and also start by building a smaller site or cluster of courses that you intend to grow. It also makes it easy for individuals and organizations to develop new kinds of training, collaboration, and education, and then scale up when needed. Furthermore, MoodleCloud is effective for incorporating webinars offered through its built-in activities, BigBlueButton, or linking to outside webinar providers such as Zoom, GoToMeeting, Google Meet, Teams, and more.

The next section provides an overview of what is contained in each chapter.