What is Moodle?
I just googled "Moodle" and got over 18 million hits. Moodle is one of the fastest growing free, open source VLEs (Virtual Learning Environment) around at the moment. It is also commonly referred to as an LMS (Learning Management System) or a CMS (Course Management System). There are already thousands of registered Moodle sites, as you can see on the Moodle site: http://moodle.org/stats/.
Just in case some of those terms are new to you:
Open source means that the code is available by licensing agreement and that you can customize it and redistribute it (http://opensource.org). These have been powerful factors in the development of open source software for a wide range of free or low-cost software.
A VLE is a way of providing a teaching and learning environment online.
Here are some of the things that make Moodle particularly attractive to all teachers:
Easy to use — you don't need any programming knowledge
Access to resources via the Web
Interaction between learners and tutors
Collaboration between learners
Independent learning pathways
Learner tracking
Feedback on tasks
Secure environment
Automatic backup
There are some myths that Moodle is difficult, unsupported, and will eventually charge users, but these are all calmly deflated at http://docs.moodle.org/en/ Top_10_Moodle_Myths.
