Source: Lauren at http://chcgrit5502009.wikispaces.com/Moodle

This Wiki is for K-12 teachers enrolled in the course “Emerging Technologies for the Classroom” and will be used for their final project as they consider an emerging technology for their own teaching.

Having presented at two conferences in the same number of weeks, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that everyone is as interested in Moodle as I am. After all, good attendance at my presentations signals to me that the topic I’m speaking about (Moodle) is of interest to folks. Yet, everyone I talk to is now interested in Moodle (except for some still espousing Web 2.0 only tools that are hosted by 3rd party vendors).

Earlier today, I received an email from a graduate student at Lamar University who shared with me that she cited 2 Around the Corner blog entries in one of her projects…why? Moodle. Lauren (whose Wordle on Moodle appears at the top of this post) shares the following:

Educators can build, implement, manage, and monitor their entire class online. They have the ability to manage lessons, assignments, tests, and resources. Learners are given an interactive and flexible way to learn as well as have constant access to course content. Moodle supports learning environments of all sizes.
Source: Lauren’s wiki

The increased attention to Moodle has also meant less attention to more expensive vendors such as Blackboard, as evidenced by Patrick’s post:

Blackboard lost 7% market share in this segment over the past year. Even worse for them, it looks like this trend is accelerating. Note that EDUCAUSE reported in 2005 (with a somewhat different survey population) that only 13% of surveyed institutions were considering changing their LMS in the next 3 years. If the two survey populations are behaving similarly, then the number of institutions that are shopping around has more than doubled since then.

Under these circumstances, Blackboard could easily lose 20% market share over the next 3 years…Clearly, Moodle is a winner, having gone from less than 4% market share to more than 10% (in this segment) in a year’s time. Moodle is now the only non-Blackboard LMS with a double-digit market share in this segment. I have to wonder how much of that growth is due to one support vendor.

From what I’ve been hearing, Moodlerooms has been tearing up the U.S. market with very aggressive pricing and good support plans. I have a feeling that a big portion of the shift in overall market share is WebCT CE customers going to Moodlerooms.
Source: Bad News for Blackboard, MFeldstein citing the American Association of Community College’s Instructional Technology Council 2007 Distance Education Survey Results

Lisa Neal responds to Michael’s blog entry (worth reading!) with this comment:

This is a great report and thanks for pointing it out. I’m curious about, and wonder if you have insights, about the differences between the administrators who make the decisions, the people who are impacted in terms of the design and capabilities (faculty), and the end users (students). Also, what do you think of tech populism and the differences and discrepancies between the tools students are given and what they use for their non-academic lives?

Lisa’s first question about the differences between the administrators who make decisions and the people who are impact (faculty and students) is one I’d like to take a stab at. From an administrator’s point of view (well, I am), several items have to be considered:

• Staffing – Do you have staff on your team that can plan, implement, maintain/support, and advertise a learning management system like Moodle? I remember encountering someone in my Moodle Habitudes presentation–also a Lamar University Master’s student but not Lauren…Tammy?–who had come from business and told me, “No problem. I can build a box from scratch with PHP/MySQL.” I immediately was attracted to her skillset because, well, let’s be honest…it’s not easy to find folks in education with that skillset. I find myself doing my best to build capacity of highly qualified in PHP/MySQL people, who ALSO KNOW how to develop online content…or that are motivated to learn.
• Technical Setup – While it’s not enough to know how to setup Moodle, you also have to know how to plan long-term hardware support. You have to take the time to plan your Moodle farm so that when a few thousand students login simultaneously, your system won’t crash in the meantime. So, how do you optimize you server setup, how often to do you make backups, what equipment do you need at minimum, bandwidth issues, etc.? All this has to be considered and planned out.
• Political Will and Support from Administration – If you don’t have support from upper administration, how far will your Moodle installation go in reaching people? One superintendent I spoke to (no, not in my current district) thought that setting up a discussion board was a can of worms. Too many opportunities for teachers too grumble about the status quo. Or worse, to paraphrase an old poster that I saw in third grade at the library, “I have all the answers but no one asks me the questions.” It’s possible that you may know how to do this Moodle stuff, but no one is asking you the right questions to spur your learning in the directions the organization needs.
• Curriculum Department Involvement and Commitment – One of the best examples of no one asking the right questions is curriculum & instruction departments who are, as one CTO put it to me over the phone last week, doing everything they can to stay alive and meet NCLB requirements and just lack the energy to embrace online learning, whether for K-12 or adult learners.

When I consider these factors, it’s important to just jump in because if you don’t, you’ll spend your time doing research without really accomplishing anything. As one of my team members put it in her presentation, “Start small but plan to grow big.” It’s not bad advice…especially when most of the people I encountered these past two weeks are embracing Moodle with little idea of what lies ahead.

Everytime I worry about the road ahead, I remember that many others have embarked on this journey ahead of me. The key isn’t planning everything out ad nauseum BEFORE you do anything, but to keep learning as you go so that you can see the big picture while accomplishing the day to day goals. . .it’s all about being flexible, learning as much as you can, connecting to the network of learners that are also learning.

How many K-12 school districts are willing to do that systemically, that is, considering the factors raised in the bullet points above?

In response to Lisa’s 2nd question, what do you think of tech populism and the differences and discrepancies between the tools students are given and what they use for their non-academic lives?, I’m reminded of the description for a workshop one of my team members is planning to give at a state conference. I helped with the description….

Creating Academic Learning Networks
Tap into the excitement K-12 learners bring to “social” networking tools to create an “academic” learning network. Participants will leave this presentation with specific suggestions, not just about the plethora of learning network tools available to them at little or no cost. More importantly, they will learn how to convert social learning situations students are engaged in into virtual academic learning environments. These academic learning environments not only enable student engagement through various media–photos, videos, virtual discussion boards–but enable the teacher to better engage students by melding traditional activities (e.g. homework and class discussion) into an anytime/anywhere learning portal.

It’s a draft description and fun to consider WHICH tools will be worthy of consideration. Unless the Great Brick Wall, as one of my Moodle Habitudes presentation participants put it, comes down sometime soon (not likely), walled garden solutions will continue to be the trojan horse of online learning…hmm…I guess that makes Web 2.0 vendor hosted tools the swarm of serpents in the Garden of Paradise Perfect Control.

And, be sure to read the following Moodle articles…

1. Moodle Tips Roundup – a list of tips I’ve picked up in my Moodle journey.
2. Doing the Moodle Mambo
3. Moodle Habitudes: Constructing Online Learning Environments
   
4. Book Review – Moodle 1.9: E-Learning Course Development by William Rice
5. Why Moodle? A few reasons culled from around the Web using Google
6. Moodle-izing Education

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure