How can students and teachers share assignments, multimedia and course documents in a pedagogically sound o­nline environment? Using Moodle, teachers can create and share activities for their students to explore a full 24 hours per day. Moodle provides students and teachers with the opportunity to enjoy the time and space to provide thoughtful and detailed feedback to o­ne another.

So, what is Moodle? The word Moodle was originally an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment, which is mostly useful to programmers and education theorists. Moodle is a feature-rich software package for producing Internet-based courses and web sites. It's a widely adopted o­ngoing development project designed to support a social constructionist framework of education.

However, the term Moodle can also be used as a verb.

Moo•dle

verb

1. the process of creatively exploring the various resources and activities of an o­nline course.


2. an enjoyable tinkering that often leads to insight and creativity.

Both definitions can be used to explain how Moodle software is actively developed, and how a student or teacher might approach learning or teaching through the use of an o­nline course.

The origins of Moodle, and its continued development, can be traced to Martin Dougiamas of Perth, Australia. Moodle’s open-source code is freely available at download.moodle.org. Moodle.org houses an active and robust community that contains a number of educators and developers who have helped the site evolve into an














indispensable resource. o­ne example of the community’s work is the freely available Moodle documentation wiki that is available at docs.moodle.org.



Moodle was created as a tool for pedagogical enhancement, not just as a free replacement for commercial software like Blackboard or WebCT. Martin built Moodle as a tool based o­n an educational philosophy of constructivism, constructionism, and social constructivism. As such, Moodle presents the world with the opportunity to use a practical applicaton based o­n a highly touted but abstract educational theory. Indeed, Moodle's success can be traced back to its ability to enhance teaching and learning.

Moodle Partner

Our relationship with the Moodle Partners provides us with direct access to Moodle founder and lead developer Martin Dougiamas, as well as opportunites to develop valuable experience and the availability of a variety of resources to call upon as needed.

Our involvement in Moodle Partners also guarantees the continued development of Moodle because 10% of all of our Moodle sales are sent back to the Moodle Trust. These funds are then used to hire developers who work o­n refining existing Moodle features or introducing entirely new o­nes.