Moodle is a course management system that teachers can use to create quality online courses and adminisiter them to their students.
Its used particularly in higher education and further education.
It allows teachers to manage their classes, assignments, quizzes, activities and tests.
Moodle is easy to use and students can log on and work at anytime, anywhere.
Moodle began in 1999 and it is said that by june 2005 there were about 3,500 Moodle sites in more than 100 countries.
Now the software is used all over the world by companies, schools, universities and independent teachers.
Lessons, Quizzes, and Resources are three modules than can be used in moodle.
The Lessons module allows teachers to post lessons. Teachers can post questions after each lesson. The questions can in different formats for example. multiple choice, short answer, essay, matching, true/false etc.
The Quzzies module test students on the content. The quizzes are automaticaly graded.
Resources module gives the class access to websites, articles and readings for research.
A good feature of moodle is that it allows users to chat. Users can talk to each other in real time, like an instant message system. There is also audio/video conferencing available with the chat service. Other features are forums and glossaries. Forums allow students to discuss various topics, and with glossaries, teachers can create a list of terms and link them from other areas of moodle.
References
http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED509728.pdf
http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=AIM&docId=A135706908&source=gale&srcprod=AIM&userGroupName=flstuniv&version=1.0
