photoWhen I find myself defending Moodle these days, I am still a little surprised by the fondness I feel for our course management system. You see, for years I had been a hater, a vociferous wailer of Moodle woes. I had a fit last spring when I discovered that turning off the student view of Moodle gradebook did not actually turn off the student view. (Students could view my grade niggling. Ack!) I was outraged when Moodle experienced an outage over Thanksgiving. I bragged when I clinched the record for the most Help Desk tickets submitted. Ever.

But when I started teaching online this past fall, I became more attached to Moodle and more forgiving of its flaws. Some may say that I am suffering from a tech version of The Stockholm Syndrome, but I believe my affection is real. Moodle has changed, becoming more amenable to my needs, while I have come to appreciate its helpful qualities. Moodle has won me over, and for all you Moodle skeptics out there, let me explain why:

  • Using Moodle with Google docs has FINALLY created efficiencies that equal the inefficiencies of working online. There’s still too much clicking involved in grading student work on Moodle, but editing and adding assignments is simple with Google docs.

  • The Educational Media Technologies staff is wonderful. They’ll fix a problem or teach you how to fix it, whatever you need at the time. They are patient and encouraging, and they mean it when they say that they do not expect us to decode Moodle by ourselves.

  • Moodle keeps me away from the copy machine, although this is a mixed blessing because the copy machine is the gathering place in our office. As our collective copying needs decrease, we will need to find a new place/excuse for our conversations.

  • Moodle is especially helpful in my face-to-face class because it keeps me in contact with my students all week, gives me flexibility with due dates, and helps me focus students’ attention. For example, when an assignment is due to Moodle on Wednesday at midnight, our troubleshooting session on Wednesday morning acquires a productive sense of urgency.

  • Above all, Moodle shifts responsibility to the students. Students can check their own grades, they can monitor the daily log/calendar to see what they missed, they can find all their assignments. This is as symbolic as it is practical. Trust me, you want to give up this control.

People tell me Moodle is as good as it gets in course management systems. I say it might not be perfect, but it’s not going anywhere. You might as well give it a chance.