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Permalink Reply by Bob Klein on May 3, 2008 at 2:30pm

Online learning for k-12 has many advantages and challenges. I have used moodle as our course management system because of it's zero cost and large support system. One challenge was to provide enough professional development time for teachers to learn to use the system and incorporate it into their classes. Secondly a survey of 100 students showed that only 75 out of the 100 had both a computer and internet access at home. For an inner city school this may be high yet does present a problem of equity.

I have used moodle for my earth science classes yet have not tapped into its full potential as of yet.

I have used it for all homework assignments. Students answer multiple choice questions based on the class work and it is graded automatically and placed in their gradebook. Moodle allows many options for the 'quiz' module and I chose to allow students to retake the homework quiz up to 6 times to improve their score. Students are enthusiastic, yet it initially take s a lot of work on the teacher to create the quizzes. It is my students with IEPs that have taken to it the most. The repetition of questions and instant feedback of the work have allowed them to attain considerably high grades as compared to how they did prior to moodle.

Secondly it is beneficial so students can see all their grades for all their assignments and always can know what they are missing or what has been assigned.

It does take a lot of work in the beginning, but once created the courses can be reused the following year.
There are some repository of courses that are available online and forums on the moodle site that people share resources. Blackboard courses can be run on moodle without the blackkboard pricetag and all the same features.