What Should I Use, Moodle or WebCT Vista

1
What Should I Use,Moodle or WebCT Vista?

• Spring 2007 Technology Workshops
• Pam Gades, Computing Services

2
Brief History Lesson

• WebCT Campus Edition (CE)
• We began with WebCT CE Version 2
• Upgraded to WebCT CE Version 3
• Then along came WebCT Vista 3
• Will soon upgrade to WebCT Vista 4
• This will be known as the Blackboard Learning
  System Vista Enterprise License
• Then Moodle Came Along

3
Moodle

• Moodle is an Open Source software solution. This
  means that it is a free software project
  supported by a team of programmers and the user
  community all over the world, meaning that users
  are free to distribute and modify it (under the
  terms of the GNU General Public License).

4
Why is it called, Moodle?

• The word Moodle is actually an acronym for
  Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning
  Environment
• Much easier to say Moodle

5
University of Minnesota Support

• The U of M recognized that faculty wanted an
  alternative to WebCT and ran a pilot project for
  Moodle in 2006.
• UMM faculty and staff participated in the pilot.
  
• Based on positive faculty and student surveys,
  Moodle is fully supported and available for use
  by all U of M faculty and staff, along with
  continued support of WebCT

6
Lets Look at WebCT Vista

• Student View
• Instructor View

7
Lets Look at Moodle

• Student View
• http//moodle.umn.edu
• Login with your Internet ID
• Select the course, Demo Course Moodle Features
  to self-enroll
• Instructor View

8
Moodle and WebCT Vista

• It is possible to use Moodle tools in conjunction
  with a WebCT Vista course. To do so, instructors
  can request two course sites for the same
  academic course - one in WebCT, another in
  Moodle.
• All Moodle items have specific URLs, therefore
  course designers can link directly to them from a
  WebCT site (or any other webpage).

9
Moodle and WebCT Vista

• For example, if you create a glossary in Moodle -
  you can provide a link just to that glossary or
  to a single glossary entry.

10
Moodle and WebCT Vista (Contd)

• Since both WebCT and Moodle use University
  Internet IDs, students would not need to sign-in
  twice they will be referred directly to the
  resource.
• Instructors need to tell their students which
  course management system is the main one and
  which course site students should access first,
  because both Moodle and WebCT sites will appear
  on their myToolkit page.