To Moodle or Blackboard? That is the question...

After playing around on the two e-learning websites I can see where teachers are coming from when they are voting for Moodle over Blackboard. I know that as a teacher I would have to jump through hoops, on one foot, atop a balance beam AND donate half of my salary to get Blackboard available at my school. Since researching the prices and availabilities of Blackboard to Moodle, that is not something I am willing to do. In 2008 a study comparing Blackboard to Moodle was done by The American Association of Community College’s Instructional Technology Council (ITC) and they have published results;  2007 Distance Education Survey Results. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in it. Here are the headlines:

* Distance education continues to grow at a very healthy clip, particularly in this market segment.

* Blackboard is losing market share rapidly

* Moodle doubled its market share in the past 12 months and now has the highest market share after Blackboard/WebCT in this market segment.

* ANGEL and D2L also grew their market share.

* We have reason to expect more LMS churn in the near future, which is bad for Blackboard.

*    The top 5 areas of likely distance learning-related service growth in this segment are (1) online student organization web site and services, (2) online counseling and advising, (3) online plagiarism evaluation, (4) audio/video streaming, and (5) online textbook sales.

It seems that in the time this study was conducted Blackboard lost 7% market share. Okay, if Blackboard is the loser in this report, then who are the winners? Clearly, Moodle is a winner, both in their book and mine! Having gone from less than 4% market share to more than 10% (in the segment) in a year’s time, Moodle is now the only non-Blackboard LMS with a double-digit market share in this segment. WOW!

Well, what’s so great about Moodle you ask? And why does it get my vote? Much like Blackboard, Moodle offers features such as course information and reading lists, access to electronic readings, discussion boards, online quizzes, multimedia content including video, and assessment collection. But where I really had some fun, was with the design and customization of Moodle.

Playing around on Moodle for a bit, one will notice (from the instructor’s point of view) that the Moodle screen can be fully customized in terms of layout and branding. Certain aspects of changing the look and feel require some design skills. This is where I feel I am savvy – as part of my job is designing a yearbook. Instantly, I noticed that the visual appeal on Moodle was much better than what I had seen on Blackboard (both as an instructor and a student). The two relevant components for customization were the Moodle front page and Moodle themes. In short, the settings (mostly front page settings as well as a few others) dictated what content users will see before and after they logged on. The theme was responsible for the design scheme or branding, that is, the header and footer as well as colors, fonts, icons, and so on used through the site. After attending a professional development course on Moodle at my school, I found out some cool tips about customizing the appearance of a front page. We used a test site generated for the PD course, much like we did for INST 5330.

The appearance of Moodle's front page changes after a user has logged in. The content and layout of the page before and after login can be customized to signify the uniqueness of the organization/class. To customize the front page, you either have to be logged in as Moodle administrator, or have front-page-related permissions in the Front Page setting. From the Site Administration block, select Front Page, Front Page Settings. The screen showing all available parameters will be loaded displaying your current settings that are changeable. To configure the left and right column areas with blocks, you have to turn on editing (using the Blocks editing on button). The menu includes blocks that are not available in courses such as Course/Site description and Main menu. Blocks are added to the front page in exactly the same way as in courses. To change their position, use the standard arrows. Really, like we have all noticed in one week, it just takes some time playing around and getting familiar with the site. Another plus and visually appealing Moodle site is the help page.Support and communities are just a click away!

A few weeks ago, while studying Prezi, I found a presentation that really helped me understand Moodle. Check it out!


(Presentation created by Christina Munoz)

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