Creating a Moodle test site on Windows

The Moodle software can be installed on any platform on any machine, the only requirements are webserver software with php and an sql database. To evalute Moodle I installed it in on an old Windows 95 PC in my office. As recommended in the Windows installation documentation I donwloaded a copy of EasyPHP, which is a neat little package that will install the Apache webserver software, PHP and MySQL database software all at once and provides a neat little interface to control them with. The downside is that a lot of the dialogues are in french :( though the Moodle docs provide a quick translation of OK, Next, Start, etc, and since there seems little need to alter the default settings, it doesn't really matter too much.

So installing EasyPHP was pretty easy: I ran the installer .exe file, clicked though the french dialogues and there's webserver, PHP and MySQL up and running. The only thing to do before I could install Moodle itself was to create a database for it use. Again this was pretty easy, it was just a case of finding the database admin section of the EasyPHP admin page and hitting the create new button.

Installing Moodle was simply a case of downloading the software, unzipping it into the webserver documents directory and running the config script from a browser, exactly as described in the Moodle installation instructions. That was it, a complete, working Moodle system that anyone on the sub-net could access by pointing a browser at the Windows PCs IP.

I began creating some course pages, uploading stuff and generally mucking around with Moodle. It became apparent very quickly though that the test system was unbearable slow because, seemingly, of the specifications of the PC, which had only 64mb of RAM and a PII 266 (I think) processor. Another 64mb of RAM donated from another aging PC gave Moodle a noticeable speed bump, but it was still frustratingly slow. I tried things like dropping the display res and number of colours in the Windows control panels, but it didn't really help. The slow speed of the system made it pretty useless for evaluation purposes, and if more than one person tried to access the system at once it came to a grinding halt. I decided then to scrub Windows completely and stick on a Unix OS instead, in the hope that not having a big graphical OS might free up resources for the webserver & PHP.

Choosing a VLE

While I'm currently of the belief that Moodle is the VLE system best suited to the needs of my department at the RSAMD (the eventual outcome of our pilot system may prove otherwise), it does not necessarily make it either the best VLE system on the market or the best system for any particular institution, though discussions with other institutions show that it is gathering a strong following.

The Ferl website has a list of questions to consider when choosing a VLE, and the JISC website has a document describing the people and processes that should be involved in procuring a VLE.

Why Moodle?

Our department came to Moodle almost indirectly. Initially we were not actually looking for a VLE. We have a new requirement to provide electronic copies of all our printed course materials and considering our options of how to deliver this. We were also interested in giving students the ability to create blogs, as an alternative to written journals, and creating web forum for students to discuss the course and their work.

Unaware of VLEs, I started looking around for an intranet type system that would let us provide these facilities to students. I found a piece of software called Course Foum, a web based e-learning system discussed in this post. This was our first exposure to a VLE and we experimented with a demo of this software for a while, and started looking further into VLEs.

Around this time we spoke to our Information Services department about our ideas, since it was becoming apparent that a VLE would suit our needs and we were keen to implement one. It transpired that the IS department had independently been interested in VLEs for the Academy. They gave us a link to a Moodle test site that their counterparts at Glasgow University were experimenting with, and we started looking into the Moodle software.

The software is very robust and flexible, and free. The appearance of a Moodle system is very easy to customize to match your institution's website or whatever, course areas are easy to create and are very customizable. It is simple to add multimedia content, files and images and discussions, forums, quizzes and content created externally (java, flash, etc). There is also a great support community to be found on the Moodle.org site.

Based on this we decided to try the Moodle software and created demo system on an old PC in my office. This demo has proven Moodle's ability to fulfill our needs and more, and subsequently we have decided to adopt it for our VLE pilot system.

Other VLE software

There are many pieces of software available that provide Virtual Learning Environments, both commercial and open source. The Lancaster University website contains a fairly comprehensive list of available software packages.

Speaking with people from other academic institutions, it seems that Moodle, Blackboard and WebCT seem to be the most common VLE systems in use in our area. A interesting report from a comparison between Blackboard and Moodle from Humboldt State University can be found here. At the end of the report are the results from asking students involved in the comparison which system they preferred. Interestingly, the majority of students (42.9%) expressed no preference (with 35.7% preferring Moodle, 21.4% preferring Blackboard).

Whilst investigating VLEs for use with our Technical and Production Arts degree I also came across Course Forum, described on its website as "web-based e-learning software that makes it easy for you and your students to interact, whether to create, post, share or discuss course content." Course Forum provides web pages for courses/departments/classes/whatever, and each page has its own discussion forum attached and can host pictures and files, etc. It provides navigation tools, web based admin tools and is very simple to set up and run. It runs on Windows, OS X, Linux & Unix and doesn't require any web-server software. You just run the installer on the machine you want to host it, and point your browser to that machine.

I downloaded a demo of course forum and installed it on an old desktop windows machine in the office, and we spent some time trying it out. Whilst it was very easy to setup and install, it was was a little limited in what it could provide and the method of creating and editing courses pages seemed a but unintuitive for our tutors who less familiar with web technology.

What is a VLE? What is Moodle?

A Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is an interactive, usually web based system for providing online courses, online resources to support courses and interactive resources to support learning. The Wikipedia has a good in-depth entry describing VLEs.

Moodle is a piece of software that serves a a platform for delivering a VLE. It is described on moodle.org as "a course management system (CMS) - a free, Open Source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities". The Wikipedia also has an entry describing Moodle.

Moodle is Open Source software, which generally means that the software and it's source code are freely available to use, modify and distribute. The Moodle software is covered by the Gnu General Public License, which list terms under which the software can be used, and ensures that the software remains free and open.

Introduction

A little background for you.

I teach on a BA Technical and Production Arts degree course at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. For the last year I have been investigating Virtual Learning Environment (VLEs) for use with our course, and we are about to launch a pilot system for our next intake of first years at the end of September. The system we are going to use is Moodle (http://moodle.org), an open source, php based system which is gaining a great deal of popularity in the academic world.

There is a great voluntary support community surrounding the Moodle project and I decided to publish a blog of my experience with implementing a Moodle based VLE for our department in the hope that it might be of use or interest to that community and to other teachers, institutions, etc, considering implementing Moodle, or another VLE system.