Open Source for Education

Wouldn't it be wonderful if an Open Source product could do the job that Blackboard™ and WebCT™ do, without the high cost?

Unfortunately, the Open Source Course Management System, Moodle! is not up to the task, at least for teachers in K-12 Education.

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Moodle! may be up to the task in higher-education where the dynamics of course preparation and delivery differ from K-12 Education.

For example, a college or university professor may teach a "full time load" of 12 or 15 quarter or semester hours (15 hours is sometimes considered an "Overload"). And, with the rule of three hours of preparation time for each hour of face-to-face class instruction. This schedule results in a full, or overtime load.

Public school teachers, on the other hand, spend about six hours a day in front of students, maybe 2.5 times the number of hours that a teacher of a college-level class per week. But, planning time for K-12 teachers is generally 45 minutes or (50 minutes in a generous schedule).

So, the numbers look like…

This table shows that K-12 teachers spend about three times more time in class delivering face-to-face instruction, and K-12 teachers receive one-tenth the preparation time.

These data demonstrate the reason that a Course Management System for K-12 teachers must have a streamlined interface and be optimized for time-saving. A complicated interface and tedious course development and management process fail to meet the needs of K-12 teachers…and are not viable course management and instructional delivery solutions.

What are the Problems?

Moodle! does what it says it will do, i.e., manage online courses. So, what are the problems that affect ordinary teachers?

The first problem stems from the "database backend-handcuffing" by the product.

The backend database interface is slow and tedious. Instead of being able to use the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) system that would automate sending the course updates to the online server, each piece of instructional material (title, description, activity, image, graph, video link, etc) has to be copied and pasted into an online database form.

This backend database "adding and updating" method prevents teachers from using cute and time-saving tools such as "global search and replace." The backend database "copy and paste" Moodle! method of course management also prevents the streamlined use of templates.

Moodle! also lacks a checkout feature.

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A checkout feature means that when someone else is working on the course materials, you cannot work on that same component, too. This prevents one person on a development team from overwriting the work of another. This feature is vital for collaborative instructional design and team-teaching.

Another Moodle! shortcoming is a course update feature that depends on a crude "backup /restore" strategy. This is a "full database replacement" strategy that allows only for the restore of the entire course database. This means that you cannot update just a chapter, section or subsection of a course, but this means that you must backup the entire course when you want to update in this way.

The only way to add section and subsection content in a Moodle! course is to "copy and paste" the new content (title, description, text, image, link, activity, etc.); one-by-one, bit-by bit into the online database.

Therefore, the course update process only works correctly before students start to use the online course.

Desktop Development Environment and Development Servers

Moodle! provides a "desktop development environment" that works with Microsoft™ Windows. This is useful for developing and prototyping a course.

What this means is that teachers must have a complete working database on their desktop, and they must copy the entire database to the server. But team teachers cannot have more than one copy of the full database on their desktop computer unless they are able to share that desktop somehow.

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Caution: Do not attempt to share the Moodle! Development Environment (MDE) on a school district network. The MDE lacks any of the basic security features that members of your school district's IT Department staff demand.

What this means is that teacher teams cannot develop courses that fit together. The method for more than one teacher to work together is to use the live, online database.

Fortunately, Moodle! has a way of allowing courses that are in the development stage to be hidden from the view of students.

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What teachers have to do if more than one person is working on a course is to assign (delegate, deputize, shaft) one person on the team with the job of entering everyone's course contributions. Of course this requires double work for one person.

And, as our graph shows, teachers do not have time for double work.

What Moodle! needs is the ability for multiple members of a teaching team to update courses in a modular way, rather than its current "all or nothing" database strategy.

Multiple Workstations - Multiple Team Teacher: Moodle! Catastrophe

The lack of a modular course management structure creates another course management nightmare for Moodle!

Unfortunately, teachers must use computers at work and at home, and keeping a database synchronized is next to impossible. The only solution to this issue seems to be to develop Moodle! in separate courses on a development server, then copy the separate courses to the production server once the course is completed.

The alternative, if each teaching team member develops course with the individual desktop development environment, is to "copy and paste" each individual component and send those components to one of the team members…the one that will copy and paste the individual components to the active server. This strategy represent "triple work for one team member…and will never get done!"

But, in these days of "test-stress-driven" curriculum objectives and minimum preparation time, teachers barely have time for their first level of work, i.e., face-to-face instruction of students; let alone course development work in triplicate. Consequently, "gung-ho techie teachers" are the only folks who might to manage a K-12 Moodle! course after the first, time-intensive week.

"Mulish" Lack of Flexibility

Teachers must be able to save and reuse course components and templates when developing courses. Flexibility to "mix and match" course components, and flexibility to share components across-courses must be available. But, these are missing in "mulish Moodle!".

The requirement of "backup and restore" of the entire database hampers efficient development. Just keeping database copies in synchronization is next to impossible by a single person, let alone multiple teachers.

Of course, with college classes where the professor prepares the entire course syllabus in advance (Remember Higher-Ed folks have ten times more planning and course development time as K-12 teachers), Moodle! functions quite effectively.

But, college courses are packaged into neat quarter or semester packages with a limited number of class meetings.

Compare sixteen sessions in a Tuesday-Thursday semester course with the 90 sessions that K-12 teachers meet with their classes per semester. Adventurous (or masochistic) teachers must break courses into "units." But even so, these units will be "supplemental materials, not core course components.

Desktop Development Security: A System that can't Connect to the Internet can't Develop an Online Course

As mentioned, Moodle! provides a local desktop development platform. Unfortunately, this development environment lacks basic network security, and cannot be used on a network such as the kind of network that school districts employ.

Teachers cannot connect a computer with this MDE installed to the Internet from home, either, especially with an "always on" broadband connection (DSL or Cable).

Besides the local Windows™ Desktop Development System (that most teachers require), creates that same dual database issue. What happens when the teacher wants to work on the desktop at school as well as at home is "confusion."

Needed Usability Features

What Moodle! needs is a front end interface similar to the "Dreamweaver™/ Contribute™ system, with version control and checkout components. Updates to courses should be "one-button, FTP-enabled."

And, Module! course development needs to be both "cut and paste" and "drag and drop."

The software needs to work with templates and modules, both used as "course building blocks." Building every course from scratch is an effort in futility that few teachers have time for.

Instructional Inadequacies

Instructional planning and course design can be streamlined by using templates, modular elements and reusable forms. Moodle! needs to create this flexibility.

Copying entire courses using a "backup and restore" function is equivalent to repeating every minute (starting again from the beginning) of class instruction each time the class meets.

Besides, several teachers, building components of a course would still need to delegate one person to copy (integrate) their contributed components into the final version. Double or triple work that every teacher abhors.

Practical, Logistical Issues

There were other practical and logistical issues associated with deploying a Moodle! course:

For example a Fourth Grade teacher with 22 students, teaching seven classes a day...

• Reading


• English and Spelling


• Math


• Science


• Social Studies


• Health

…would require an inordinate amount of course development time.

But, Moodle! course development is too time-intensive for teachers to manage for so many classes.

Besides that, every student must have complete access to a computer for every class. Otherwise, only a select few students could use the course at one time. And, only a few students being able to profit from the extended time that the course development takes makes course development impractical.

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Teachers can only afford to automate instructional components when these multiply the effect of their work.

Any process that gouges into teachers' limited planning time cannot be justified because such methods squander time, a teacher's most precious resource.

So what about students accessing the materials at home for review?Network, Firewall and Confidentiality Issues

To take advantage of online review, every student would need home Internet access (not much of an issue for children who live in affluent families). But, students who have computers at home only would to be able to complete homework, if, the Moodle! server resides outside the district's firewall (or within the "DMZ" of the district's firewall).

School district Technology Directors need security, confidentiality of student records, and interoperability for systems such as Microsoft's Windows Server Active Directory. Placing the Moodle! system on the Internet might weaken network security and expose student names to capture.

Of course, the Moodle! server could be placed inside the district's network, but access by students from home means that ports would have to be "opened up on the district's firewall to enable the connection; or, students would have to be granted Virtual Private Network (VPN) access.

However, it is unlikely that Tech Directors will allow a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection for every student.

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A Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection allows secure connects from computers on the Internet to be made through a firewall.

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Tech Directors expressed interest in Moodle! because Blackboard™ raised prices and embarked on a anti-competitive (and spurious) patent/ litigation campaign instead of developing software resources.

The US Patent Office made a huge mistake in granting Blackboard™ those patents. Hopefully, this mistake will be reversed by the US Patent Office, but, the damage has been done. Blackboard™ relied on a strategy of intimidating competitors instead of creating a better, more affordable product. This strategy has exerted a detrimental effect upon the entire online learning and learning management system industry.

In addition, Technology Directors might require that Moodle! integrate with other district resources such as online grade books (e.g., Gradespeed™), and with students' online portfolios.

Other Missing Course Management Elements

Moodle! also needs to offer campus level oversight, meaning that principals and counselors need dashboards into the lesson planning and student grading components of the system.

Teachers using Moodle! Independent of the School District's Network

Teachers could host a server and install Moodle! for their own use.

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Installation of Moodle! is automatic for many Web Hosting companies. And, costs vary between $5.00 and $10.00 USD per month. Go-Daddy can offer this service for Less than $40 USD per year, and Host Gator can offer an unlimited number of domains with Moodle! installed for about $110.00 USD per year.

But teachers who want so to operate a Moodle! system online and independent of the school districts that employ them face the policy of some school district where the employing district claims ownership of all teacher-created intellectual property. This policy is in effect for these districts, whether or not that intellectual content was created with school district equipment on school time, or, whether that intellectual content was created at home, on teachers' time, with the teacher's equipment.

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Teacher are reluctant to donate their intellectual efforts (especially ones as time-intensive as Moodle!) to a school district without compensation. Such "unwarranted Work for Hire" policies dampen the creative efforts of many teachers.

School districts also are wary because the district may become liable if teachers infringe on other content providers' copyright by including unauthorized content in Moodle! courses.

In addition, Moodle's setting of file size limits are either unrealistic, the image and sound-laden student Powerpoint presentation easily can exceed these file size limits. And, with the advent of video, screen capture video and audio (podcasts), storage requirements go "through the roof."

On the other hand, experience with technology shows that when given a personal classroom Website, only a handful of teachers bother to use this resource ...unless the campus principal tracks their use and ties some professional evaluation credit to it.

The important question is, "Why?"

Answer: No one has made the case for a classroom Website directly affecting instruction (or test scores),

And, we need to credit teachers with common sense. Teachers are pressured to focus upon increasing test scores, so, if a tool that actually produced increased test scores was available without cost, few teachers would snub that tool. Unfortunately, Moodle! and other technology-based strategies have failed to demonstrate positive increases in student learning. Implication: Classroom Websites and Moodle! courses (when they have been deployed) have shown little (or limited) positive effect on measurable student learning outcomes.

Moodle!, What is it Good For?

The focus of this article is to show that Moodle!, in its current incarnation; has limited (if any) use for classroom teachers.

On the other hand, Moodle! is useful for curriculum developers, trainers, consultants and folks that can afford the luxury of prepackaging course materials and delivering that same course multiple times.

Classroom Toolkit has not gathered empirical data to test this hypothesis, but best-practice experience seems to indicate that a Moodle!-powered course must be delivered between five and seven times before a time savings (as compared to just delivering the course materials in the ordinary, run-of-the-mill, PowePoint™ way) can be achieved.

So, when someone suggests that you use Moodle! to manage your courses online (or to supplement your classroom instruction with online components using Moodle!), ask the pertinent question, "How much time will I save, and what direct, measurable students outcomes can I expect from implementing the Moodle! Course Management System for my classes?"