Friday, August 27, 2010

Why Moodle?

Teaching cannot be done without technology anymore. Given that education should be about personal change, it is important to know where we are, where we hope to go and how we should change in order to fit the new contexts. We have to consciously take part in the process of education. The value of education depends on this.

There are many LMSs. Why Moodle, then?

All I can say for now - as I am not at all an expert on Learning Management Systems, but just a learner who is doing her best to learn - is that Moodle allows designers to create a learning environment based on constructivist views. Moodle makes learning possible as a process of learning by doing. It doesn't provide us with mere theory, but also with practice. It has a system that allows us to learn. Its lessons and exercises are made for learning, not for punishing, they can be repeated as many times as we want and at our own pace.

Learning should be based around our student's questions. The students should work together to solve problems rather than receiving direct instructions on what to do from their teachers. The teacher's job isn't only to provide knowledge, but to help students along the process of discovering knowledge themselves. This is called inquiry learning. It's a kind of learning where the teachers are not vessels of knowledge, but they should be seen as facilitators of learning. And this is the kind of learning/teaching I want to stick to!

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