Moodle and asynchronous interaction

What is asynchronous interaction? It’s a way of interacting with something at a different time so whilst you go onto Skype or Zoom that being a synchronous interaction asynchronous is the opposite. With the latter you go online do your thing and then go off and your tutor or colleagues pick up the thread in their time.  This type of interaction works great worldwide if a project team is working across various time zones for example.

So what is Moodle? This is a piece of software designed to be asynchronous and for information to be uploaded to it and then downloaded by the recipient either a team member or as in most cases a tutor and student.  Moodle can be synchronous if required in that you could for example incorporate an Adobe plug-in to the system and offer real time synchronous interaction. However this development would be time consuming and costly so we use Zoom or Skype for this type of interaction for free. Why incur unnecessary cost when there are free tools out there to use.

What Moodle more or less does is act as a repository of information and I have used Moodle for quality control purposes as it can store information in a central point that your teams can access, again pretty much like Dropbox right. But the advantage to using Moodle I have found is I can control access better to allow colleagues and others to inspect the information. Using Moodle also offers a more secure environment than Dropbox as it can be secured on your private server and PEN tested better than you can with Dropbox.  That in itself is a good point as with public software such as Dropbox et al they are on a shared system and if Dropbox goes down all the accounts go down along with your data.

So how do we use Moodle with our students? In our case we have our courses setup on Moodle and our students login, this they can do 24/7 and 365 days a year. Moodle has a message system that is great as nothing gets lost as with email that is totally unreliable for our purposes. If I have a student in South Africa for example they have uploaded their work or sent a message during their time and when I log on in my time I can pick it up. So that asynchronous interaction allows for students and tutors to work across many time zones and the interaction of uploading work and marking still gets done. Really very similar to University and College systems that tend to favour Canvas as an LMS but the buy in for this LMS is a lot higher than Moodle nowadays.

Why do people use different LMS such as Canvas et al? You tend to find that IT Dept’s will setup systems that are the easiest to maintain but not necessarily use such as Canvas and Mahara that has a complexity that most students give up on as well as tutors. Whereas Moodle is highly specialised you need someone like me with over ten years of professionally using the software to help you set anything up properly and then use it effectively. The difference between a lot of common LMS software subscribed  from over the internet and Moodle is that the majority of the subscription LMS setup is template driven and Moodle is not . Moodle is very personal and can be customised to what you want it to do as you literally start with a blank canvas compared to other LMS systems.  It’s also harder to support in the long run if you do not know any Moodle developers or someone like me who does. Again a big factor with University and College choices over Moodle as their IT staff need to have a Moodle expert on board and invariably they don’t. Overall it depends what you want to achieve most people buy in LMS systems that offer nice template driven elearning setups and you can get up and running quicker easier and control your costs. But Moodle has infinitely more customization options if you know what you are doing and is cheaper in the long term once you have invested in the development of the courses and systems.

What about server costs? With an LMS straight out the box with the obligatory payment plan you are working off their servers so the cost of the server is wrapped up into the subscription. With something like Moodle you have to get the software installed onto either your server or a shared hosting system. The benefits are great for the user that has a dedicated server as that can be controlled and locked down by your team and any customization of the Moodle is direct. This can be done on a shared hosting system but there is a greater risk and depends on the hosting company involved. So again with a Moodle setup and servers there could be more work initially and you have to engage with your own IT people more if you have a dedicated server. However with security and especially student data it is not being shared publically as with say Google classroom and you are in control of the data and can engineer solutions to keep this safe more than with a subscription based public system.

What is the best LMS system a subscription based model or a DIY Moodle setup? This is something you have to think about in-regards to what you want to do. If it is a passive elearning setup you want that offer with customised links and click through screens that build on levels Moodle is not for you. If you want a personal interaction and a tool that can be used for mentoring and training people over distance that stores the user data then Moodle is the way to go. Some organisations just like to automate the whole online learning experience and it has its place for CBT and testing. However the interaction is different to Moodle that is offering a repository of information and ideas to the student that they need for their course. So think of what you want to achieve with an LMS and then contact me to discuss your needs further. If it is a Moodle that you want setting up I can help you with this and it is relatively low cost depending on how many courses you want on the Moodle platform.

Whats the best way to contact me? You can try my company email [email protected] or my office number 9-5pm in UK Business hours, 02033974548. Please ask for Moodle advice when you get through to our receptionist. There is also live interaction and message system on our company website if you want to chat this way. www.Pct2u.com