Book Review - Using Moodle by Jason Cole
Category Book Reviews
It's always fun when you catch wind of something technical that you didn't even know existed. That's the position I'm in with the O'Reilly book Using Moodle - Teaching with the Popular Open Source Course Management System by Jason Cole. This is a very cool software package, and the book covers it very well.
Contents: Introduction; Moodle Basics; Creating and Managing Content; Using Forums, Chats and Dialogues; Quizzes; Workshops; Assignments and Exercises; Journals; Glossaries; Lessons; Wikis; Grades and Scales; Managing Your Class; Surveys and Choices; Putting It All Together; Moodle Administration; Index
I had no idea there was any open source content management systems (CMS) out there, much less ones with a rather quirky and cool name like Moodle. This book is published under the O'Reilly Community Press imprint, which means that people intimately involved in the technology create the documentation that is then put into print and distributed by O'Reilly. It's also licensed under the Creative Commons structure, so it's designed to be used and built on by others. I think O'Reilly should be commended for providing this valuable niche to the technical community. The author has put together some solid documentation on Moodle, supplemented by his warnings and tips based on real world experience. Although you might be able to get a drier version of the documentation online, all it would take is one or two of Cole's warnings to save you more than the cost of the book many times over. Even if you're not necessarily considering Moodle as a CMS, it's worth reading the book to see how elegant an open source software solution can be. It'd be really hard for me to recommend commercial solutions costing tens of thousands of dollars after reading this volume.
This is a well-done book that can open your eyes to what an open source solution can provide, whether it's for a CMS or something else. Worth a read...
It's always fun when you catch wind of something technical that you didn't even know existed. That's the position I'm in with the O'Reilly book Using Moodle - Teaching with the Popular Open Source Course Management System by Jason Cole. This is a very cool software package, and the book covers it very well.
Contents: Introduction; Moodle Basics; Creating and Managing Content; Using Forums, Chats and Dialogues; Quizzes; Workshops; Assignments and Exercises; Journals; Glossaries; Lessons; Wikis; Grades and Scales; Managing Your Class; Surveys and Choices; Putting It All Together; Moodle Administration; Index
I had no idea there was any open source content management systems (CMS) out there, much less ones with a rather quirky and cool name like Moodle. This book is published under the O'Reilly Community Press imprint, which means that people intimately involved in the technology create the documentation that is then put into print and distributed by O'Reilly. It's also licensed under the Creative Commons structure, so it's designed to be used and built on by others. I think O'Reilly should be commended for providing this valuable niche to the technical community. The author has put together some solid documentation on Moodle, supplemented by his warnings and tips based on real world experience. Although you might be able to get a drier version of the documentation online, all it would take is one or two of Cole's warnings to save you more than the cost of the book many times over. Even if you're not necessarily considering Moodle as a CMS, it's worth reading the book to see how elegant an open source software solution can be. It'd be really hard for me to recommend commercial solutions costing tens of thousands of dollars after reading this volume.
This is a well-done book that can open your eyes to what an open source solution can provide, whether it's for a CMS or something else. Worth a read...
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