LMS

How is an LMS (Moodle) different from a standard teacher website? As you work with Moodle, what advantages do you see it affording your students? How can Moodle help you transform your classroom into a more student centered learning environment?

I have been tempted to work with Moodle many times. However, each time I work with it, I become more and more frustrated. While some parts of Moodle are well designed and student centered (opportunity for self-directed lessons, online quizzes), they are extremely time consuming and inefficient for teachers to use. Additionally, the simple upload of documents to Moodle is time consuming and takes an enormous amount of time to get done. While it is possible to just "upload a google doc," I don't find this to be a fix. I just find this to be a way out of a poorly designed system.

As far as what advantages it affords my students, I can not see many other than it is organized quite clearly. However, a teacher website can be just as organized for students. It can provide resources for students in a similar manner and it takes less time to make things happen. The only real advantage to Moodle is the opportunity for the self-directed lessons. Though, I do not believe this is necessary beneficial for ALL students and many would not benefit from it. Because of this, it is difficult to justify putting in the hours upon hours of time necessary to create an effective lesson.