Moodle is a free and open source e-learning software platform (also known as a Course Management System (CMS), or Learning Management Systems (LMS), or Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)). It has a significant user base with 38,896 registered sites with 16,927,590 users in 1,713,438 courses (as of January, 2008). Moodle is designed to help educators create online courses with opportunities for rich interaction.

Moodle has many features expected from an e-learning platform, plus some original innovations (for example its filtering system). Moodle is modular in construction and can readily be extended by creating plugins for specific new functionality. Moodle's infrastructure supports many types of plugin:

• Activities
• Resource types
• Question types
• Data field types (for the database activity)
• Graphical themes
• Authentication methods
• Enrollment methods
• Content Filters

The stated philosophy of Moodle includes a constructivist and social constructionist approach to education, emphasizing that learners (and not just teachers) can contribute to the educational experience in many ways. Moodle's features reflect this in various design aspects, such as making it possible for students to comment on entries in a database (or even to contribute entries themselves), or to work collaboratively in a wiki.

If you are looking to implement training and learning opportunities, Moodle is a powerful and affordable solution. Designwrite Studios is here to help.