So we’re at the point in our teacher model pilot that we want to add some curricular management systems to the mix with the hope of settling on one in the spring to implement in fall. We’ve been working with Moodle, which we like, but it doesn’t have the tie in to our student information system that we would like (I don’t think, at least.) We’ve also decided to look at Blackboard and Sharepoint (though not too enthusiastically on my part), and I’m personally interested in .LRN, the developers of which I met at the originaly BloggerCon so many years (two) ago.
So I’m wondering if anyone out there has any other suggestions to consider. We’re primarily PC with a Novell network and an SIS from a relatively small (but growing) company. We want a system that will allow teachers to easily move curriculum online, communicate with students, parents and colleagues, and create collaborative environments of all different types, and allow students and teachers to publish easily and widely.
Any nominations?
Hi,
I’m one of the .LRN developers you met. My company website is solutiongrove.com. It has contact info, please give me a call and tell me more about your project and I’ll update you on where .LRN is now.
Thanks
Caroline
What do you mean by “the tie in with our student information system” how would anything tie into your SIS? What do you want out of your SIS?
The problem with .LRN is that it is based on a dying platform (Open ACS), but I suppose, as a happy user of Manila, you’re used to that kind of thing.
I would stick with Moodle. There is work going on with a CMS module for it, and a lot of the CMS stuff can already be done with it.
What we are moving toward is WordPress for those teachers that are ready to put something online, and once they’re comfortable with that, moving them toward using Moodle.
Are there any shortcomings of Moodle that you can think of that doesn’t work for you?
hi will…
wow. what a fun question.
I’m currently in a very lively debate around these issues… check out Leigh Blackall’s post, and the debate on it follows through the link at the end of his post.
In terms of moodle and integration… i would be suprised if there wasn’t a way to tie in moodle to your SIS. There are 10 different ways of accessing databases included in the base release, and if it doesn’t exist now, you could pay someone in the open source community to patch into your SIS for less than it would cost to purchase a Blackboard license.
In terms of the difference between a VLE (virtual learning environment)/LCMS (learning content management system) and a CMS (content management system) there are a host of choices that could suit your situation. I’d love to hear more about what you have in mind, what you need it for, and what your plans are for it in the future. Would love to give an opinion (i know you’ll find this surprising 🙂 ) but I’d have to know a little more. If you don’t feel comfortable posting that here, feel free to contact me. But on a quick look… you look like you need a MU blogging platform not a teacher centered CMS.
I found the Novell install of moodle a little trying. (but i’m not exactly a novell certified pro either, the linux/windows install is super easy)
cheers,
dave.
It really depends on how much support you want for your CMS. If you know that you have the in-house support to troubleshoot technical problems and figure out how to manipulate the system to “hook up” with your student system already in place then I’d say stick with the opne source and go for Moodle. On the other hand, if you’d prefer to have someone who’s primary function it is to solve problems with a particular CMS then go with Blackboard. Since you’re paying for their product, they should provide decent customer service. However, since there are so many open source solutions out there (Drupal is another), I’d say to look into those before considering a fee based service. My guess is you have some pretty tech savvy people when it comes to manilupating PHP scripts, my_SQL, and other software you’ll need to run an open source solution. With enough tweaking you should be able to make Moodle or another tool work for you (provided you have the time).
Hey Will:
We are a high school district in Illinois with 2 high schools and we are entirely PC with a Novell network and a aging student information system.
We use the Blackboard Community System and have had a great deal of success witht the platform. It integrates nicely with our SIS and their snapshot tool makes setting up courses a breeze, and they are constantly updated with class roster changes and additions. This is a significant advantage over Moodle, as I understand that it does not integrate with SIS’s. We purchased the server with the software installed from Blackboard and it has worked flawlessly over the past two years. We’ve installed it, and no considering updates, have not touched it. The uptime has been fantastic and the system may have been down several hours over the past two years.
I should mention that we have 407 students in two buildings, 1800 PC’s and 407 teachers. In two years, we have gone from 0 use to 225 participants, so acceptance has been outstanding. We have a range of uses, from announcements and assignment posting to complex uses that merge a wiki tool with discussion boards. We have integrated several building blocks with Blackboard, including Turnitin.com integration, Discussion Board Grader (from Joliet Junior College in Illinois, and free), and Lectora, with provides free form Web development for our more advanced users, with a direct capability to publish that Web content directly into Blackboard. We have recently added a building block by LearningObjects.com that adds blog and wiki capability into Blackboard.
Overall, I am extremely satisfied with the product. I know Blackboard gets bashed alot, but it has worked in our district exceptionally well. You should know that their support is not good, and they have a revolving door with their reps as they get promoted as the company grows.
We simply tired of having teachers build ineffective Web sites. Blackboard has given us the capability to have a wide variety of online support for our students, with some amazing and creative applications of the various tools to create very dynamic learning enviroments.
Contact me through email and I’ll send my phone if you would like to talk directly. See you at the Illinois Tech Conference.
Sincerely,
David
David Jakes
Instructional Technology Coordinator
Community High School District 99, Downers Grove, IL
moodle does integrate with SIS. and blackboard does do what it does very well. It is teacher centered… but it does that very well…
a few links regarding the subject.
http://cdc.humboldt.edu/moodle/mod/netpublish/view.php?id=3§ion=9
http://edublogr.blogspot.com/2005/10/reflections-on-merger.html
see michaelp’s comments
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=20527
a classic debate
http://instructionaltechnology.editthispage.com/newsItems/viewDepartment$Blackboard
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=22640&parent=107125
This is old (moodle has moved forward… and i imagine blackboard has too)
but still a classic
http://www.humboldt.edu/~jdv1/moodle/all.htm
cheers.
Will,
I’m curious too about what you’re looking for with respect to SIS integration. What are you hoping to achieve?
-Tim
http://technosavvy.org
Thanks for all of the feedback. We want to be able to create course sites off of the schedules in our SIS. So, we’d just click on the course ID and it would automatically import the class list into the CMS. Does that make sense? Also, we want almost all of the apps listed at CMS Matrix. Based on what I’ve gotten back so far, it sounds like Moodle and Blackboard will make our final cut. But I’d like to seriously look at two others. Sakai and Mambo are some others that are floating up…
Will — I’ll be reading along with this, as this is what I’m looking for for SLA as well.
I’m hoping that a combination of a few pieces will give me what I want. I’m looking for SchoolTool to eventually be that bridge between SIS and CMS.
If you want to hit a button on your SIS to load up your CMS, then I’d say your SIS doesn’t work with Moodle, rather than vice versa. It looks like the next version of Moodle will support web services, so this kind of thing should get easier. I just wish I could figure out when that is projected to be released…
Loading user information from a standards-based SIS into Moodle isn’t that hard. Here is a modification I have made to moodle/user/edit.php (lines 320+) that pulls student information from Blackbaud.
// pre-fill user information
$query = ” SELECT
EA7RECORDS.FIRSTNAME, EA7RECORDS.NICKNAME, EA7RECORDS.LASTNAME
FROM
EA7RECORDS,
ADDRESSLINKS,
PHONELINKS,
ADDRESSLINKPHONES
WHERE
NUM LIKE ‘$user->username” . ‘@sfuhs.org’ . “‘ AND
ADDRESSLINKPHONES.PHONESID=PHONELINKS.PHONESID AND
PHONELINKS.ADDRESSLINKSID=ADDRESSLINKS.ADDRESSLINKSID AND
ADDRESSLINKS.PARENTRECORDID=EA7RECORDS.EA7RECORDSID”;
mssql_connect ( “sqlsrv”, “[user]”, “[pwd]” );
$result = mssql_query ( $query );
$row=mssql_fetch_array($result);
if ($row[‘NICKNAME’]) {$row[‘FIRSTNAME’]=$row[‘NICKNAME’];}
mssql_close();
if ($row[‘FIRSTNAME’]) {$user->firstname = $row[‘FIRSTNAME’];}
if ($row[‘LASTNAME’]) {$user->lastname = $row[‘LASTNAME’];}
$user->email = $user->username . ‘@sfuhs.org’;
A couple of similar changes allow Moodle to automatically recognize users based on their web site login and bypass the Moodle login screen. I understand that Moodle has developed an API for single sign-on but have not yet seen detailed documentation on it.
We don’t import course and student enrollment information. All of our courses are set to auto-enroll when a student visits it for the first time, so this process mostly takes care of itself.