Effective virtual learning enviroment through moodle
EFFECTIVE VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIROMENT
THROUGH MOODLE
SVTH: Nguyễn Khắc Hiếu
Nguyễn Thế An, Lâm Thị Thương Hu ền
GVHD: ThS Luyện Thu Trang
ắ — Using the Internet to upgrade e-learning has become a pattern in present day
advanced education foundations. E-learning systems are progressively turning into a significant part of
the technique for conveying on the web and adaptable e-learning. The main advantage of e-learning is
the opportunity for students to interact electronically with each other and their teachers during forums,
on discussion boards, by e-mail and in chat rooms. In spite of the fact that perceiving that the world
everywhere will keep on utilizing phrasing in various and regularly vague ways, the term of Virtual
Learning conditions (VLE) is utilized to refer to the on-line connections of an assortment of sorts that
occur among students and educators. There are numerous its of software accessible that give VLE
systems, both business and Open Source Software (OSS). One such system that has been step by
step picking up overall prominence is known as Moodle. This paper enters around this stage and on
an examination between VLE (Moodle) and other VLE systems so as to find their qualities and
confinements. The near examination is in two stages. The primary stage is in light of the highlights and
capacities of VLE apparatuses and the subsequent stage depends on the specialized parts of the VLE
stages.
ừ kh a— E-learning, Moodle
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, people have become familiar with the so-called online learning. Although
this concept has appeared and developed about 20 years ago, until now, online learning has
affirmed its equal importance with direct learning. especially at present, when the COVID 19
pandemic is raging and has very serious consequences on all aspects of social life, and
education are no exception. To ensure social distance, direct learning becomes impossible and
the most effective solution now is online learning. Many online learning systems have
emerged to meet the increasing learning needs. rising in the epidemic situation and Moodle
emerged as a VLE with a lot of outstanding user-support features. Therefore, this paper, as the
result of our research, aims confirm and prove the importance of Moodle on Virtual Learning
Environment.
II. VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIROMENT THROUGH MOODLE
A. Literature Review
1) The learning environment
The literature has identified the importance of creating an appropriate e-learning
environment. In particular, this environment needs to consider the issues of time, space and
location as well as how e-Learning can be incorporated into classroom teaching and learning.
Creating such a learning environment has changed the way students or learners approach their
learning. The documents note that students in e-Learning environments often control or take
more responsibility for their learning.
2) What is Moodle?
Moodle is an open-source Learning Management System (LMS or otherwise called
Course The executives' Framework or VLE - Virtual Learning Condition) (in this manner free
and editable source code), to make seminars on the Web or web-based learning sites.
Moodle (short for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) was
established in 1999 by Martin Dougiamas. Moodle stands apart as an education-oriented
design for individuals working in the field of The Moodle learning management system is an
open source, flexible and free to download as a learning management solution.
The Moodle learning management system is an open source, flexible and free to
download as a learning management solution. With 68 million clients and 55,000 Moodle
sites conveyed around the world, Moodle is user-friendly eLearning platform that considers
the learning and preparing needs of individuals from a wide range of associations. In private
or open Moodle locales, teachers, instructors, and businesses can make and convey online
courses so understudies and their crowds can meet and surpass their learning objectives.
3) Moodle Architecture
Moodle runs on any web server that supports the PHP programming language and a
database. It works best, and there is more support, when running on the Apache web server
with a MySQL database. These requirements—Apache, PHP, and MySQL—are common to
almost all commercial web hosts, even the lowest-cost ones.
While the Moodle data directory stores the files uploaded by students, the Moodle
database stores most of the information in your Moodle site. The database stores objects that
you create using Moodle.
140
Moodle has a modular architecture, shown in Fig. 1. In fact, Moodle is an acronym for
Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment16, so it allows third party software
to be installed and used on the platform. Therefore, the Forum participation plugin was made
under Moodle architecture standards.
Figure1: Modular architecture of Moodle
The plugin architecture is based on three main parts. The first one is represented by all
logical files that retrieve data from the database. The second part is formed by all working
files to build matrices from the extracted data. The last one is formed by all the visual libraries
that the plugin uses to present visual data to the user. Figure 2 shows all the plugin
components, divided into two classes. The first layer displays all graphic libraries such as
Bootstrap, Fixed-Header-Table, Jqplot, Jit, JQuery and J3V3. All of these libraries are used to
display charts, such as the charts shown in the article. The second layer below is where the
plugin business logic takes place. In this class, there is a main file called SNALIB; This PHP
file has all the logic to do data retrieval and to build collaboration and matrix matrices. To
visualize all the results, specific functions have been implemented in logic to construct each
graph result. Then, a JSON object is created and passed as a parameter to the PHP entry page
of each library mentioned earlier.
Figure2: Moodle Forum participation plugin components architecture.
B. Method
Data were collected in two stages using two groups of students in order specifically to
achieve objectives one and four of this research, respectively.
1) Stage One
A total of 80 undergraduate students who were registered on two courses related to
human computer interaction and software testing at the Faculty of Information Technology at
Zarqa University in Jordan were asked to participate. The students who participated in this
study were given extra marks. However, their participation was voluntary.
A questionnaire was designed which aimed to gather data from the students regarding
their experience of Moodle while using both desktop/laptop devices and mobile/tablet
devices. It comprised two sections: Section 1 involved closed-questions which were designed
to gather students‘ background information, Internet experience and Moodle experience while
Section 2 included the following four open-ended requests:
List the features which you are using in Moodle.
List the features which you would like to use in Moodle but which are not supported by it.
List the weak design features in Moodle which prevent you from interacting with it
successfully.
Suggest improvements to the design of Moodle to make it more usable.
Questionnaires are uploaded to Moodle as homework for students who have enrolled in
two courses. The students were given two weeks as a deadline and they were asked to submit
their answers to the questionnaire to Moodle. Students using only desktop / laptop devices to
access Moodle were asked to answer questions once, while students used both desktop /
laptop devices. hand and mobile / tablet device to access Moodle is required to respond twice
to collect data about their experience with Moodle using different interfaces.
Data obtained from the questionnaire was translated into English from Arabic. Data is
analyzed to explore student experience with Moodle features and usability. Descriptive
analysis is used to describe the characteristics of students and their experience of the Internet
and Moodle. Analyzing the answers for each of the four open questions follows the same
procedure; The answers to each question have been checked and classified. They have created
popular subtopics (subcategories) that suggest corresponding topics (categories).
2) Stage Two
A total of 240 undergraduate students from four faculties: Faculty of Information
Technology, Faculty of Business, Faculty of Nursing, and Faculty of Engineering at Zarqa
University were asked to participate. Their participation was voluntary.
A questionnaire was developed based on the students' responses to the questionnaire
developed in Stage One to confirm the data collected during that period. It consists of two
parts: Part 1 involves closed-ended questions designed to collect basic student information,
Internet experience, and Moodle experience. However, Section 2 involves the four sections
142
corresponding to the four open-ended questions given to students in Stage One. Each section
includes questions that are sub-topics created from the analysis of student responses for each
of the four open questions collected in Stage one. Students are asked to rate the sub-topics that
are determined based on their relevance to each statement based on the seven-point scale
(Likert scale).
In order to collect data from students about their experience with Moodle about the type
of interface they used, the questionnaire was designed to include Section 1 and two copies of
Section 2. Students should use only desktop / laptop devices to access Moodle are required to
answer Section 1 and Section 2 of the questionnaire, while students use both desktop / laptop
devices and Mobile / tablet devices to access Moodle are required to answer Part 1 and two
copies of Section 2 to collect data about their experience with Moodle using two interfaces. It
is worth mentioning that the questionnaire was tested using five college students from the
same university where the study was conducted. The pilot study identified some ambiguities
in the questionnaire so that the results from the pilot trial were reviewed and the changes were
made. The data is then collected over a period of three weeks.
Descriptive analysis is used for Section 1 of the questionnaire to describe the
characteristics of students and their experience of the Internet and Moodle. Student
characteristics are presented in the Results Section. The Likert score is calculated for each
statement in Section 2 to describe student confirmation of sub-topics identified in phase one
of the study. It is worth mentioning that, for the purpose of analyzing using the Likert scale in
this study, the Likert 1-3 score is considered to be a negative reaction, 5-7 positive reactions
and 4 neutral points. Likert scores for statements (subtopics) and their explanations are
presented in the Results Section. The version of Moodle LMS used by the university is 2.9.
However, some plug-in updates have been installed by college administrators for updates.
C.Results
1) Student‘s Characteristics
A total of 71 students out of 80 (88.75%) participated in Phase One of this study and
uploaded the answers to the questionnaire; 35 of them answered Part 2 of the questionnaire
twice and expressed their experience with Moodle while using both desktop / laptop devices
and mobile / tablet devices. The majority of students are between the ages of 18 and 22. Most
of the students (70%) are male while women make up 30% of the participants. Half of the
students come from the Faculty of Software Engineering (65%). Students from other faculties
also participated, namely from: Computer Science (16%); Computer information systems
(12%) and Internet Technology (7%). Students also participate in the second year (18%) in
the third (52%) and the fourth (30%) of the school year. The majority (92%) have more than
three years of experience using the Internet and all students use the Internet daily. Regarding
the student experience with Moodle, most (82%) have more than three semesters. Experience
using Moodle and most (72%) using Moodle daily.
In addition, a total of 225 students out of 240 (90.75%) participated in Phase Two of
this study. The majority of them are between the ages of 18 and 22. Men represent (60%) of
the students while women make up 40%. Regarding their Faculty, 40% of students come from
the Faculty of Business; 30% of students come from the Faculty of Engineering; 15% is from
the Faculty of Nursing and the rest (15%) is from the Faculty of Information Technology.
Students also participate in the second year (12%) in the third (33%) and the fourth (55%) in
the school year. The majority (96%) had more than three years of experience using the
Internet and all students use the Internet daily. Regarding the student experience with Moodle,
most (95%) have more than three semesters of experience using Moodle and most (83%) use
Moodle daily.
2) Students‘ Experience in Moodle
This section presents the results obtained from analysing the data that were collected
from the two groups of students concerning their experience of the features and usability of
Moodle on desktop/ laptop devices and mobile/tablet interfaces. It includes four subsections
related to: features supported by Moodle; features not supported by the local instance of
Moodle; usability problems in Moodle; and suggested improvements to the design of Moodle.
Each subsection presents the results obtained from Group one of the students followed by the
results obtained from Group two.
VLEs, as e-learning systems, have many features and capabilities but in order to
simplify and clarify the comparison, we have divided these features and capabilities into three
phases, which are Learner Tools, Support Tools and Technical Tools, as in Tables 1, 2 and 3.
Also, this comparison has two kinds of answers Yes (Y) or No (N).
No
1
2
3
4
5
6
Product name Design2 KEWL ANGEL eCollege The Blackboard Moodle
Learn 8.1
(7.1)
System
1.8
Tools
1. Learner Tools
1.1. Communication Tools
Discussion
Forums
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Discussion
Management
Y
Y
File
Exchange
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Internal
Email
On-line
Journal
144
Real-time
Chat
Y
N
Y
Y
N
N
Y
N
Y
Y
N
Y
Y
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Video
Services
Whiteboard
1.2. Productivity Tools
Bookmarks
Calendar
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
N
Y
Y
Y
N
Y
Y
Y
Orientation
Searching
Course
Work
line
Off-
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Group work
Community
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Student
Portfolios
Total
Features
16
15
1
16
14
2
16
15
1
16
14
2
16
14
2
16
15
1
Total
Available
Total Missing
Table 1: The Comparison between the Selected VLE Products based on Learner Tools.
As we can see in Table 1, the comparison between the VLE products is based on
Learner Tools. Four products are shown to be the best with almost the maximum number of
features - 15 out of 16 features or capabilities of Learner Tools. These products are Moodle,
Desire2Learn, ANGEL. KEWL, eCollege and The Blackboard
Learning System platforms have missed 2 out of 16. Moodle is the best with three
products missing only one feature. Overall the best OSSs are Moodle and respectively, which
missed 1 out of 16 Learner Tools.
As we can see in Table 2, the comparison between the VLE products is based on
Support Tools.
2. Support Tools
2.1. Administration Tools
Authentication
Authorization
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
File exchange
Registration
Integration
2.2. Course Delivery Tools
Test Types
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Automated
Management
Automated
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Support
Course
Management
On-time grading
Student Tracking
2.3. Content Development Tools
Accessibility
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
N
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Content sharing
Course Template
Look and Feel
Design
Instructional Standards
Total Features
Total Available
Total Missing
16
16
0
16
16
0
16
15
1
16
15
1
16
16
0
16
16
0
Table 2: The Comparison between the Selected VLE Products based on Support Tools.
In this phase, all products have all features and capabilities except eCollege and The
Blackboard Learning System (V.7). This means that Moodle and the other remaining products
are strong on Support Tools.
146
As we can see in Table 3, the comparison is based on Technical Specifications Tools.
3. Technical Specifications
3.1. Hardware/Software Tools
Client Required
Database Requirements
Unix Server
Y
Y
N
Y
Y
N
Y
Y
N
Y
Y
N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Windows
Y
Y
Y
N
Y
Y
3.2. Pricing/Licensing Tools
Company Profile
Costs
Y
N
N
Y
8
Y
N
N
Y
8
Y
N
N
Y
8
Y
N
N
Y
8
Y
N
N
Y
8
N
Y
Y
N
8
Open Source
Optional Extras
Total features
Total available
Total missing
6
5
5
4
6
7
2
2
3
3
4
2
Table 3: The Comparison between the Selected VLE Systems based on
Technical Specifications Tools.
In this phase, the best products are Moodle 1.8, which have missed only 1 out of 8
Technical Specifications Tools, and then Desire2Learn 8.1, The Blackboard which missed 2
out of 8. The weakest products are KEWL which missed 4 out of 8 Technical Specifications
Tools.
By some simple comparisons, it is possible to show the optimization of moodle
compared to the rest of the learning tools. Therefore, it is reasonable to confirm the
importance of Moodle to virtual learning environment
D.DISCUSSION
1) Virtual Learning Environment
A virtual learning environment is an online-based platform that offers students and
professors digital solutions that enhance the learning experience. Unlike a virtual classroom,
which is meant to replicate and replace the physical classroom environment for distance
learners, a virtual learning environment (or VLE) harnesses technology to supplement an in-
class experience, with, for example, digital communication, interaction and quizzes or polls
run through the VLE.
The virtual learning environment has been linked to formal learning and to the
relationships between teachers, students and schools. There is a growing interest in virtual
learning environments supported by the internet, in particular between educational
institutions, students and teachers. The concept of virtual learning environment (VLE) can be
considered a dynamic concept due to the continuous development of digital technologies, its
features and potential and the importance of environments in learning progress.
Web-based education systems are being used by more and more universities, schools
and companies, not only to incorporate web technology into their courses, but also to
complement their courses. face to face with their traditions. These systems collect large
amounts of valuable data for course content analysis and student use. The learning
environment based on the use of technology and digital resources are intermediaries in the
learning process through the activities they allow. This is due to the fact that they facilitate
interaction and interaction in a continuous communication process, thereby increasing the
building and refactoring of knowledge and meaning as well as habit formation. and attitude
within the general framework for all those involved education process.
The use of VLE in each context implies recognition of their main features and
potentials. The learning environment and context are dynamic and multi-dimensional
concepts emerging from new educational concepts and practices in the digital society.
The features and potentials of VLE turn them into spaces that allow for testing,
promotion and support of well-planned and oriented teaching and learning strategies.
Observations of constant dynamism are encouraged in the use of resources and in the changes
witnessed around them, as this will allow them to be considered as the context for building.
build learning processes.
The virtual learning environment allows learning to take place according to the elements
in the learning environment, based on a continuous scale from the specified elements in the
environment to the emerging elements when used.
2) The Reasons for Choosing Moodle
The importance of Moodle is that it is well evaluated in many reports, has a high level
of acceptance in the community and in some organizations, and has many active courses,
148
available in many languages. It gives users the ability to post news articles, assignments,
ezines and resources, and to collect assignments, etc. Moodle's greatest strength is the
community that has grown around the project; Both developers and users participate in
Moodle's active discussion forums, share tips, post code, help new users, share resources, and
debate new ideas. Therefore, we have chosen Moodle's software as our field of research and
analysis. It is important to understand the Moodle environment, and explore its functions and
limitations to develop practical examples for the use of VLE in Qassim University. We list
here the most important reasons to choose Moodle:
1. Moodle can be used on almost all servers that can use PHP. Users can download and
use it on any computer and can easily upgrade it from one version to the next.
2. The key to Moodle is that is developed with both pedagogy and technology in mind.
One of the main advantages of Moodle over other systems is its strong grounding in social
constructionist pedagogy and good educational tools.
3. The Moodle software is used all over the world by independent teachers, schools,
universities and companies. The credibility of Moodle is very high. Currently, there are 3324
web sites from 175 countries that have registered with it, and it has 75 languages.
4. Moodle runs without modification on any system that supports PHP such as Unix,
Linux and Windows. It uses MySQL, PostgreSQL and Oracle databases, and others are also
supported.
5. It has many features useful to potential students such as easy installation,
customization of options and settings, good support/help, and good educational tools.
Moreover, it has excellent documentation, and strong support for security and administration.
6. It is an OSS, which means users are free to download it, use it, modify it and even
distribute it under the terms of the GNU license.
7. It is a CMS & VLE that lets teachers provide and share documents, graded
assignments, discussion forums, etc. with their students in an easy-to-learn fashion, and in
high quality on-line courses.
3) The Limitations of Moodle
Moodle‘s low cost, flexibility and ease of use helps bring VLE technology within the
reach of those with limited technical or financial resources. On the other hand, Moodle has
some limitations as follows:
1. Moodle is only for IT experts. It is complex for normal users to use and more than
66% of them are teachers, researchers and administrators.
2. It is difficult for beginner technicians to install and use Moodle, because there are
many technical word lists in installation instructions.
3. Moodle will work, but not by itself. If there is not a course administrator that can
work with both teachers and technicians in creating on-line materials, then Moodle will
remain an empty shell, like a good aircraft but with no pilot;
4. Lack of simple-to-obtain support. Forums carry a great deal of information, but
nearly all forums are in the English language.
III. CONCLUSION
In the conclusions, we present a summary of the main results obtained from a study
conducted in the academic year of 2014-2015, involving 6347 undergraduates from a
Portuguese public higher education institution. This study aimed to assess the frequency of
students‘ access to the virtual learning environment (VLE) adopted by the institution, as well
as the relation between the frequency of access to the VLE and the students‘ performance.
The nature of the study was quantitative and the data was obtained from databases associated
with the VLE.
Considering the great variability of the number of accesses to the VLE, groups of
students were formed according to the number of their accesses to the VLE so as to assess the
relations between the groups‘ accesses to the VLE and their performance. The results
obtained regarding students‘ performance enable us to infer that the higher the mean of the
group‘s accesses to the VLE is, the higher are: the number of course units in which the
student is registered, the number of units they passed, the percentage of units they passed
relatively to the units they are registered in, and the percentage of course units the student
passed. Also, the higher the mean of the group‘s accesses to the VLE is, the lower the
percentage of students who failed all the course units is.
The results concern only one higher education institution and therefore, cannot be
generalised. However, these results show relatively positive indicators regarding students‘
access to a virtual learning environment and the relation between such access and their
performance.
This paper has made a comparative study between Moodle and other VLE systems, and
this was based on two kinds of comparison. The first phase was based on the features and
capabilities of VLE tools, and the second one was based on the technical aspects of VLE
systems. From this paper, we aimed to discover the best and most suitable choice of VLE
systems that would meet the requirements of Qassim University. In this, our initial
assessment, we have succeeded in finding that optimal VLE platform, and it is Moodle.
REFERENCES
[1] Valsamidisa, S., Kazanidisa, I., Petasakisa, I., Kontogiannisb, S., & Kolokithaa, E.
E-Learning Activity Analysis. Procedia Economics and Finance. 9. pp. 511 – 518. 2014.
[2] Becerra, E., García, M. C., & Chávez, R. Ambiente de aprendizaje con uso de
tecnología en la formación docente inicial y las habilidades intelectuales. In R. E. Navarro, M.
J. Pacheco, Y. N. Rangel, & M. S. Montoya (Eds.), Foro interregional de investigación sobre
entornos virtuales de aprendizaje: Integración de redes académicas y tecnológicas. México:
Redtic. pp. 154–164. 2011.
[3] Morais, C., Alves, P., & Miranda, L. Valorização dos ambientes virtuais de
aprendizagem por professores do ensino superior. In Á. Rocha, L. Reis, M. Cota, M. Painho,
& M. Neto (Eds.), Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informação. 8ª Conferência Ibérica de Sistemas
150
e Tecnologias de Informação. Lisboa: AISTI/ISEGI. pp. 289-294. 2013.
[4] Zitter, I., Bruijn, E., Simons, P., & Cate, T. Adding a design perspective to study
learning environments in higher professional education. High Educ 2011. 61. pp. 371-386.
[5] Dahlstrom, E., Brooks, C., & Bichsel, J. The Current Ecosystem of Learning
Management Systems in Higher Education: Student, Faculty, and IT Perspectives. Research
report.
Louisville,
CO:
ECAR,
September
2014.
Available
online:
[6] Alves, P., Miranda, L., & Morais, C. Open Educational Resources: Higher
Education Students‘ Knowledge and use. In Rikke Ørngreen & Karin Tweddell Levinsen
(Eds.), Proceedings of the 13th European Conference on e-learnig ECEL 2014. Reading, UK:
Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited. 2014. pp. 11- 18
[7] Agudo-Peregrina, A., Iglesias-Pradas, S., Conde-González, M., & Hernández-
García, A. Can we predict success from log data in VLEs? Classification of interactions for
learning analytics and their relation with performance in VLE-supported F2F and online
learning. Computers in Human Behavior 2014. 31. pp. 542–550.
[8] Gašević, D. & Siemens, G. Let‘s not forget: Learning analytics are about learning.
TechTrends 2015. 59(1). pp. 64-71
[9] Siemens, G., & Gašević, D. Guest Editorial - Learning and Knowledge Analytics.
Educational Technology & Society 2012. 15(3). pp. 1-2.
[10] Ferguson, R. The state of learning analytics in 2012: A review and future
challenges. Technical report KMI-12-01. UK: Knowledge Media Institute, The Open
University. 2012.
[11] Dawson, S., Gašević, D., Siemens, G., & Joksimovic, S. Current State and Future
Trends: A Citation Network Analysis of the Learning Analytics Field. In Proceedings of the
Fourth International Conference on Learning Analytics And Knowledge. New York, NY,
USA: ACM. 2014. pp. 231–240.
[12] Greller, W., & Drachsler, H. Translating learning into numbers: A generic
framework for learning analytics. Educational Technology & Society 2012. 15(3). pp. 42–57.
Available online:
Generic-for-Greller-Drachsler/d1bd219962defaeb326c3b51fb4fb1086c5b7b28
[13] ECAR Working Group. The Predictive Learning Analytics Revolution Leveraging
Learning Data for Student Success. Available online: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ewg1
510.pdf.
13 trang
13820
Free
Bạn đang xem tài liệu "Effective virtual learning enviroment through moodle", để tải tài liệu gốc về máy hãy click vào nút Download ở trên
File đính kèm:
- effective_virtual_learning_enviroment_through_moodle.pdf
