Welcome to the Moodle Age

by Sarit Cohen - Computing and Information Systems Department, Orot Israel College

With 12 million users - and counting! – in over 200 countries, Moodle has certainly taken the world by storm, and here at Orot Israel College, we are proud to be a part of this global sensation. In fact, Orot is the first Israeli college to use Moodle 2.3, the newest version of the popular e-learning environment.

Moodle– an acronym for “Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment” – is an online e-learning platform. Based on open-source software, the free system is designed for cooperative learning and offers a wide range of sophisticated tools for producing and distributing content. Moodle’s flexibility allows each educational institution to tailor and customize the system to meet its own particular needs.

In Israel, Moodle plays a major role in both the educational system and the academic world and has sparked a paradigm shift. Today, courses across the country are comprised of four distinct elements: the lecturer, the students, the classroom, and Moodle.

At Orot Israel College, our computing department worked together with the faculty to upgrade all of our online courses using Moodle. The dynamic platform enabled us to build dozens of websites, which correspond to each of our online courses. At the same time, we increased our online course offerings and also added new courses, and eventually, we hope to design websites for all of our regular courses as well.