Edmodo v Moodle

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Permalink Reply by Doug Walker on January 31, 2012 at 6:20am

Edmodo seems to be a great tool. it is more inline with social networks and I think it will be much more intuitive to students. My only concern and what  has limited my buy-in is that it is a corporation. I fear that at some point in time they will change their business model and start charging for services we have become dependent on. This is exactly what happened with the site we are using now (Ning). With Moodle i know that it will remain free and continue to innovate. It is also in line with what our students will be using in universities. 

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Permalink Reply by Joshua Koch on January 31, 2012 at 11:45pm

Christy,

You can check out the blog at itbabble.com. The guy is Edmodo crazy. He has even created a 30+ page user guide and is in the process of challenging other platforms to meet up to Edmodo. I have personally been using Schoology. It is also free and has all the tools that Edmodo does. I feel like the two platforms are equally powerful, but see for yourself. Schoology allows for you to link Google docs and import your Google calendar. Edmodo doesn't have this feature yet. Both platforms are based on the social network idea. This is a plus because students/teachers/parents are all familiar with the interface (Facebook). If you are looking for something that is more like Moodle (without having to to all the programming), check out Haiku LMS.

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Permalink Reply by norbert kiprop boruett on February 4, 2012 at 3:24am

Thanks for the insight-i will study more on the two lms

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Permalink Reply by Ben Stafford on February 3, 2012 at 9:04pm

I've used both. Moodle is great if it's already tied into your SIS. Keeping track of students in Moodle is also a plus. If a teacher doesn't have access to Moodle then Edmodo is a great alternative.

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Permalink Reply by norbert kiprop boruett on February 4, 2012 at 3:22am

Christy that would be interesting - i dream, eat and drink Moodle- i know nothing else

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Permalink Reply by Karen Maginnis on February 8, 2012 at 5:38pm

I've used both, and the kids latched on to Edmodo immediately because the interface is almost identical to Facebook.  I have to say, though, this is like comparing a top of the line Harley (Moodle) to a beach cruiser (Edmodo).

If you have ever done any distance learning with WebCT, or Angel, or Blackboard, THAT is what Moodle is - an online learning management system, designed to provide a full course experience.  Edmodo is Facebook for education, with the ability to upload and grade assignments thrown in.

With the caveat that I am *not* an Edmodo power user (like the itbabble guy), I can tell you why I prefer Moodle. I teach High School. I have set up each virtual class space as having thematic units (as opposed to weekly, the other option.) I can move those unit boxes up and down the page. [You are stuck with a chrono "wall" in Edmodo, although you can tag things to facilitate searching.]   In my Junior and Senior level classes, we have literature circles and conduct the discussions inside Moodle. This is where Moodle really shines for me, in it's "Forum" activity.  I can set up groups by their novel, and even whether or not they can see other groups' postings.  It keeps it nice and tidy (an essential when you're dealing with sixty to eighty posts a week) and it is easy to go in to a student's file and see whether they did their work.  Or, just look at a group and follow the discussion. It's not everybody posting on one Edmodo page, or having to set up and enroll classmates in multiple pages to keep things separated.   Because I'm the admin for my Moodle, I also have access to lots of tracking information. I can see who logged in when, whether or not they opened the activities or links, etc. It also keeps a record of all student messages. I tell the kids this at the beginning of the year, and they know from the get-go they'll be held accountable for their online interactions in our virtual class space.

If you want someplace to occasionally have a group-wide discussion, or a place to upload assignments, edmodo will be perfectly fine. But if you want a really powerful tool (and inherent learning curve, obviously) that is rife with possibilities and a really good open-source community to answer questions about it, Moodle is the way to go.

And, in reply to Josh's notes on the calendars. Moodle has a built-in calendar that is iCal and can be exported. For anything you add to it, you can tell it to display to the whole site, or just you, or just one class.  In terms of the need to know programming,  I have almost zero capacity in that area. I use the Site5 hosting service for my domain, and they have Moodle already installed.  I just do the version upgrades, which is pretty easy stuff.

Feel free to message me if you ever had any questions.  Or, if you wanted a guest log in  to the site to get a feel for how it works.  Good luck in your research.

Moodling since 2003

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