Moodle itself is actually activity-centric. Facilitators using Moodle start with an empty course container and use a handy collection of tools/apps/modules to build a collection or series of focussed collaborative activities for a group of people. Through roles, these same capabilities can be provided to any user (eg students) in the system. Moodle itself is fairly neutral pedagogically – most things are possible.
(Moodle 2.0 is fully exposed via web services and adds even more opportunites for all participants to integrate external sites and affect the content of the Moodle site itself. And Moodle 3.0 is already being designed … :) )
However, I strongly agree that a large proportion of Moodle administrators and teachers don’t necessarily understand all this, and end up USING the system in a very didactic and locked-down way, reducing write capabilities and focussing on “dump and pump” learning designs (resources and quizzes). I do understand some of the reasons – many of them have never had the exciting online learning experiences we know are possible, or are constrained by very outdated brick-and-mortar policies at their institutions.
A core focus for the Moodle project is to help change these factors. Our community hub plans are basically social networking and course sharing for teachers, focussed very specifically on particular subjects and how they can be taught/learned.
Cheers!
Martin Dougiamas
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