eLearning Port

Moodle in a Flash!

Which sounds better?

• Moodle in a Flash (Disk)
• School in a Flash (Disk)
• Flash School
• Portable Learning (or eLearning)

The name doesn’t matter much at this point. What I’m more excited about are the possibilities.

Dreams do come true.

A few weeks after I first encountered Moodle (Version 1.3 or 1.5 was it?), I dreamt of the possibility of a “bring-anywhere school” (another name?). The 1:1 computer-to-child ratio for schools is still a big challenge but most places would have access to one. And solid-state disks were beginning to get  cheaper then. The emergence of low-cost computers provides a brighter glimmer of hope. Yet the availability of internet access is a bigger concern now.

It was just bound to happen, making Moodle portable. Though it is now reality, the main concern has always been content.

The Moodle in a Flash Disk implementation I used was of the WOS Portable kind from CHSoftware, packaged by VLEMiddleware.

In a recent Philippine E-Learning Society forum, I made a presentation entitled: “e-Learning: Open, Free and …“. Instead of using Powerpoint, Impress or Keynote, I used Moodle and just composed web pages for topics. There was a little glitch at first, since the PC I used went into sleep mode and I had to refresh the login.

So I went though the motions of Open Source tools like Moodle, Wink, GIMP, Jashaka. I also spoke about Free and Open Content, mentioning the MIT OCW, Cape Town Declaration and other initiatives abroad and locally.

The discussion I gave was nothing really new. Then I made a “one more thing” ala Steve Jobs when he got the manila envelop and introduced the Macbook Air. I paraphrase:

<blockquote>”Oh by the way, my topic is not really about e-learning being free and open. It’s about the dots. The dots in the title actually mean portable. Ladies and gentlemen, you may be wondering why I chose Moodle as my presentation software. It was to demonstrate that we can now have a school in s flash disk. Moodle in a Flash (Disk).</blockquote>

Being the timid race we are, there was no applause or “oohs” nor  “ahhs” but it was clear that this has opened a lot of possibilities.

E-learning has become Free, Open and Portable.

The challenge now is content. As it was before.