Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Where to host moodle?

CQU is going through a little debate on the merits of hosting a new LMS either inside the campus, or externally with another organization. This has led to Mahara ePortfolios along with the current moodle implementation being hosted off-site.

I've also been going through this quandry as Personal Learning becomes more and more clear to me. I've been rebuilding a moodle site here at St.Luke's for use next term while I'm teaching, but should it be here? Should I be encouraging the kids to set out their own personal environment that they can keep forever?

OLDaily pointed to Terry Anderson's article regarding My place or yours? A look into the same problem.

I'm leaning toward the front yard approach. I believe it's the institution's responsibility to provide an environment for learning, and the investment in retaining past students within the same system (but accessing different resources) for lifelong learning provides an enduring advertisement for that institution. As more and more educational bodies move toward an open virtual environment devoid of buildings to mark their presence, the affiliation toward an institution through the daily support of resources and links back to previous material is essential.