I surprised myself with this mini project. I wrote a very short blog post about installing Moodle onto a virtual machine last year (which you can read here if you are interested) and I didn’t really expect to revisit it. This blog is a self-hosted WordPress blog hosted by Tsohost, installing WordPress was a 1-click process via the CPanel and getting a basic blog up and running took less than 20 minutes. I noticed last week that one of the applications available for install via the CPanel was Moodle, so I decided to give it another shot!

Not to say that my last attempt was unsuccessful, but it took an entire weekend to install Server 2012, patch it, install php and MySQL, uninstall it all when it didn’t work then install Moodle again using the Windows Web App Gallery. I finally had Moodle up and running, but it was SLOW and once installed I realised I didn’t have anything else I wanted to do with it, so the VM has just sat collecting virtual dust. I suppose actually having content to host in Moodle has made the whole experiment a lot more rewarding and engaging. This time last year, I didn’t have anything to import, so it was slightly pointless. My knowledge of how an LMS worked was also a lot leaner.

The Process

I decided to create a subdomain and a new website for my Moodle experiment – just in case. I wasn’t sure how WordPress and Moodle would interact using the same database and after about 5 minutes of googling I got bored. I’m not a professional database administrator or developer and I didn’t want to spend hours on this, so approaching this project in this manor was quick, safe and easy. When I originally installed Moodle on a VM I used a Windows Server and cheated by using the Windows Web App Gallery. This time around I’ve installed Moodle onto a Linux server using the CPanel – I still feel like I have cheated as I haven’t had to install MySQL or  PHP myself. Again, I’m not a professional developer so why reinvent the wheel?

As with WordPress, the process was a quick and easy 1-step process and took less than 10 minutes to install and configure. Once up and running I logged into Moodle and made some basic changes and created a new course. I then decided to experiment by importing a scorm package. I decided to import the e-learning module I created for university. My e-learning course was created in Articulate Storyline and I published the course as a scorm 1.2 compliant package. You can find out more about scorm here. 

Introduction to computer hardware elearning course inside moodle.

Summary

And that is pretty much where I currently am. I’ve managed to successfully install Moodle, create a new course and import a scorm package. It’s all web facing so I can now assign users to login. Okay I cheated because I didn’t spend hours on the install, but hey, it works and if I don’t say so myself, it looks pretty cool. 

I’ve only used a handful of learning management systems, but for a free product, Moodle (at the time of writing) appears to be pretty powerful.