Technology Metro

Moodle is a course management system that is open source. It uses pedagogical principals, a working theory that states the belief that as people interact with their surroundings they develop knowledge using their senses and that new knowledge becomes embedded as they use it. This downloadable, open source software can be used by one person or a learning institution with as many as two hundred thousand students.

The community that uses Moodle encompasses nearly 200 countries speaking over seventy languages. This system is very flexible, letting the user customize it as it best suits them and is supported by programmers all over the world. There are many advantages to this software package, including the ability to provide feedback to each individual assignment. It also makes it simple to track a student’s progress and activity in class. Distance learning is customized using nearly two hundred teacher-created modules that instructors can customize to their own method of teaching. Instructors like the fact that they have access to resources provided by the actual users of Moodle.

Moodle periodically provides updates with new features, the latest being Gradebook. Another new development is support for Tagging, a feature that links courses and users to sites such as Youtube by using tags.

Surveys show that when they compare teaching software, students give strong support to Moodle. They say that Moodle helps them improve their skills in solving problems, interacting with other students and facilitates communication with instructors. Students also prefer Moodle’s technical assistance. Moodle is user friendly and has tools that other software doesn’t, such as polls and glossaries. Another survey shows that nearly sixty percent of students using Moodle would like it used in other courses, where less than fifty percent would want a course using other software.

MindQuarry is file sharing software that is open source. It can be used with Windows, Mac and Linux. It includes a desktop client that you can use if you wish and it makes task management much simpler. Collaboration with others is easy with MindQuarry and sharing information with others can be done from anywhere. This program is a boon to people seeking to increase productivity, especially if you have people on your team that can’t quite seem to get organized. MindQuarry, like Microsoft’s Sharepoint, lets you put information and documentation into an easily managed form that is simple to access. Unlike many other programs, this one is “freeform”, allowing the development of individual interaction.

It’s been shown that people work best when they can structure and manage their own environment; MindQuarry frees workers to share their ideas at their own level of comfort and lets them set their own limits and rules. If they want to work as a team there is no longer any need for email, as communication is done through MindQuarry. This eliminates complications such as misfiled emails or accidental deletion. Since it’s open source, you can install it on as many work stations as you like and even customize the source code.

Communications normally takes up a lot of time that could be spent getting a job done. MindQuarry slices thirty percent off that figure! Wasting time, searching for information or going through complicated steps to make a presentation will be a thing of the past. If someone places a suggestion, a document or video in the Wiki, it’s available to everyone in one central place. This makes modifying ideas or putting them into action much simpler and faster with a minimum of stress.

With MindQuarry, you can work at the office or at home, offline or on. It lets you control file changes without losing what was previously entered and you can filter your tasks as new assignments or work that has been done. This new software makes it easy to collaborate with a team; best of all, it’s user friendly and very quick and simple to learn. You can Download MindQuarry here free of cost, from MindQuarry’s official site.