The increasing demand for online learning environments (Benefits of e-Learning for Students) is what propelled the development of Moodle and BigBlueButton Solutions. They are open-source learning management systems that provide educators with a platform to offer online learning in personalized environments. They foster inquiry, interaction, and collaboration. Moodle site educators and other users can create and deliver courses online to their audiences.
If you have access to both Moodle and BigBlueButton, you can integrate them to provide a better learning experience to your students. It is possible to use the BigBlueButton software within Moodle. It gives you the advantage of gathering all your material and activities in one spot.
Here are some features of Moodle
- Managing and tracking e-learning resources including video, audio, PDFs and more
- Integrating with other systems such as Active Directory, Google Drive, Open Badges and many others
- Calendar option to track events and submission deadlines
- Creating quizzes and surveys
- Supports assignment type of activities such as uploading files.
- Offers interactive tools for student-led learning like wiki-activities and peer-reviewed workshops
- Access to over 65 language packs to customize learning whichever part of the world you are in
- Secure chat rooms for group discussions
Below are some features of BigBlueButton
- Holding meetings with both video and audio options
- White-board style presentations
- Screen-sharing with others
- Sharing of documents
- Chatting during the meeting to share ideas and raise questions
- Recording the meeting
Some of the uses of these online learning management systems include Onboarding and related training workplace safety training, online learning, hiring and interview operations, online course development, product launchers, compliance training, to mention a few.
So what are the pros of using Moodle and BigBlueButton in online learning?
1. They are open source and free.
Moodle and BigBlueButton are free because they are open source software, distributed under the General Public Licenses. In lay man’s language; users and organizations have the freedom to run, share, or modify the software in ways that best meets their needs. Some people may choose to run and support Moodle on their own, whereas others may seek out managed Moodle services from service providers such as Haatch. It is more cost-effective to outsource the managed services and it also helps you do away with the headache of dealing with the technical issues, leaving you to focus on customizing the learning end of the platform for your students.
Some of the services the Moodle service providers offer include plugin installation, Moodle implementation and set-up, custom plugin development, consulting, managed cloud hosting, integrations and custom development, and custom report development. These offerings, of course, vary from provider to provider. Some may have more features, and others may have less.
2. Highly flexible and Feature-rich
Another reason why Moodle and BigBlueButton are an excellent option for educators is that they are configurable, high-flexible, and rich in features. As you have seen from the features discussed above, these platforms have a lot to offer to users. In addition to being an open-source code that you can modify, numerous plugins allow you to configure them to your liking. Over 1500 Moodle plugins are developed by the Global community so that you can make your learning a successful, collaborative, and fun engagement.
3. Global Community Support
Having been around since 2002, Moodle has a vast community of developers. A significant benefit from it being an open-source code is that it welcomes scrutiny from myriads of developers. They then come up with ways to modify it to make it more secure. Furthermore, the scrutiny allows for continuous update by people who understand it better, revising it to give its users a better experience. Another thing that comes from having a vast global community is the endless amount of learning resources. You can connect with other users from the community forums to find answers to any questions you may have and raise concerns about any issues. There are about 144 million posts on the forums; I doubt there’s any question left unanswered.
4. Insights to your courses, learners, and teachers
The Moodle and BigBlueButton generate heaps of data but have limited reporting abilities. Moodle only allows the generation of standard reports for specific sets of data. However, you can get analytical tools to process more of this data to gain more information about your site. This information will help you improve the experience for your learners and teachers as well.
5. Ease of Integration
The Moodle Learning Management System is easy to integrate with other business functions such as human resource management, talent management, compliance, customer relationship management, and workflow management. Just like we mentioned before, you can integrate Moodle with BigBlueButton to get a better experience.
6. E-commerce functionality
You can generate additional revenue from selling your courses with Moodle. There are various e-commerce plugins you can use to customize your Moodle site. They come complete with tracking and reporting features that allow you to track the purchases and create revenue reports for your sales. You can incorporate several payment gateways to allow your clients to make purchases through a mode that is most convenient for them.
7. Feedback system
The Learning management systems come with a feedback system that helps you understand which methods are doing well and which ones are not. From this information, you can take the best course of action to improve your methods quality.
In conclusion, Moodle and BigBlueButton are popular learning management systems because they offer flexibility and are highly configurable. Remember, you can choose to support them on your own, or you can go the cost-effective way and outsource some of the services to experts.