First look at Moodle 2.0

I’m only on chapter 3 of Moodle 2.0 First Look by Mary Cooch but the changes are amazing. If you have an interest in elearning then I would certainly suggest you buy this book from our E-Shop. I have worked as a Moodle administrator in a Sixth Form College for over 2 years using Moodle 1.9 therefore I can really see the benefits of upgrading to Moodle 2.0. I will give you a short overview of some of the changes.

To begin with there is 20 included themes that are so much nicer and look more professional than previous versions of Moodle. There is a new navigation block with links to Home, my home, site pages, my profile and courses.

There is a new docking facility allowing you to dock blocks to the side of the page this allows you to save valuable space.

There is a completely new way of managing your content. In the book it explains that there is a ‘different philosophy for file management. It has more functionality and is more secure.’

File (instead of link to a file or web site)

Folder (instead of Display a directory)

Page (instead of Compose a web page / Compose a text page)

URL (instead of link to a file or web site)

In Moodle 1.9 and earlier versions the add a resource list looked like below. I think you will agree that the change in Moodle 2.0 is much easier to follow. Especially if you are a new user to Moodle.

There is a new text editor (based on the popular tinyMCE editor as used in WordPress for example). The text editor in previous versions of Moodle was not compatible with many browsers. This was a major headache.

There is a new file picker when uploading files with a better design.

That’s all for now but as I go through the rest of the book I will keep you informed of the most impressive changes.