Teaching chemistry with Moodle

Moodle (http://www.moodle.org) is a free, open-source course management system that emphasizes community building, critical reflection, and collaborative work. It provides a powerful array of tools not found in many commercial course management systems. It includes facilities for web publishing, equation typesetting, content management, adaptive prelabs and lessons, parameterized and hierarchical homework banks, Flash and SCORM learning objects, assessment, detailed student tracking, and record-keeping. Moodle is under active development, and is supported by a large community of system administrators, teachers, researchers, instructional designers and developers. Being open source, the code can easily be modified to suit specific needs, and Moodle can run on any server capable of running PHP and MySQL.

Moodle has been used to teach chemistry at all levels of the curriculum at Frostburg State University for the last two years. In this paper, I'll outline the tools and features of Moodle, and demonstrate their application in our general chemistry, physical chemistry, and environmental chemical analysis courses. I'll also discuss the impact that Moodle has had on classroom dynamics and pedagogy in laboratory, lecture, and workshop settings.