About Moodle

Moodle is actually an acronym—MOODLE (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment). Moodle is modular in the sense that there are many modules and plug-ins available for users to add to any Moodle site in order to extend its functionality. These modules are interchangeable, which gives users the flexibility to customize Moodle.

Schools, universities, and companies have heavily adopted Moodle. Many schools and universities use it as a tool for online instruction while others use it as a supplement to face-to-face/brick-and-mortar classrooms for a blended learning approach. Many companies are also using Moodle as a corporate training tool to educate employees and customers.

History of Moodle

Martin Dougiamas is the original developer and founder of Moodle. He released the first beta version in November 2001 (Martin Dougiamas at EDUCAUSE 2010 by Michael Felderstein). Moodle 1.0, the first feature-complete version, was released on August 20, 2002. Moodle 2.0 was released on November 24, 2010. Moodle 3.0 was released November 16, 2015. Dougiamas followed the social constructionist pedagogy in order to develop five guiding principles, which he used to design and develop Moodle. We'll review those shortly.

As of August 2018, there were 100,130 registered Moodle sites. Visit Home | Moodle.org to view more Moodle statistics. Today, it is the world’s most widely used open-source LMS, with more than 131 million users and sites in 231 countries.