Sunday, June 29, 2014

Book Review: Moodle Course Design Best Practices


Recently I was given a reviewer's copy of Moodle Course Design Best Practices from the publisher Packt Pub. The fact that I was given a copy of the book in exchange for a written review has in no way influenced my rating of the book.

Moodle Course Design Best Practices by Susan Smith Nash and Michelle Moore was a fairly quick read that gives a high level introduction on how to set up courses for a few different situations using the Moodle platform.

The first four chapters give guidelines about using Moodle, how to plan and organize your course and finally some best practices in content delivery. These cover topics such as accessibility (offering your content in different formats so those with disabilities can partake in the course), how the platform is laid out, etc.

The next four chapters talk about different learning situations: Independent Study, Teacher-Student interactive courses, Project Based and Online Communities. Each of these chapters talk about the different areas you should include while setting your course up. Obviously the authors can only discuss this at a high level as each course will be different and there will be different requirements.

Overall I thought this was a good book and I thought that the authors met the goal they set out to reach with this book. I wish the authors would have been more consistent with their screenshot usage when illustrating topics. If you want to get an overview of Moodle and get some ideas of how to set up your course with it, this book should help.

For those who like to see actual ratings, I give the book a 4 out of 5 stars.