Moodle

Moodle is the environment we are using in this e-Learning Fundamentals course. It is a free, Open Source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities. You can download and use it on any computer you have handy (including webhosts), yet it can scale from a single-teacher site to a 50,000-student University.

Currently there are 26,979 sites from 184 countries who have registered (you don't have to register so the number of users is way higher).

Moodle is available in 72 languages.

Moodle is created by a worldwide community and it offers a great set of standard functionalities like:

• Communication (forums, chat, messaging, news).
• Collaborative tools (wiki, blogs).
• File management.
• Grouping of students.
• Assignments.
• e-Assessment.
• Polls.

Every week somebody is developing an additional module by the community and everybody can download and use the new functionality. If the module is with a good quality and everybody find it useful it may be integrated in the next standard release.
 

Blackboard

Blackboard was the most important learning management system when they started in the nineties. The commercial environment caused a revolution because it was the first widely accepted LMS within a lot of educational institutions. Within the corporate market Blackboard was not very popular and other LMSs like SABA or Docent where used more frequently.

Teachers found it easy to use and it fitted with their pedagogical model. Blackboard is now offering a wide variety of modules with different functionalities and as a customer you can even add your own modules. Additional functionalities like e-Portfolios and content management are available.

When buying the Blackboard Learning System you can use functionalities like:

• Course Management.
• Content Authoring (WYSIWYG editor).
• Adaptive Release (planned release of content).
• Syllabus Builder (enables to upload an existing syllabus or develop a syllabus).
• Learning Units (create sequenced lessons).
• Course Cartridges (third party pre-packaged content).
• Teaching and Learning Tools.
• Discussion Board.
• Group Projects (peer collaboration).
• Assessments and Surveys.
• Assignments.