Why the VLE is not dead in DCU?

Virtual Learning Environments (VLE's) have been the subject of much discussion, referred to as outdated and no longer needed (Wheeler, 2009). DCU were one of the first universities in the world to adopt Moodle over 10 years... [ view full abstract ]

Virtual Learning Environments (VLE's) have been the subject of much discussion, referred to as outdated and no longer needed (Wheeler, 2009).

DCU were one of the first universities in the world to adopt Moodle over 10 years ago. It is now one of the core pieces of infrastructure within the university and it's value to the university is going from strength to strength. Over the last three years we have seen a 20% growth in the use of Moodle, year on year. At a time when technology has evolved so much and students expect so much more - why is the VLE not dead in DCU?. We have not out grown Moodle, it has grown with us.

While "out of the box" Moodle is quite good but we have made a conscious decision to adapt Moodle.In addition to installing some plugins available through the community, we have developed plugins to customise Moodle to meet our needs to address both pedagogical and administrative challenges.The talk will outline how we have streamlined the assessment process, made group work easier, provided e-voting for the students union elections etc. They are just a selection of modifications that will be outlined in this paper.