Borui's Critique of Moodle

 Yu Borui’s Critique of Moodle


Moodle, as one of the most popular LMSs, has both good points and shortcomings. In this critique, I will address both aspects based on my experience of being a regular user of Moodle during my college years.

In terms of advantages, its most notable feature is that it covers all the pedagogical functions required for academic programs. Teachers are able to post notifications on the program pages, to assign homework for the class and to conduct quizzes for the students. These are only some of Moodle’s many functions. Among all these functions, I personally regard the “Deadline Reminder” on the main page of the most useful one for me. For instance, if there are many classes in one semester, the homework assigned by the teachers can be listed in the right side of the home page and arranged in order of deadlines. I was able to schedule my academic plans by checking the deadline reminder and I avoided many timing errors. The function really made my acquisition more efficient.

Furthermore, it can be used in all kinds of teaching mode. The teachers are able to upload the class materials and supplementary files at Moodle. In the meantime, the students are also able to get feedback from the teachers. This kind of balanced pattern allows Moodle to increase the learning efficiency of the classes without changing the class structure (such as F2F, Online or Hyflex and so on). Regardless of the inconvenience in terms of time and space, it can meet the students’ differentiated learning needs. For me, whether learning took place in the pandemic (Online) or after that period (F2F), Moodle is always an amazing tool for me to manage my study.

But it also has some drawbacks that could cause inconvenience to users. The first one is that it is not compatible with the update(s) of computer system like Windows. When there are updates, it might cause a sudden collapse of Moodle, and it often requires a couple of hours to fix the issue. Which made me miss several deadlines. When it happens, it also brings confusion to the class, the teachers have to deal with this issue, which means they will spend more time fixing the chaos instead of focusing on the class contents.

As for another shortcoming, Moodle has a good construction on the website page, when using PC, it’s convenient and visualized. Yet when it is opened by smart phone, the whole page went into an absolute mess. You can’t find the deadline reminder in the right side, but you might find it “separately” in the bottom and the top. Also, many useful functions are missed, just as the loading speed has been reduced.

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