Blackboard to Moodle: A College Student's Transition

My name is Sudesna Batajoo and I am currently a senior majoring in Business Administration with a double concentration in Marketing and International Business at Loyola University Maryland. Since the start of the fall semester, I have been working as an intern for Moodlerooms’ marketing department. Thus far, the experience has been nothing short of exceptional.

Moodle and Moodlerooms are fairly new to me, and I wasn’t familiar with either until Loyola University recently transitioned from Blackboard to Moodlerooms. Now that the university has made a full transition, I’ve found that there’s been an increased emphasis on e-Learning on-campus. As a student, Moodle has made it easier for me to submit assignments, email professors and keep in touch with my team mates for a group project. . Our assignments, projects and updates were managed through different tabs in Blackboard. Now, the PowerPoint slides or any instruction for group projects are listed on one single page in Moodle which makes it easier for me to view everything in one window. This has been very helpful to me to keep track of the syllabus in a weekly basis. My classes listed on Moodle are also linked directly to the college’s homepage (insideloyola) which is very convenient. When I log in my insideloyola page, I can see the list of my courses which redirects me to Loyola’s Moodle page without having to log in again.

However, I am also a student instructor for one of the freshmen experience classes at Loyola. As an instructor, I am responsible for managing the Moodle course for the class. It is interesting to experience Moodle in multiple roles. Although it’s my first semester as a student instructor, I’ve found it very easy to communicate with my students and manage assignments. My professors have also started using various techniques offered by Moodlerooms to run the class. For my advertising class next week, we will be using Moodle Chat Room to discuss a documentary about advertising, instead of meeting in class. Doing this every once in a while makes it more interesting for students.

As the semester progresses, I’m looking forward to learning more about Moodle and the unique ways that it can be used in the classroom.

- Sudesna