"While the Consortium for School Networking is vendor-neutral and tries to help inform technology decision-making in K-12 environments by focusing on the choices available, there are times when examining a specific product can be very helpful," says the report, called "Moodle: An Open Learning Content Management System for Schools."

"Such, we believe, is the case with Moodle. While this report is technically not vendor-specific (since Moodle is 'open-source' software, it does not require going through a commercial vendor), we believe that the widespread and often enthusiastic response to Moodle by K-12 institutions creates a need to briefly define what Moodle is, to [suggest] what it can do, and to give some specific examples of how it is being implemented."

Moodle enables teachers to develop online curricula and lesson plans, administer assignments and quizzes, and participate in professional development activities from home. It also allows students to engage in lessons off-site if they have internet access, providing a valuable school-to-home connection that can maximize learning.

Moodle can help with basic functions such as classroom management, or more complex tasks such as complete eLearning or "blended instruction"--eLearning that extends into on-site classroom instruction. As of last fall, the report says, Moodle claimed to have more than 14 million users, with more than 35,000 sites in 195 countries. In the appendix, the report describes how Moodle is being implemented in five schools and school districts across the country.

For instance, Michigan's East Grand Rapids Public Schools, which has about 2,800 students in five schools, has found varying uses for Moodle in the classroom.

The district's networking and security manager, Jeff Crawford, started experimenting with Moodle a few years ago, placing it on a middle school server. That prompted a social studies teacher to begin using Moodle in all of her classes, using mobile laptop carts.

Crawford did a small Moodle pilot with eight teachers for two class periods a day and found the response positive. A middle-school science teacher developed a course for use at home, including webquests, quizzes, and other resources that accompanied classroom instruction.

Teachers started to use Moodle for individual problems as well. A speech teacher wanted to show her students how to turn in a series of speech drafts and outlines, and found she could create assignments with student drop boxes in an otherwise empty Moodle course.

Another teacher wanted to use the eBook version of a textbook for the whole class. The publisher required that the resource be made available only to the class that had purchased the book. The teacher used Moodle to "enroll" students in a course that used the eBook as a resource.