Moodle, an open source CMS (or LMS)

As Open source may not be a choice for the professionals, since there is little or no support it is still a good start to get to know new software. Moodle could even so be an exception when it comes to support since their forum is full of enthusiasm and creative people.

Also i run into The Barn where one on an idealistic basis offer people free elearning using Moodle. The resources in africa are restricted so i think there will open source play an even more important role.

It is an course managment system or learning management system. There are several others of these systems around and all have their pros and cons.

One function that Moodle have that i miss in Edulink (our CMS) is that you can write math formulas direct in the system. As it is now i still have problems with explaining Equation editor to the students with little computer knowledge.

There are other users of Moodle even here in Sweden. University of Uppsala have started to use Moodle as a cms for some of their online courses .

The gain in using a CMS is in administration of the exersizes and tests. It makes it easy to follow each students advances. Another point is that one can have everything at one place - Material, Tests, Exersizes, Discussions and Communication.
Of course there is cons to. You are a bit tied to the systems limits. It might take some time and education to learn how to handle the system, but then you save so much more time when you have mastered it.