Serendipity35

Moodle is my favorite of the open source course management systems (CMS). [AKA learning management systems (LMS) or by many Moodle users, as a virtual learning environment (VLE)]

Beyond the software, "to moodle" is that "improvisational process of doing things as it occurs to you to do them, an enjoyable tinkering that often leads to insight and creativity. As such it applies both to the way Moodle was developed, and to the way a student or teacher might approach studying or teaching an online course."

Of course, if you applying for a grant or pitching it to a high-ranking school official who needs to approve its use but hasn't a clue about what you're talking about, you can say that Moodle stands for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. That will sound much better.

I have been using Moodle since 2005 starting with a comparison pilot study at NJIT with Moodle and Sakai.

There wasn't much available then about using Moodle except what you would find at the Moodle.org site and from other educators who were developing courses. 

Here are 4 books that would be very useful to anyone starting to work with Moodle as an administrator, designer or instructor.

Moodle 1.9 E-Learning Course Development: A complete guide to successful learning using Moodle focuses on course development and delivery and best practices. Moodle is known for being fairly easy to install and use. Of course, any of us who use it to teach or train the teachers know that the hard part comes after the install. Three of these books might help you develop a learning process using Moodle, learn how the software works and what kinds of lessons work best within the platform.

Moodle E-Learning Course Development: A complete guide to successful learning using Moodle has the greatest emphasis on using the software for better teaching. It goes into most of the tool available such as quizzes, tests, surveys, projects and the social tools like forums, choices, wiki and journal that encourage interaction and group work between students.

According to the author:

When I wrote Moodle E-Learning Course Development, I started with Moodle and worked towards creating an online course that adheres to good teaching practices. The book is organized according to the workflow that works best in Moodle: create your course, add static course material, then add interactive material, then add social material, then customize the roles for your course...and so on. The approach in this book is to start with what Moodle can do and work towards creating an effective e-learning experience. The keystrokes and clicks in this book apply only to Moodle.

When I wrote Moodle Teaching Techniques, I started with a list of proven learning principles. I then developed Moodle techniques that used these principles. Some of these techniques work around Moodle's limitations, which makes them inappropriate for a book on using Moodle as it was intended. Others combine features, or use features in unexpected ways. In each case, the approach in this book is to start with a research-based learning principle and work towards creating an effective e-learning experience. Moodle Teaching Techniques is less about keystrokes, and and more about teaching techniques. You could probably apply all of the techniques in this book to another LMS, like ATutor or ILIAS. The keystrokes and clicks would change, but the most important parts of the book would not.

The social constructionist learning philosophy is at the heart of Moodle. The philosophy predates social networking as we use the term online these days, but Moodle fits very well into that.  If you believe that all of us construct knowledge through interactions with one another and with learning materials in a social way, then Moodle (and these books) might seem quite natural to you.

Hopefully, you and you fellow educators are past arguing whether or not a virtual learning environment should be used to support traditional class teaching. (The idea that all of this is just for online and distance learning courses is not worth my time to argue.)

Moodle Teaching Techniques: Creative Ways to Use Moodle for Constructing Online Learning Solutions  This book (and the 2 other non-admin titles) is written by William Rice. His infrequently updated blog also has some good Moodle info (here's a Moodle versus Sakai post)  This is the newest title of this group. It's tough to teach/learn software from a book, so there are many screenshots in these books so you can see what a course looks like - hopefully, the version matches the one you are using. This book assumes you have some basic background with Moodle (it's not a how to use Moodle book) and want to get into using it to teach. More Ed, less Tech.

Finally, Moodle Administration: An administrator's guide to configuring, securing, customizing, and extending Moodle is written in a problem/solution style for technicians, systems administrators, and academic staff. It's not for novices to Moodle or to IT administration.