Does the Use of Websites like Moodle in Normal Classrooms Increase Efficiency?

This year, I decided to take a few college preperatory classes, and I'm finding more and more that a lot of the stuff I'm going to be doing in college might be done on the Internet. My librarian, who is overly active in student's learning and wants to try and bore us to death, claims that we'll probably even be doing work on blogs. Whether it be reading blogs, subscribing to blogs, writing for blogs, or analyzing blogs, we'll probably have to deal with them some time in the future, as well as online classrooms and forums becoming more popular.

My english teacher uses an online forum-like website based on education, and it's really quite new to me. I've never used Moodle before, however a select few of the students in the class seem to have prior experience with the website. This website is mainly used in the english department, since english requires a lot of writing, turn in dates, and communication from peer-to-peer as well as with the teacher, because writing is a long process and constant input is pretty much required.

So what is moodle? You can view the website at moodle.com, my personal moodle website is moodle.khps.org, which applies strictly to my school. Moodle is basically just an online forum which allows teachers to post assignments, students to turn in assignments, as well as communicate with the teacher and other students. I login using the username and password I use to login to school computers, therefore every student in the district has access to moodle. More and more teachers are using Moodle, and it may become more popular in the years to come.

There are a few different ways I can view Moodle. I guess I haven't had a whole lot of experience with it, or other websites like it yet, but it seems to be a positive thing for a few reasons. Moodle is good for writing papers because it allows much easier communication between the student and the teacher, and in many cases, students with other students. If you're in need of a good opinion before turning in a piece of writing, or any other type of assignment, sometimes posting it to another student or posting it to the teacher's page and allowing changes before turning in the final copy is a great way to polish your copy of writing.

Moodle is also a decent educational resource because it sort of allows teachers to grade on a more effecient basis. If students need to cite sources, they can check the links directly online, it'll save on paper and grading time, and so on.

Why not use Moodle? There are a few things I don't particularly like. For one, writing can often be private. If you have to turn your assignments online by replying to a post created by the teacher, then everyone will be able to view the post you're posting. This means everyone in your class (or maybe the entire public) will have access to your potentially private or embarrassing story. This was sort of bothersome to me.

Another thing that bothered me was the fact that not everyone has Internet access. Of course many teachers are going to give time in class and what not, but my teacher has already made one due date on a sunday night. I have Internet access at home and nearly everyone does, but that doesn't really mean that everyone has that advantage. It's not an entirely fair system to assume that everyone has equal ease of Internet access.

Overall, I might recommend using Moodle to teachers who prefer to keep their students working on the Internet, and want to make grading easier. Teachers do need to take into consideration the fact that not everyone has equal Internet access, as well as the fact that some issues need to stay private with students.