Dive Brief:

• Moodle has launched a new, cloud-based hosting service called MoodleCloud for educators and their classes of up to 50 students.
• Much like the full Moodle platform, MoodleCloud gives users the opportunity to create their own online courses and use collaborative learning tools through the platform.
• MoodleCloud comes with free hosting, unlimited database space for an unlimited number of courses, full support, and use of virtually all Moodle capabilities.

Dive Insight:

MoodleCloud’s free hosting is offered with the financial support of advertising. The new platform also offers free video conferencing for up to six users. Educators can connect with remote learners and communicate with audio and video, as well as use a virtual whiteboard and other presentation tools.

As an open source learning management system, Moodle’s development has been helped along by independent programmers, all of whom have access to the source code and can create their own plugins and check for bugs. Proprietary systems offered by companies such as Blackboard do not share their code, which gives the companies greater control over the product and its evolution.