According to Capterra’s latest research (see image below), Moodle™ continues to be the most popular learning management system (LMS) software worldwide, with nearly 213 million users.
The Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies recently confirmed Moodle’s hold on the education community with its list of the Top 100 Tools for Learning in 2013; while one-trick pony apps like YouTube, Twitter and Dropbox filled up the list of Top Tools for Learning, Moodle came in at the 11th position – which is impressive for such “serious” and specialized educational software.
Moodle has been on top for a while now.
Year after year, Moodle continues to be the world's leading LMS software solution, and it doesn't appear that this is going to change anytime soon, seeing as Moodle has 3.7 times the users of the next leading LMS. As the Moodle community continues to grow, the open-source software is only going to continue to get better as developers add user-driven updates and plugins. One of the key benefits of using an open-source LMS software like Moodle is the instant customer feedback and improvement loop that is built into the business model.
What are Moodle’s most popular plugins?
Again according to Moodle.org itself, the most-downloaded add-ons are Questionnaire, Certificate, Presenter and Book, with thousands of users between them. Again, customizability is where Moodle shines; if you can think of something your learning institution needs, there’s probably a module for it already. If not, you can share resources with other institutions and stakeholders that may benefit from the new module to create it together.
Another sign of Moodle’s popularity is the sheer number of video tutorials out there showing people how to use it. On YouTube alone, there are 136,000 videos dealing with Moodle tutorials. eLearning Industry has a good selection of 60+ Moodle related instruction — and naturally, you can check out the growing number of Lambda Solutions Moodle tutorial webinars.
Moodle’s connections to other social media platforms are also growing rapidly. Part of Moodle’s appeal has been its ability in recent years to integrate functionality and content from other social networks like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. One of the newer but popular social networks is Google+where the Moodle Hangout has grown from just 150 to 4,200 in just under a year.
What’s driving Moodle’s growth?
For many academic institutions, technical colleges and firms, it’s simply the best match in functionality for a growing need for online learning solutions. Consider these numbers on the state of the eLearning industry gathered in this infographic:
- 1 out of four US colleges offers an online course
- The eLearning economy is expected to grow to nearly $51 billion by 2016. That kind of money changes people – and nations’ education systems.
- The current worldwide eLearning market size for learning management systems is $2.55 billion and growing.
For more information on the world's leading LMS software, contact the LMS Solution Experts.
Graphic provided by capterra.com.
