Moodle vs Microsoft Teams – Struggling to decide between Moodle and Microsoft Teams for online learning? Find out which one is best for structured sequential learning and which one excels in synchronous collaboration with our expert guide!
Do I use Moodle or Microsoft Teams? Or do I use both together? Which one do I use for assignment submissions and which one for chat? Both Moodle and Microsoft Teams are well-known and established platforms for online learning. But eLearning professionals very often face (simple yet) tricky questions on how to use these tools.
Moodle vs Microsoft Teams, so which one do we use, and for what?
Moodle is a dedicated online platform, is well-established, and is open-source (free to download and use). Teams is primarily a business management platform that’s relatively new to online learning and its users can take advantage of Microsoft’s powerful collaboration tools, although their marketing is equally powerful, which can make it difficult to see through and find out exactly what you want to know as a user.
What does Moodle offer?
Moodle’s strongest muscle is the ability to provide sequential learning where learners have to progress through tasks and resources in a specific order. Activities are organised in a linear fashion where various activities/tasks are visible in very sequential order. Teachers/trainers can create courses that have topic areas inside which learners can systematically progress through content and other activities. Its other forte is asynchronous learning where learners go through activities and tasks autonomously, in their own time.
The advantage of this for students is that it becomes very easy to work through course materials in an organised manner, just like going through a checklist. You can see exactly what you need to do, what you have done, and what you have left to do. Tools like completion tracking provide a visual representation of this, helping students to manage their own progress through a course at a glance, and make sure they’re keeping up to date.
Whether learners are studying during the day, at night, in the bath, or at the park, Moodle provides a structure to their learning journey (a map if you like) of how to get successfully from the beginning to the end.
The kinds of activities that work best on Moodle are:
- Things to read: ebooks from the library online, articles, lecture notes, powerpoint presentations
- Watch videos: Embedded videos or links to videos
- Quizzes and Assignments: Using Moodle’s powerful quizzing tools and writing activities, the Moodle Assignment tools and Turnitin integrations provide the best platforms for written assignments and feedback
- A sequence of tasks: For example, when you need students to complete a number of activities before they progress to the next topic.
- Interactive presentations: Using the H5P plugin or SCORM packages, you can design and create presentations with hotspots, quizzes branching, and all sorts of interactivities.
Microsoft Teams, by contrast, is designed to work best continuously as a business tool.
- It doesn’t assume there is a beginning or an end, but that the business itself is ongoing with people moving in and out of a continuous process
- It really excels in synchronous learning where users interact together or are brought together
- It revolves around its chat and discussion feeds inside which students and teachers can communicate with each other through messaging and video calls – Learners can maintain a constant stream of communication with each other and their tutors from wherever they are
- Users can collaborate on live documents inside Teams in real time without all that tedious work with email attachments, which is great for group work and for engaging students in discussions around texts or other stimuli.
The kind of activities that work best on Teams are:
- Things to discuss: Discussions can be organised into different teams or different channels inside teams, and those discussions can be either written or through video
- Things to produce together: Presentations, Word documents, or Spreadsheets can be produced by multiple people at the same time
Best of Both Worlds: Using Moodle and Microsoft Teams Together for Optimal Online Learning
While Moodle and Microsoft Teams each have their own strengths, using them together can provide the best of both worlds for online learning. Moodle offers a structured and sequential learning experience, ideal for things like reading, watching videos, taking quizzes and completing assignments. It also has features like completion tracking to help students stay on track. On the other hand, Teams excels in synchronous learning, providing a platform for collaboration and communication in real time. Its chat and discussion feeds allow for ongoing conversation and collaboration on live documents, perfect for group work.
By integrating both platforms, learners can benefit from Moodle’s structure and sequential learning, while also taking advantage of Teams’ collaboration and communication tools. For example, students can use Moodle for reading and watching videos, completing quizzes and assignments, while using Teams for real-time collaboration, discussion and group work. Using both platforms together can help create a well-rounded and effective online learning experience.
Contact us if you want to find out how to integrate Microsoft Teams with your LMS or have any questions about Moodle vs Microsoft Teams!
