Now that we’re four weeks into school, most students have had to deal with Moodle — our very own Modular Object-Oriented Distant Learning Environment. Whether they are printing out notes, practice tests or having to take online quizzes, most students have felt the anguish of trying to access Moodle.I know how I feel about Moodle — it’s absolutely terrible — but I wanted to know what other students thought. I talked to students as I spent an afternoon in the Quad. A petroleum engineering junior noticed his teachers were struggling more than he was. The student’s lab TA, Jake Dehamer, didn’t post the class on Moodle until last week. The student said he only had a problem with Moodle when he couldn’t access the program. He said he had no problem finding things on the program. “I hate Moodle,” said Brittany Sylvester, mass communication senior, who has four classes on Moodle. She said Moodle shuts down and does not let her access her class pages. Sylvester, unlike other students I talked to, has called the Moodle help line. “They were very helpful and able to get me back online,” said Sylvester. She said the Semester Book and Blackboard services were “more efficient and [it was] easier to find things on them.” Nate Bednarz, a finance freshman who has four classes on Moodle, hates that the program “always goes down when I need to get on.” Bednarz said he liked Blackboard better when he used it in high school. Bednarz said he had to upload a picture of himself onto the system for a business administration class. But he was unable to crop it, so there is now a photo of just his chest instead of his face on his profile. One of Bednarz’s friends chimed in to say that it’s difficult to find information on Moodle. He said he has a particularly hard time printing out notes. Another student chimed in and wanted to know why the University made the switch from the Semester Book-Blackboard system to Moodle. Sheri Thompson, IT planning and communications officer, said Thursday the decision to switch to Moodle wasn’t taken “lightly.” The switch was part of the IT strategic planning for the Flagship Agenda. She pointed me to www.lsu.edu/cms, where a report is available on how the decision was made. Basically the group wanted to use a system that could incorporate the best things about Semester Book and Blackboard. They also wanted an “open system” that could be made “unique” to the University, said Thompson. Though I received several complaints from students,  Thompson said they have received little to no complaints. Most of the complaints and problems come from the faculty, according to Thompson. She suggests Moodle’s “bells and whistles” and increased complexity for teachers are the reasons that faculty are having a harder time. At the beginning of the semester it was a problem with the vendor that caused the difficulty. More recently there has been a problem with the authentication process, which Thompson says was a “PAWS problem,” not a Moodle problem. Another problem that Thompson pointed to was a matter of compatibility. Teachers and students didn’t have the right version of Microsoft Word. Thompson also mentioned Mac to PC problems and vice versa. She offered several ways students and faculty can get help with Moodle. Thompson said there is an ITS Facebook fan page that students can join. Updates and problems with Moodle are first published on the Facebook group page and then to the PAWS homepage.  She encouraged students to “definitely” report any problems. Thompson also suggested students and faculty having trouble navigating Moodle should attend a training session. After talking with students and Thompson, it seems most students aren’t happy with the new system. They’re afraid of the change. I don’t blame them. Moodle is definitely different from Semester Book and Blackboard. I personally haven’t had a ton of trouble finding things on Moodle. The worst part is trying to get on to the system. If ITS can fix the problem of students being able to get on the system soon, both students and faculty will be a whole lot happier. —-Contact Matthew Gravens at [email protected]