Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment

Moodle (abbreviation for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is a free and open-source e-learning software platform, also known as a Course Management System, Learning Management System, or Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). As of October 2010^[update] it had a user base of 49,952 registered and verified sites, serving 37 million users in 3.7 million courses.^[3]
Moodle was originally developed by Martin Dougiamas to help educators create online courses with a focus on interaction and collaborative construction of content, and is in continual evolution.
The Moodle project comprises several distinct distinct but related elements, namely

Google Apps and Moodle Integration?

Even though I haven’t used Moodle as much as WordPress and Wikispaces in my own teaching and learning, I have installed it enough times to know what it does well and what it does not do so well.
Moodle does a very good job of monitoring students, giving assessments/grades, providing content, and doing discussion forums. It does not do a very good job of synchronous collaboration, wikis, email, or any of the other things that Google Apps does an amazing job at. I guess that is why Moodlerooms decided that it would be a great idea to get the two projects together and create an easy way to do single-sign-on.
I am amazed at the potential for something like this. Imagine being able to log into your classes, your e-mail, your sites, and your docs all at one place.

Moogle? Google Apps and Moodle join forces!

T.H.E. Journal reports that Google Apps Education Edition is coming to a Moodle near you! Google Apps comprises email, calendar, document-creation, website-creation and messaging tools, provided free-of-charge for educational institutions. Moodle, of course, is the most widely-used (and Open Source) elearning platform.
Through the integration, users loaded into Moodle will be automatically loaded into Google Apps Education Edition, "providing users with Web-based e-mail, document authoring, spreadsheets, presentations and sites, all integrated with their online learning platform," explained Moodlerooms' West Coast Managing Director Michael Penney.

Moodle vs. Google for on-line teaching

Moodle is like a wiki that is specially organised to support on-line courses. The documentation outlines the pedagogical rationale behind the organisation of the application. Lord help you if you don't agree with the rationale or the organisation. If Moodle is hosted on your server, information technology people need to support it by keeping it up-to-date and troubleshooting problems.