March 2008

In February three of our Learning Technologies team members traveled to Germany to meet with our long-term partners, Greater Europe Mission and Horizon International Schools. These two ministries provide theological education in dozens of countries around the world.

Our purpose in partnering is to share resources in providing quality theological education in a distance format. Horizon International Schools has chosen to provide courses through an online course management system with the strange name of Moodle. Moodle is open source so it is free and fairly easy to use for teachers and students alike.

Moodle’s limitation has been that it is all online. For a student to take a course he or she must connect to the Internet. While this works in places where the Internet is available and affordable, Moodle is not a solution for the many pastors and students who are beyond the reach of the Internet.

While in Germany, Learning Technologies introduced Portable Moodle, or “Poodle,” as it was jokingly called. Our LT tools team has been working on this for years and was successful in getting it up and running in time for our meetings.

“Poodle” will enable students without Internet connection to take courses delivered by CD or on a thumb drive. (Teacher-student interactions can take place through other means, including cell phone.)

The leadership of Greater Europe Mission and Horizon International Schools was exstatic when we introduced this new tool. They will be able to put it to immediate use in delivering courses beyond where they have been able to reach thus far.

“This is going to be huge,” said Al Cuthbert, director of Horizon International Schools.

One of our top priorities in MAF Learning Technologies is to put our efforts into training that reaches to the remote pastors and leaders who do not have access to training. It was a delight to be able to deliver “Poodle” to our partners who will then take it and use it to transform lives.