April 30, 2024
Want to get the most out of your Moodle LMS? Then you need to understand the Moodle Certified Partner Network. Learn all about it here.
Amy Foxwell7 min readIn late 2023, the Moodle (opens in a new tab) learning management system (LMS) reached more than 400 million (opens in a new tab) users. By that time, Moodle LMS already held the top spot as the world’s most popular (opens in a new tab) open-source e-learning environment.
Why do so many educators choose Moodle LMS? One user—an instructor named Faycal—suggested it’s due to the platform’s flexibility.
“Moodle provides a high level of customisation, allowing educators to tailor the learning environment to their specific needs,” Faycal said in a Capterra (opens in a new tab) review quoted on Moodle’s website. (opens in a new tab)
Moodle LMS (opens in a new tab) is a great choice for so many educators because each one of them can create a custom Moodle instance, streamlined just for their learners.
Of course, no one company can meet every teacher’s needs. That’s why Moodle created a global partner network, a community of certified providers that bring new functionality to Moodle LMS—as well as Moodle Workplace, (opens in a new tab) the company’s enterprise learning platform.
ReadSpeaker is proud to be part of that network.
We offer a certified ReadSpeaker for Moodle text-to-speech (TTS) plugin, complete with lifelike AI voices, reading/writing tools, and usage reporting for administrators.
Curious about lifelike TTS tools for your Moodle LMS?
Learn moreBut beyond bringing TTS tools natively to your LMS, why should you care about the Moodle certified partner network?
Because more options in your LMS means more ways to reach students, whatever their needs and preferences, for better learning outcomes. Here’s what every Moodle user (or potential Moodle user!) should know about the extended Moodle LMS ecosystem.
Moodle has invested heavily in building a strong network of certified partners. Members of this network have all earned Moodle’s seal of approval, but the partnership doesn’t end there. Contributors to the Moodle ecosystem regularly share knowledge, come together for group events, and work directly with the Moodle team.
It’s a community approach, in which members work together to create the best possible learning environment for students and educators.
There are three types of Moodle partners in this official network:
Moodle Certified Partners (opens in a new tab) are companies that help you, the end user, build and operate your unique Moodle instance. They may offer training, hosting, implementation, and/or support services for Moodle LMS (but not Moodle Workplace, which requires a Moodle Premium Certified Partner).
These companies enjoy direct access to Moodle’s central office, and they’re among the first to know when the company plans updates or new products. Moodle issues partner certifications, but only after being satisfied that the prospect meets Moodle’s standards for customer service and technical expertise.
Moodle Certified Partnership is only the first level of certification. The next level is…
After some time as Moodle Certified Partners, some companies get Premium status. These are service providers who complete multiple successful Moodle implementations. They’re Moodle veterans, with documented victories on the record.
Only Moodle Premium Certified Partners can offer services in Moodle Workplace (standard partners can only work with Moodle LMS). So if you plan to use Moodle for corporate learning—and you need the advanced workplace-training tools found in Moodle Workplace— you should look for a Premium Certified Partner.
This third category of Moodle Certified Partners is a little different. These companies don’t help you build or run your e-learning platform; instead, they offer integrated tools that make Moodle do more—and often, they’re the only way to bring essential functionality to your Moodle platform.
Certified Integration Partners (opens in a new tab) build software that works seamlessly within Moodle. These plug-ins might give you more options for digital assessments, secure student communications, or get better data analytics.
They may help with content-creation workflow, provide more video editing tools, or connect with virtual proctors. Whatever the function they provide, all Moodle Certified Integrations must meet Moodle’s high security standards and technical specifications.
While open-source plug-ins are also available, Certified Integrations have passed user tests and made it through Moodle HQ’s rigorous testing. They’re a reliable choice for extending functionality in your Moodle LMS or Moodle Workplace platform.
Perhaps the most valuable Moodle add-ons are the ones that give learners a choice about how they interact with your content. A multi-modal approach—such as reading and listening at once—supports the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which ask teachers to offer material in several formats to serve every student.
That’s one of the key strengths of ReadSpeaker’s Moodle Certified Integration: It offers powerful new ways to interact with course content, all natively within the LMS.
ReadSpeaker allows users to instantly listen to course content—or any text in Moodle LMS and Moodle Workplace—without opening a new tab or app. In fact, the ReadSpeaker user interface button floats visibly in the corner of the page, no matter where you go in Moodle. That makes it easy for learners to use ReadSpeaker TTS, plus a whole suite of integrated learning tools.
(enlarge image) ReadSpeaker’s TTS tools lead to better learning outcomes. A two-year study, completed at the end of 2019, found that students who used ReadSpeaker TTS tools got better grades than those who didn’t.
That same study asked the students who used ReadSpeaker how they felt about the tool.
“It was definitely helpful,” said one student. “You can turn it on and just follow along, which made multitasking easy when you have a busy schedule.”
(enlarge image) ReadSpeaker’s Certified Moodle Integration can do the same for your learners.
In addition to high-quality TTS voices, ReadSpeaker brings the following features to Moodle:
Taken together, these tools help to remove barriers for students with disabilities. The option to listen rather than read goes beyond accessibility, however. It also serves the 66% (opens in a new tab) of learners who prefer multimodal content.
And thanks to ReadSpeaker’s lifelike AI voices, your students will enjoy listening to course material. That’s not something you can say for all TTS, some of which is stilted and robotic. At ReadSpeaker, we use proprietary deep neural networks (DNNs) trained on real human speech to produce the most natural, realistic synthetic voices available.
In fact, as far back as 2017, a modern TTS voice worked as well (opens in a new tab) (or better!) than human speech in a digital learning scenario. Rest assured that TTS quality has only gotten better since then.
As a Moodle Certified Integration Partner, we’d be proud to bring the benefits of TTS to your e-learning environment.
Ready to bring AI-powered TTS to Moodle LMS or Moodle Workplace?
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