APPLYING E-LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (MOODLE) IN TEACHING UNDERGRADUATE COURSE

Moodle as a new Learning Management System (LMS) was applied to the academic course CROP3514 (Fruit Production) at department of Crop Sciences at College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University, Sultanate of Oman. The course is taught in the spring semester of the academic year for second year students. Newly specialized students are always enrolled in Production course. This was a real e-learning experience to bring useful and helpful ideas to make the learning more authentic and effective to students. All course description and required background; prerequisites (courses and topics), postrequisites or experiences were explained on Moodle platform, as well as, course objectives. All learning resources were provided on Moodle; Lecture outline and minimum details of the course topics, as well as, related chapters from the course textbook and page numbers were indicated on Moodle for each topic. Also, laboratory sessions, team working projects and supplemental reading materials such as research or popular articles were weekly plugged on Moodle. Announcements for field trips, quizzes, exams, submission of deadlines and changes were announced on Moodle as well. As a result, students successfully managed to report and organized their course work via e-learning on Moodle. They were able to prepare their lab reports, present their work results and summarized what they have learned and submit it on Moodle. In addition, students used all Moodle tools effectively and efficiently. A trend observed that students learning thinking became more critical and deeper.