LMS and Google Apps - First Comes Love...

We always enjoy going "back to school" – visiting college campus quads and K-12 classrooms – especially because we get to learn from our users, who are always happy to tell us what they want. One idea we hear a lot is, "Build a learning management system (LMS) to go along with Google Apps." We love the concept – but we also really value the great work being done by educational software developers - including those in the Open Source community who work on projects like Moodle, an LMS web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites.

Up until now, Google Apps and Moodle were pretty much eying each other across the classroom – but not quite talking. Then Moodlerooms, a Moodle partner, entered the scene.

Here's why. Moodlerooms, a SaaS provider of Moodle, just launched an application built on the Moodle platform that lets school admins bring Moodle and Google Apps together with a single sign-in. So now, students who told us they didn't want to sign in to multiple environments – like an LMS to get their course content and a productivity suite like Google Apps to actually do their work – have the answer they've wanted.

With the update, administrators of Moodle can easily set up Google Apps accounts for their students. And students who log into their school's version of Moodle can now automatically be signed in to their school's Google Apps Education Edition service. Now, they can access whatever their instructors may have posted in their LMS, such as lecture notes, homework assignments, and relevant links and resources, and easily integrate that content into their workspace on Google Apps. They can collaborate with their classmates in Google Docs, build a fully fleshed-out Google Site, or even just send an email - without having to manage multiple accounts in multiple systems. And, needless to say, the same goes for their teachers, professors, administrators – anyone who uses the system.

Moodlerooms used the industry standard SAML 2.0 and OAuth protocols to securely integrate with Moodle, building on open extensibility features of Google Apps Education Edition. Using these extensibility features, any educational software vendor can take a similar approach to provide user directory synchronization, single sign-on, and user data integration with their service.

At what cost is this daring combination, you may ask. That is one of the best parts - both products are, in fact, free, and the integration components are open source and hosted on Google Code. So be sure to sign up for Google Apps Education Edition and for Moodle and provide an integrated experience for your students.

Posted by Cristin Frodella, Google Apps for Education team