I am an EFL teacher, program administrator, and co-moderator of the Moodle for Language Teaching Community. Six reviewers on this site have given a highly critical but positive review of Jeff Stanford's book. In over ten chapter-by-chapter reviews, we provide a detailed analysis of each activity in this massive encyclopedia of knowledge of Moodle in foreign language teaching. A downloadable, electronic version of the book is available from the publisher, Packt Books. If you are interested to read over 15,000 total words of commentary, I refer you to the forums on moodle dot org (registration required). Look for the "course" called "Moodle for Language Teaching".



Here is an except from one of the reviews:

"Released in November 2009, Jeff Stanford has produced a herculean, 500-plus page handbook for applying the Moodle open source LMS to the specific needs of foreign language teaching. Given the pervasive use of online LMSs in teaching today, any language teacher needs to be aware of the options available for enhancing the online components of teaching and learning in their `blend' of face-to-face and web-based activities. Though anyone can suggest omissions to the book, it is actually hard to argue that any more needs to be added to this already comprehensive edition. In addition to the ten chapters provided in the print and pdf-file versions of the book, two additional chapters, Chapter 11: and Chapter 12: are available for download at the Packt website. Furthermore, Chapter 8, on listening skills, is available from the publisher for free download as a sample to encourage readers to purchase the book. The full Table of Contents is viewable as well."



"One of the qualities of this book, is the recipe-book structure that it sticks to throughout the chapters. This has been pointed out by earlier reviews (see Miguel Guhlin and Mary Cooch for example). By recipe-book, I mean the book walks a teacher through, step-by-step, how to accomplish various objectives, often with detailed screenshots. What is the best structure of a book on language learning? The outline of this book suggests it favors a skills approach (four chapters on speaking, reading, writing and listening) supported by a knowledge approach (2 chapters on vocabulary and grammar) and class management approach (3 chapters on setup, assessment, and extensions). I like this because these categories are familiar to most language teachers and thus will be easiest for them to locate information. It assumes you will browse, like a reference book, rather than read start-to-finish. It does not offer a complete course or curriculum, instead of resists promoting one method, offering more generic tools that all can use. For this reason, reviewing the table of contents is essential first reading as it will guide your browsing. Unfortunately, I found the table of contents somewhat difficult to read due to formatting or font selection. In future editions, formatting across the book needs attention so it is both easy and a pleasure on the eyes."