Moodle integration with Google Apps

It's funny that this was waiting for me in my inbox, because we were just talking about how badly Blackboard needs to have an integration to Google Apps to supplement the Blackboard Content System.  While the Content System does a excellent job of sharing content between courses and publishing content externally - and the portfolios are pretty useful; the Bb Content System can't touch Google Docs for usability in terms of collaboration and overall ease of use.

To its credit, the Content System can create workflow and collaboration around a greater range of filetypes (really, anything in a digital format); but when it comes to collaboration around word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations - there is really no comparison.  We have instructors who go through hours of training to use the Bb Content System and still not feel comfortable, but spend 10 minutes with Google Docs and "figure it out."

Google Collaborates on Moodle Integration -- Campus Technology:

"Through the integration, users loaded into Moodle will be automatically loaded into Google Apps Education Edition, 'providing users with Web-based e-mail, document authoring, spreadsheets, presentations and sites, all integrated with their online learning platform,' explained Moodlerooms' West Coast Managing Director Michael Penney. 'This greatly simplifies the task of implementing a collaborative suite, as well as enables institutions to leverage the work they've already done integrating their platforms with their other systems. From a teacher's perspective, this provides an easy way to assign students to collaborative tasks without having to worry about the students having different operating systems or incompatible software or being unable to access an online system. From an IT staffer or CIO's perspective, this provides an integration tested with large-scale data loads and built on industry standard SAML 2.0 and OAuth protocols for secure single sign on and information transfer.'"