sector. They have been accompanying academic institutions for some years now, particularly in higher education (Adedoyin & Soykan, 2020; Kopp et al., 2019; Leszczyński et al., 2018). Meaning, even before the dawn of the pandemic, VLEs have been commonly integrated in the tertiary level curriculum, and college students are more than likely familiar with e-learning.
On the other hand, it must be noted that the familiarity with VLEs and e-learning is hardly observed in secondary education students prior to the pandemic. In fact, limited knowledge even exists about how much or for which purposes K-12 students have used devices and technology up until this point. Garcia and Weiss (2020) point out the results from Bettinger and Loeb’s 2017 study on online learning. Based on said results, while students spent extensive time online prior to the pandemic, that time was heavily spent on social activities, browsing or seeking information, playing games, or accessing email (Garcia & Weiss, 2020). It is clear from this observation that information and communications technology is not being maximized to its full potential in learning by students even before the shift towards online education.
A noticeable trend in the space of VLEs is the development of Open Source Course Management Systems, an example of which is Moodle (Petrova, 2005). According to Nagi and Suesawaluk (2008), Moodle is a license free open source software platform. This entails that Moodle may be used, redistributed, or modified according to the requirement of the user completely for free (Nagi & Suesawaluk, 2008). Meaning, academic institutions and teachers may alter the default source code of Moodle to their desired specifications without paying fees to Moodle’s original creator for using their software. Subsequently, this allows educators the benefit of having full control over the features used as well as their own student and teacher data.
According to Boskin (2020), the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown caused a major recession from which global economies are only expected to recover by late 2022, and that is only if a vaccine becomes available in the market. Furthermore, the shutdown of schools, compounded by the associated public health and economic crises, poses complicated challenges to students’ learning. Thus, Moodle’s affordability helps bring VLE, LMS, and CMS technology within the reach of students and teachers with limited technical and financial resources. Especially during the economic decline brought about by the pandemic, Moodle’s license-free software platform eliminates the digital divide between privileged and the disadvantaged students due to its low cost. Its accessibility for all may also be the primary reason for its wide popularity, even b
