Technology and the way people use the internet are constantly changing. Software has become a huge part in school systems for grading and contacting instructors.

Universities use websites like Lore, Blackboard and Moodle to connect with their students and give them an easy way to manage their education. And just like other aspects of technology, these websites often go through changes.

Many returning students this semester were surprised to see an updated Moodle.

Chance Eppinette, interim director of the computing center, said any software can have updates.

“You have to do upgrades. If you don’t, you’re left behind. You run into the risk of the older versions not being properly supported any longer. We don’t write the Moodle environment at ULM, we use the Moodle environment,”Eppinette said.

Davionne Lee, a sophomore biology major, thought the new Moodle template meant there was a new system.

“Once I started to explore it, I realized that not many things had changed,” said Lee. “I like the drag-and-drop feature for submitting assignments. It’s faster and you don’t have to go through as many steps as you would if you had to browse for a document.”

The Moodle changes are the results of an upgrade from the 1.9 version. Updating Moodle is like updating Microsoft Office. When a new Office version comes out, the system still has the same functions as the old version.

“Moodle is actually still confusing to me. I only really just understand how to get to my classes and take tests,” said Alexis McDonald, a freshman political science major. “I like how I’m able to see everything I have for the year, but I still don’t understand the grades.”

To educate instructors on how to operate the updated version, learning exercises were held during the spring.