Pilot implementation of Moodle for pre-service teachers at the English Department major

Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) has been a focus in language teacher education as technology-savvy language teachers are in demand. However, initiating CALL implementation might be tricky. In this paper, the author is sharing her experience in starting Moodle as a Course Management System (CMS) at the English Education Study Program of Universitas Muria Kudus. Moodle is a free online CMS platform whose features can serve language learning well; it also can facilitate collaborative learning and problem-based learning. This Moodle project started with research on students' device ownership and technology mastery, faculty member's perception of technology, and technology resources at the university. The project then continued with a pilot program, that was putting three courses on Moodle for one semester. This pilot program was considered successful; thus, the Moodle initiation was considered possible to implement. Later, a workshop and some assistance sessions for the faculty members were conducted to familiarize them with Moodle. At the same time, technical preparation took place; this included installing Moodle, customizing it to the English Department's needs, and creating a student database.