I am pleased and interested by the somewhat heated exchanges going on and especially because of the focus on online education and which technologies do or might support online teaching and learning.

Online education is of great interest and importance to me. I started working in this field in 1983, and have had the opportunity to help shape it, study it, and I continue to contribute to the field. I come from the education side, and have written some books on this topic. I have had a company that developed online environments to support learning, and the result was a pretty excellent collaborative learning environment software that 16 years later I still use and which students are pretty positive about. However, my company put our dollars into development rather than marketing, and eventually found that the competition had a crappy product but alot of marketing dollars. So, I wound down the company in 2002. The market was primarily educational institutions, schoolboards, etc and they were buying into the 'lms' solution, where learning is viewed as something to be managed and packaged.

Primarily, I am a prof. and I have been teaching online since 1985: I taught one of the very first totally online courses, and it was based on collaborative learning. In fact, online education in the 1980s was almost all about group learning, team project, knowledge building---whether in secondary or tertiary or training education.

Phew...long lead it. But I provide it as a framework to my message which is that: online education can and has served as a major game changer in education, and is likely the key to the 21st century Knowledge Age.

I don't see much reference to that in this discussion.
Most of the comments so far seem to be referencing old paradigm ways of teaching and learning...i.e., lms stuff.
None of the software mentioned has achieved great or even mildly interesting or important learning gains. Mainstream elearning software are mostly associated with groans and frustration and anxiety, not excitement at new ways to teach and learn. Moodle is really a muddle, let's be clear. Like BB, Moodle was not designed nor developed for learning or teaching. Education was an add-on to this 1990's moo (aka mud).
Educationally, Moodle is just a bunch of things added on without rhyme or reason--anything goes, sort of. BB was initially and largely remains an administrative software. This was not about technologies designed to address learning activities but a slap dash kind of commercial "solution" (the fact that Moodle is open source does not, imho grant it dispensation or holiness). It is making a mess of online education and undermining and distracting the field.

Let's focus on learning, which should and could be really exciting and relevant adventures. About inventing! Innovating! Solving problems! ENgaging in Knowledge communities. Addressing realworld conundra! Let's talk about learning theory. WHat learning methods work best? How can we, educators and technology developers) support 21st century pedagogies and discoveries with new technologies?

The 21st century is a new paradigm and it is about Knowledge building. Our learning approaches and technologies need to support collaboration and knowledge building. That vision can help orient us to new ways of learning, to supporting new paradigm learning pedagogies and strategies.

Let's stop kicking around the 20th century can of learning strategies primarily based on 19th century factory-needs and models (lecture halls, rows of student desks bolted to the floor, obedience, memorization, repetition, etc.). BB and Mooooooodle take us backward. They waste time, money and talent.

Its time to innovate and make a difference, and the world of teachers and learners will thank you for investing your time and energy in designing real solutions.

Cheers,
Linda