Moodle Musings: Why you should avoid using Internet Explorer
In the world of Internet browsers, Internet Explorer (IE) is the black sheep of the family. Despite Microsoft’s attempts to modernize the browser, it still suffers from several flaws in how it displays webpages, which causes many irregularities in Moodle. So, the best use of IE may be to download another browser.
Michael Vaughn, Instructional Technologist for Teaching and Learning Technologies (TLT), said about 75 percent of the browser-related issues faculty, staff, and students experience in Moodle can be avoided or resolved if users switch Internet browsers.
“People don’t always think to switch browsers because they assume that if they can do something in one browser, they can do it in all browsers, and that’s just not true,” he said.
For example, unlike Firefox or Google Chrome, Internet Explorer doesn’t allow faculty, staff, or students to utilize Moodle’s drag-and-drop function to upload files. The browser sometimes displays course content improperly, and it may not display YouTube videos at all. Internet Explorer can also prevent faculty and staff from changing the point values of questions on quizzes, and faculty can’t use the QuickGrading feature on Assignments if they’re in IE.
MORE: Read about Moodle’s drag-and-drop function here.
By using other Internet browsers such as Firefox or Google Chrome, you can have a much smoother experience in Moodle. To avoid major technical frustrations, try to avoid using Internet Explorer at all costs.
Image by Flickr user Sean MacEntee / Creative Commons licensed BY-CC 2.0
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Sam Parker
Sam Parker is a Marketing Student Writer Intern with Elon University's Teaching and Learning Technologies.
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The truth is all browsers behave slightly differently and sometimes Chrome wins and sometimes IE comes out on top e.g. I find editing and resizing images & tables in the tinyMCE editor is easier in IE, adding web addresses and links can be easier in IE too e.g. adding YouTube links. Also I now use Internet Explorer 10 – it provides drag and drop too!
I am prepared to accept that no browser is perfect, it may be the case that one browser is slightly better than another – but in my experience using Moodle and training hundreds of teachers each year – there really is not much in it.
Therefore I would suggest that warning users to “avoid using Internet Explorer at all costs” is a little extreme!
Happy Moodling!
Good point Jim – no browser is perfect. IE10 has improved many of the issues but it’s only available on Windows 8 and not an option for most of our faculty.
With so many good, free and safe browser alternatives, there really isn’t a good reason to use Internet Explorer…but many reasons not to.