Why our online learning system makes a difference to your studies
Would you try to eat soup with a fork?
No. Of course you wouldn’t.
But many online learning providers do exactly that when they deliver their ICB and AAT online courses using a system called Moodle. And that’s because it wasn’t designed to work with the type of questions you’d expect to find in a bookkeeping course.
You probably don’t know what Moodle is. And, to be honest, it’s not very exciting. But humour me a little bit as I explain why the choice of technology impacts on the quality of your learning experience.
We wanted an online learning system designed for bookkeeping and accounting
Moodle is a widely used e-learning platform. Mostly because it’s free – and that’s very tempting to any training provider looking to cut costs.
But we don’t use it. And there’s a very good reason why.
It doesn’t cope very well with questions which deal with numbers. It just wasn’t designed to do that.
For example; let’s say you wanted to ask a question about a Balance Sheet. Moodle doesn’t (by default at least) allow you to replicate the look of a balance sheet and create a question which lets the student fill in the missing entries.
Instead you’re more likely to encounter a question which asks about an already completed balance sheet. But you can’t actually fill in blank sections of it.
That may seem like a minor quibble but that’s not as engaging. You’re working towards a career in Bookkeeping and Accounting; you need to be working with a balance sheet not answering questions about a pre-filled one. And if you can’t create that type of question with Moodle, well, that’s a problem when you’re a training provider specialising in bookkeeping, accounting, and payroll.
So we wanted to find the right system.
One that would be easy for students to use, and let us create activities, and exam-style questions which mirrored the format you’ll encounter when you take an ICB or AAT exam.
There are a lot of systems out there. Over 800 Learner Management Systems in fact, according to some estimates. So we drew up a shortlist of ten popular, tried and tested systems, but in truth the winner was clear.
Introducing Rogo: purpose-built to deliver assessments for financial qualifications
Rogo was created 10 years ago. It was designed from the ground up to deliver online assessments for finance qualifications. And that’s why it’s used by major accounting and bookkeeping awarding bodies including:
- Institute of Certified Bookkeepers
- Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy
- Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales
Rogo ticked all of the boxes for us, it’s a purpose-built system designed to fit this subject. The question very quickly changed from ‘why use Rogo?’ to ‘why would you choose anything other than Rogo?’
How we use Rogo for your online learning experience
We use Rogo throughout your entire learning experience. Not just a couple of mock exams; we use it for everything. And for ICB courses, no other training provider does that.
From the moment you’ve enrolled you’ll enjoy access to:
- course materials
- additional resources
- tests
- videos
- mock exams
- assessments
…and all delivered using Rogo.
ICB use Rogo to deliver most of their exams, and as we use it throughout your learning experience you’ll be much more familiar with it when you take your exams.
What our online learning system looks like
Here’s a short video introduction on how to use Rogo and this shows you a little more about what your learning experience is like.
