Differences Between Moodle and Blackboard
While both Blackboard and Moodle are "Learning Management Systems" with lots in common, there are some key differences that we note below. We hope that this will make understanding Moodle easier, particularly if you have already used Blackboard.

• In Blackboard, selecting a course listed under My Courses resulted in a course home page with a single style of presentation and some fixed organizational categories and sub-categories. In Moodle, however, selecting a course listed under My Courses results in a course home page with one of three different styles: topics, weekly, or social (determined by the Instructor's choice in course Settings). The course home page organization is more free-form, with content organized in boxes (except for social format, which uses forums for almost everything). Moodle's fixed features appear in columns at the left or right, leaving the central part of the page available for course content.
  
• In Blackboard, you often sent email to all your students, or to those in a subset workgroup. In Moodle, you would use the Forum instead. When you post to the class Forum, that posting is emailed to the class participants, unless they have opted out (they can also receive daily digests, all set in their profile). Since the posting remains visible in the forum, those not receiving emails, can check for unread postings. Further, the posting remains visible and may facilitate further discussions. If you wanted to create a Forum for each class workgroup, then each workgroup can be handled separately. If you want to email an individual, or a number of students, use the Compose Mail block on the course's home page.
  
• In Blackboard, you had to build a roster specification file and upload
  that to trigger adding your students to the class via the roster. In Moodle,
  students are automatically added to (or dropped from) your course.  You can also merge students from other sections into your course;  just click on Students, and follow the instructions.
  
• In Blackboard, if you had an offline test that you wanted to add to your
  gradebook, you had to enter those grades into the gradebook. In Moodle,
  you create an Assignment of type "offline activity" and then supply grades (and comments) for that assignment;  the Moodle gradebook is used to organize and view grades.
  
• In Moodle, when you establish a quiz date, it is automatically added
  to the course calendar, and will also display in Upcoming Events (within 21 days) and the quiz creation will show in "Recent Activity".