Hi all,

I am recently the ICT coordinator in my school (again).  I noticed that 
all schools are meant to have a VLE set up by 2008...

Basically... help!

We have an OSX network and are part of the London Grid for Learning. 
Our ICT advisor has pointed me towards the digitalbrain content as being 
free and there to use.  I looked at it before, about 4 years ago, and 
didn't find it easy to get on with at all...
Anyone got a VLE set up on it?  At all?

cheers

Steve

Soni tempori elseu romani yeof helsforo nisson ol sefini ill des Wed, 26 Sep
2007 18:38:53 GMT, sefini jorgo geanyet des mani yeof do
uk.education.schools-it, yawatina tan reek esk Man Mountain
 fornis do marikano es bono tan el:

>We have an OSX network and are part of the London Grid for Learning. 
>Our ICT advisor has pointed me towards the digitalbrain content as being 
>free and there to use.  I looked at it before, about 4 years ago, and 
>didn't find it easy to get on with at all...
>Anyone got a VLE set up on it?  At all?

I am being informed that all schools in the LGfL have access to a specific VLE
(I forget the name) provided by the LGfL.  Do you have a local ICT advisory
service that would know?

...

Aha!

http://cms.lgfl.net/lgfl/web/platforms

Looks like you get Fronter.

On 26 Sep, 19:38, Man Mountain  wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am recently the ICT coordinator in my school (again).  I noticed that
> all schools are meant to have a VLE set up by 2008...

Hi Steve

Well actually "an online learning place" which could be many things
but most schools have gone for a dedicated VLE. Your friendly computer
retailer may try to seel you something, and  prices will give you a
shock (maybe 30k a year!)

Weve gone for Moodle sitting on a subpage of our web server. Rolling
out the training etc is blooming hard work, but start with one year
group in one dept, then the same year group in core subjects, then
some other depts and some other years.

Embedding a VLE takes five years apparently so dont expect miracles!
Most try to just convert electronic copies of the files they use now
to be available online, not true e learning but its a start.

We have also used "champions" with a named person in core sujects
leading the VLE work in their department. The champion then chooses a
"buddy" in another department to train as that depts champion.

HTH, please feel free to ask more.

Phil Waud
VLE coordinator
Horbury School
>
> Basically... help!
>
> We have an OSX network and are part of the London Grid for Learning.
> Our ICT advisor has pointed me towards the digitalbrain content as being
> free and there to use.  I looked at it before, about 4 years ago, and
> didn't find it easy to get on with at all...
> Anyone got a VLE set up on it?  At all?
>
> cheers
>
> Steve

"Man Mountain"  wrote in message 
news:1HxKi.188862$xp6.12712@fe3.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
> Hi all,
>
> I am recently the ICT coordinator in my school (again).  I noticed that 
> all schools are meant to have a VLE set up by 2008...
>
> Basically... help!
>
> We have an OSX network and are part of the London Grid for Learning. Our 
> ICT advisor has pointed me towards the digitalbrain content as being free 
> and there to use.  I looked at it before, about 4 years ago, and didn't 
> find it easy to get on with at all...
> Anyone got a VLE set up on it?  At all?

deKay and Phil have given you some good pointers. I know Phil in particular 
has been working with VLEs for a very long time (as have I at my place 
actually) because I remember discussion coming up about VLEs and MLEs ages 
ago on a mailing list we were both on.

Apple appear to have a "preferred" VLE software suggestion (see 
http://www.apple.com/uk/education/solutions/learningplatforms/index2.html) 
for running on OS X server, but really, as long as it provides the basic 
level of funtionality you need, the server side software is almost totally 
irrelevant to whether or not you can put together a decent VLE that will 
actually get used.

What really matters is getting staff ready to deal with it and managing 
their expectations of how the system can be used and what they and their 
pupils will get out of it.

<SNIP>
>
> Apple appear to have a "preferred" VLE software suggestion (see 
> http://www.apple.com/uk/education/solutions/learningplatforms/index2.html) 
> for running on OS X server, but really, as long as it provides the basic 
> level of funtionality you need, the server side software is almost totally 
> irrelevant to whether or not you can put together a decent VLE that will 
> actually get used.
>
> What really matters is getting staff ready to deal with it and managing 
> their expectations of how the system can be used and what they and their 
> pupils will get out of it.
>

I so agree, we get bogged down with OS's and the type of VLE Software that 
we forget that unless all departments (oops subject areas) play an active 
part in supporting the VLE it could be a total disaster.

We have concentrated on getting a structure to support colleagues to produce 
material for a Moodle VLE.

Steve

"Steve Walker"  wrote in message 
news:fhzLi.202009$xp6.44619@fe3.news.blueyonder.co.uk...

> I so agree, we get bogged down with OS's and the type of VLE Software that 
> we forget that unless all departments (oops subject areas) play an active 
> part in supporting the VLE it could be a total disaster.

Yep. A system installed to tick a box on the Head's list of "things to do 
before the inspectors arrive so I look good" is never going to be anything 
like as good as a system installed after listening to the needs of the staff 
in all subject areas and planning how to meet as many of these as possible. 
Set goals based on making an actual and positive difference in lessons, use 
these to judge whether or not the project is succeeding, be prepared to fund 
the project properly and to make changes to the project to achieve these 
goals if things start to go wrong.

We were probably one of the earlier places in the UK to install this kind of 
thing and we were very worried about uptake from the staff. IIRC we used 
"champions" in each area to try and persaude staff to use it but they were 
at first very suspicious of this new gadget - would it turn out to be just 
another fad? And they're right to be suspicious... educational IT has a 
_very_ bad record for introducing faddish things based on hype that 
disappear in a puff of smoke and a lot of your budget 18 months later.

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Steve Walker"  wrote in message 
> news:fhzLi.202009$xp6.44619@fe3.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
> 
>> I so agree, we get bogged down with OS's and the type of VLE Software that 
>> we forget that unless all departments (oops subject areas) play an active 
>> part in supporting the VLE it could be a total disaster.
> 
> Yep. A system installed to tick a box on the Head's list of "things to do 
> before the inspectors arrive so I look good" is never going to be anything 
> like as good as a system installed after listening to the needs of the staff 
> in all subject areas and planning how to meet as many of these as possible. 
> Set goals based on making an actual and positive difference in lessons, use 
> these to judge whether or not the project is succeeding, be prepared to fund 
> the project properly and to make changes to the project to achieve these 
> goals if things start to go wrong.
> 
> We were probably one of the earlier places in the UK to install this kind of 
> thing and we were very worried about uptake from the staff. IIRC we used 
> "champions" in each area to try and persaude staff to use it but they were 
> at first very suspicious of this new gadget - would it turn out to be just 
> another fad? And they're right to be suspicious... educational IT has a 
> _very_ bad record for introducing faddish things based on hype that 
> disappear in a puff of smoke and a lot of your budget 18 months later.
> 
> 
> 
Thanks for the help everyone.
I'm beginning to get the picture.  It seems to me this will mean extra 
work all round, with class teachers needing to keep their class pages 
current.  Really don't think this will go down well as everyone is 
pretty much at snapping point, workload wise, as it is!

I'm going to see what other schools are doing...  Honestly though, it 
does seem a bit faddish to me and I'm not yet certain that the 
effort/benefit ratio will be particularly good..

Steve

"Man Mountain"  wrote in message 
news:fJILi.203546$xp6.95729@fe3.news.blueyonder.co.uk...

> Thanks for the help everyone.
> I'm beginning to get the picture.  It seems to me this will mean extra 
> work all round, with class teachers needing to keep their class pages 
> current.  Really don't think this will go down well as everyone is pretty 
> much at snapping point, workload wise, as it is!

It will require more work to bring one up to speed, lets not make no bones 
about that. Once done, it should serve as a central point to publish 
worksheets and what-have-you, which means you can keep these resources 
centrally and available to all staff and students 'enrolled' on a particular 
course. This means that students can use this as an additional place to find 
learning resources with little extra effort on your part once people get 
into the habit of publishing to the VLE.

A VLE can be used to build quizzes and the like and some VLEs offer the 
ability to act as an electronic collection point for homework, if that's 
appropriate. There's a lot it can do for you and once you're over the 
initial "hill" of getting things set up and priming the pump it seems to 
save more effort for us than it generates.

> I'm going to see what other schools are doing...  Honestly though, it does 
> seem a bit faddish to me and I'm not yet certain that the effort/benefit 
> ratio will be particularly good..

Well if I may be so bold, your initial post sounds like your driving need to 
acquire a VLE is that you "have" to, not because you want one. As I've 
hinted in both my previous posts, if you look from that perspective you're 
never going to find something good for you and you're never going to be 
happy with it.

If you think of some problems you have that you think computers "ought" to 
be able to solve and start looking for things that meet that need, however, 
you might find something nice. And definately speak to the LEA as deKay 
suggests, pretty much all of them will have as a bare minimum some good 
advice and ideas, if not an actual central system already in place that you 
can opt into.

On Sep 30, 9:01 am, Man Mountain  wrote:
> Robert Moir wrote:
> > "Steve Walker"  wrote in message
> >news:fhzLi.202009$xp6.44619@fe3.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
>
> >> I so agree, we get bogged down with OS's and the type of VLE Software that
> >> we forget that unless all departments (oops subject areas) play an active
> >> part in supporting the VLE it could be a total disaster.
>
> > Yep. A system installed to tick a box on the Head's list of "things to do
> > before the inspectors arrive so I look good" is never going to be anything
> > like as good as a system installed after listening to the needs of the staff
> > in all subject areas and planning how to meet as many of these as possible.
> > Set goals based on making an actual and positive difference in lessons, use
> > these to judge whether or not the project is succeeding, be prepared to fund
> > the project properly and to make changes to the project to achieve these
> > goals if things start to go wrong.
>
> > We were probably one of the earlier places in the UK to install this kind of
> > thing and we were very worried about uptake from the staff. IIRC we used
> > "champions" in each area to try and persaude staff to use it but they were
> > at first very suspicious of this new gadget - would it turn out to be just
> > another fad? And they're right to be suspicious... educational IT has a
> > _very_ bad record for introducing faddish things based on hype that
> > disappear in a puff of smoke and a lot of your budget 18 months later.
>
> Thanks for the help everyone.
> I'm beginning to get the picture.  It seems to me this will mean extra
> work all round, with class teachers needing to keep their class pages
> current.  Really don't think this will go down well as everyone is
> pretty much at snapping point, workload wise, as it is!
>
> I'm going to see what other schools are doing...  Honestly though, it
> does seem a bit faddish to me and I'm not yet certain that the
> effort/benefit ratio will be particularly good..
>
> Steve- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

I agree, that it will be more work at the outset, but the benefits far
outweigh the challenges. We use Moodle (free to use) for setting
assignments, making resources available, quizzes, calendar and will
hopefully soon be integrating our web site into it. To keep staff
workload down, we employ 2 6th formers as 'technicians' (10 hours a
week each) to do a lot of the donkey-work for teachers. It really is
revolutionising the way teachers and students work, and has had a
positive impact on results.

You are more than welcome to email me for details, or to visit and see
how we do things. I'm not claiming we're the best, but we know it
works for us.

Regards
Richard