Looking for software to build an electronic portfolio (or similar) in an SEN school

[fiendishlyclever]

I work in a special school where the achievement of many pupils is well below that of mainstream counterparts. Many of the pupils are unable to write independently and we have (like other special schools) looked to ICT for a solution.

We have invested heavily in ICT and have used digital video, photography etc to record pupils' work.

At the moment our policy is to print out photos and then delete them from school issued laptops when this has been done. Any digital media we need to keep is "securely" archived by our technician - at which stage the staff no longer have access to it.

I am familiar with BECTA's latest data protection guidance (well I've read it several times but I'm not a data protection expert!) and I understand the need for security when working with digital media. It just strikes me as mad that we end up printing all the photos out, at great cost, when there is no real need to have paper copies of most. Digital video clips are made and never see light of day again so aren't very useful as an aide to teaching and learning.

For schools who need to record evidence in this way (I'm guessing I'm talking mostly now to other special schools and primaries) have you come up with a solution to this problem? What steps are other schools taking to ensure the security of digital media and how are pupils/staff able to access it to ensure continuity of learning etc. Is there a commercial or software product that we should look at?

I've waffled on a bit but I hope I've made our problem clear. Our technician can't think of a solution and our link inspector is also without ideas.

Any ideas?

[bossman]

Sharepoint the free version or Moodle VLE also free open source, would fit your requirements whereupon all types of files can be accessed only by Staff required to do so.

Hope this has been of help ok

[Pottsey]

I thought off half a solution. Why not use a mapped drive to the secure photos folder and use a password and username to access them? At least that way you can access old photos. The only problem is I think the digital media is meant to be encrypted. But there must be solutions to that.