Sharepoint / Moodle advice needed

[pooley]

I have been asked by the HT to look into (impliment asap in real terms) a VLE.

Initially this will be to provide pupils with access to certain files/homework from home, and eventually to link in with school diary, give staff access to their emails (owa), then with the thought of collaborative learning and project work within school.

Now I have been reading up on Sharepoint, seems the simplest option for total MS ntegration, word, powepoint etc inc OWA.

Also Moodle looks interesting, and I could have sharepoint with moodle webparts (not sure about this part) what are benefits ?

Anyone got any sage advice on where to start, what to start with and any demo sites I can show HT/SMT to aid in the decision making?

Many thanks

Si

[firefighting]

Does your LEA recommend/insist on using one of their VLE?

[pooley]

Does your LEA recommend/insist on using one of their VLE?

In a word "no"

They don't yet have a VLE nor by the sounds of it is it a priority or even being discussed at any level.

Thats why we are looking to do something ourselves.

[joe90bass]

In a word "no"

They don't yet have a VLE nor by the sounds of it is it a priority or even being discussed at any level.

Thats why we are looking to do something ourselves.

Our LEA (same as Pooley) doesn't have an education IT dept any more..........

I went to the BCBC IT forum a couple of months back and Jenny from ESIS was there, she was talking about e-learning pathways and it was agrred it would be put on the agenda for a future meeting to discuss further. I assume this would involve some kind of VLE....

CC asked about 14-19 e-learning pathway as the school needed to progress. JG said that there are also 3-14 needing e-learning. It was agreed this should be an agenda item for the first curriculum sub-group meeting.

It could be worth a few schools getting together to combine knowledge and costs? Assume you are in a secondary school?

[apearce]

Si,
SharePoint isn't a VLE. Many people may say it is but even with SharePoint Learning Kit (SharePoint Learning Kit - Home) it doesn't deliver a full e-learning environment.

I'm still going to recommend sharepoint (well i'm going to as I'm a SharePoint MVP) as it can help in the management and infrastructure of the school, build online webpages, store documents for lessons, improves collaboration, communication, blogs, wikis - i could go on for ever

Are your schools needs to deliver just e-learning or do you want to do the above as well? blogs and wikis are part of the new year 7 english cirriculum

You can get VLEs for SharePoint like Learning management system | SharePointLMS or intregrate other link moodle, telmos.

Other options are to look at hosted systems from companies like Shirelands Learning Gateway, LP+ and RM.

Hope this helps

Alex

[secretlife]

We use Moodle - it happens to be offered by our broaband suppliers - it suffices for most of our needs; use its calendar as school diary and there's a hyperlink to OWA for ease of access to emaiil.

[ful56_uk]

we use sharepoint with isa at the front of it all, we have all the standard web parts, we have a owa one, my files so students and staff can access there files, we have setup a homework area site and staff area sites for the department. we have a web part that pull ther timetable through form sims as well. works fully with AD and has a nice alerting system when someone add somthing to the vle

[squirrel]

I would take a serious look at Frog (Frog - Learning Platform, Personalised Learning, VLE, Digital Environment)

Their VLE, which we have fairly recently purchased, links into your MIS system, SIMS or CMIS. It also links in with Active Directory so your users will not need an additional username and password to remember.

Because of the links with your MIS, you can give students and parents access to timetables and attendance data.

Another huge benefit is that the server is housed in your own school so even if your Internet connection is lost you can continue using it. In addition of course it will be far faster than buying in a VLE from a company that hosts it elsewhere.

As for creating your own Moodle or Sharepoint install, it does make sense however that with a bought in product you will get the support that goes along with it. Of course this is very useful if you get hit by a bus as the school will still be able to use the system!

If you want any more information please e-mail me.

[pooley]

Thanks guys lots to consider there, we are a primary so it may be worth talking to a few comps in the area.

The HT is not one for waiting, he likes to innovative as much as possible and hates to be last to get anything lol. Its great for me as I get lots of toys/systems to play with but we need to get this right.

As its going to be initially for Staff/Student areas and Owa/Diary etc I am leaning towards sharepoint.

Has anyone got access to one that I could show the HT to begin discussions with him, sharepoint & moodle would be nice.

Thanks again

Si

[Mr.G]

Hi.

I'm the IT Manager at Pencoed Comprehensive School and recently BCBC (Bridgend County Borough Council) have implemented a managed service for VLE. The service is carried out by a company called Synergy.

You could speak to someone in BCBC and ask for contact details or go direct to Synergy and ask for a similar setup? I find the Moodle VLE easy to use and to setup. We did have moodle running here before BCBC took it upon themselves to provide Schools around the area with one pre-made. The information is the only thing that needs to be put into the VLE, everything else is pretty much done for you, which is great. Thanks goes to BCBC for arranging that!

We are still in the infancy stages of using our VLE but none the less it is there and is live for Students and Staff to use, content is uploaded to it daily and it is growing fast.

Also, our web-site has recently gone live, I worked on this myself and design web-sites in my spare time (amateur) so thought I'd help out and design one for my School.

Welcome to Pencoed Comprehensive School - The Learning School

Links to the VLE are on the main page if you wish to view that also.

Hope you get your VLE sorted, they are from what I am led to believe, great teaching resources.!?

G

[NewOrder]

I believe over the next year you will see a lot of movement on the Moodle and SharePoint front. The HE sector appear to be looking at the combination linked to content storage. A large number of HE institutions are looking at an alternative to Blackboard. James Lappin and Julie McLeod, CEIS, Northumbria University have produced a report on SharePoint in HE.

I heard yesterday that Microsoft have a team working on Moodle integration with SharePoint 2010 . I know ITworxs (Egypt) have completed a proof of concept.

I believe that Coventry Uni use SharePoint, Moodle and Equilla (content repository)

If you go down your own the SharePoint route you need to make sure you have a Learning Environment for it. Choices are Moodle, SLK with Course manager, Sharepoint LMS ( elearning force) as Alex mentioned.

The next question you need to consider is what will work with SharePoint 2010. I know elearning force are developeing their solution to work with 2010, don't be surprised if Microsoft or one of its partners do something with SLK for 2010 and the Moodle community will get it working !

[jcollings]

We have a SharePoint based VLE hosted by LP+. We also have access to Moodle provided by our RBC however for a long (and dull) list of reasons we didn't take up the RBC hosted Moodle and decided to use SharePoint.

It has been very well recieved here and we now use it as our public website, staff portal (all info. is disemminated via this), student portal, governors portal, subject sites and for parental reporting. Currently the parental reporting side is limited but we are building on this as LP+ develop more SIMS webparts.

Having spent most of my time for the last year or so working with staff to embed this into our Teaching & Learning / admin areas I think it's a fantastic route to go down. If I were starting over I would still make the same choice although I'd be hard pushed to come up with a logical argument as to why - it somehow just felt like the right thing for us although I know many colleagues are running fantastic Moodle sites.

I think more important than the choice of platform is the ethos behind how it is implemented. If a school (and I am not saying this is true in your case) just want to have a VLE so they can say they have one & tick a box it will not work.

We have put considerable resources into making it work here; hours of training, one to one sessions, building sites for people, sharing that within our federation etc. Teachers have prioritised it, it appears on at least one member of staff from each departements performance management. This has all been backed by a very clear line from SLT that it is important and something we are focusing on.

We are now at a stage where the VLE is growing in use as more & more departments start to use it for resources etc. We're also talking to primary schools about bringing them on board soon.

It's been fantastic to be leading the project but I have not doubt it would not have been so successful if it hadn't been backed from the top.

After that long winded ramble, in a nutshell what I am saying is your SLT need to know this isn't just about choosing a piece of software.

Mike Herrity at Twynham School is a good guy to talk to - they're doing some very exciting & innovative stuff. Also LP+ are worth talking to - they've got some excellent strategies around bringing a VLE to fruition.

[mleighton]

Has anyone got access to one that I could show the HT to begin discussions with him, sharepoint & moodle would be nice.


Si

You could look at a few school's implementations of SharePoint on the Schools Gallery at The Kraal website....