We have an in-house MOSS 2007 implementation used by several schools in our pyramid but managment want a VLE and think LP+ is the answer. However, I've never seen it and am worried that it wouldn't offer more functionality than we already have or could achieve ourselves. Does anybody have any screenshots of some exemplar pages generated by LP+, I would be eternally grateful.
Cheers!!
Yeah no problem, we have some screen shots for you to look at of our school. Do you want to email me your address and I can get these over to you. Thanks
Platform55, I would also appreciate a copy of these. Sending you a PM...
How are you finding LP+? Northamptonshire schools are piloting it at the moment. We've been looking at it for a primary.
Kind regards, Richard
I'm one of the Northamptonshire schools and has not lived up to any of our expectations (hell it even working at all would be nice) but I'm still holding an open mind as they have just extended the contract with the retained harnessing technology grant so =)
I'm an open minded person, but as yet I'm still not quite convinced....
I've just seen the beginnings of a primary school site in LP+. The design didn't inspire me but the HT seemed to be confident.
What do you know about LP+? Is it the case the we have to use it and no other options are available to Northants schools?
Kind regards, Richard
Richard,
The LP+ provision is provided by county for all schools (they retain the harnessing technology grant for this) but it is not mandatory that it is used, and I am aware of several schools with their own solutions in place.
As the funding is retained to secure cost effective procurement schools will "potentially" dip out on the pennies should they choose to go it along elsewhere.
We're a large fairly influential secondary in the area and had embraced LP+'s offering both for the VLE and their Parent/Public site pilot but it just didn't come to fruition, was slow, unresponsive and just a bit dire.
However; with an open mind there has been published information indicating that a new push will be employed with investment on hardware and training/support including site rebuilds in a more optimised fashion (I won't go into detail as I'm unsure whether the model has changed) which is promising big new things.
Best advice currently would be to sit tight and wait for a few weeks to see what becomes of it. (The Schools Factsheet available to all schools was published a few days ago, thus your client should be in possession of this information).
OK. I appreciate the info. Are you telling me that you're locked in and not too impressed but have been told that 'things will get better'?
Have you heard of any VLE success stories?
Kind regards, Richard
Locked in isn't the way I'd look at it, perhaps otherwise obligated to invest in something ourselves. (Even a moodle will cost on hardware)
I'm open minded; I'm confident with the right people at county (pokes Grumbledook) it will get better or I'll wind him up until it does.
Just worried about a couple of little primaries. It would be a great shame if it went pear shaped.
Kind regards, Richard
We use LP+ for our VLE along with several other secondaries in our Federation.
I won't say it's been a totally smooth road but we are getting there now and we are using it with several departments to deliver materials to the students. I'm not saying it's cutting edge but it *is* being used. Of the "pilot departments" some are doing more than others e.g. our business dept. used to burn CD's every year with past papers, revision notes etc - this year they are all on the VLE. As I say, not cutting edge but very useful and the students seem to be happy with it. They are also very into creating their My Site. All student email is now via LP+ using OWA which seems to work well.
We are now starting to roll it out for staff, in terms of making this the place where they all go to get bulletins, info etc. This is a fairly organic process with lots of consulation along the way.
Now I don't say it is perfect but we do meet often with LP+ to discuss issues and I think it would be fair to say they have bent over backwards to make this work for us. We still have a way to go and issues to work through but as a company LP+ have listened to us and understood why we wanted things.
Happy to be contacted via PM if I can help further.
Very useful thanks. At least you aren't fuming yet!
Kind regards, Richard
It's been a tough time since inception but things have improved, speed issues have got less awkward but it's not been smooth at all.Originally Posted by edusites
I applaud LP+ for their willingness to help when a question is put to them but I can't stomach it when we used to report "slow downs" to be told nothing was wrong and that it was likely EMBC (our RBC) even when it happened from outside the network. Go figure.
But... I am happy to give them a go (might aswell if the budget is topsliced which is fine to secure economies of scale etc) but am not holding my breath.
Do you have any contingency plans if it doesn't go to plan?
Kind regards, Richard
We've been developing a moodle in the background for a little while now and the staff uptake on this has been far more successful mostly centric to the speed and responsiveness of the platform but it's not without it's drawbacks, certainly I lack creative design skills and thus it's not as pretty as Sharepoint but it works.
I am hoping to meet next week with some interested parties within the school to discuss our options.
Contingency plan was to start the moodle up with the view to switch if necessary once/if things improved.
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