New VLE!!!

[KWestos]

Just had a meeting with SLT where it was deemed that teachers would find MOODLE too cumbersome to use, Moodle is supplied by our RBC. So it's up to me to come up with an alternative that would be intuitive and 'easy' enough for the kids, ahem!!! teachers to use on a daily basis.

I need something that the staff would feel comfortable with, because if we stay with MOODLE I know that it will be down to us all in IT to administer it on a day to day basis, and that quite frankly defeats the object of a VLE in my book.

I also need something that would sit nicely with SIMS for parental access.

Many thanks

[jamesb]

If you want parental access to SIMS then I'm assuming you're talking about SLG, in which case any VLE which sits on top of Sharepoint would allow you to integrate with SLG to whatever level you wanted.

If you're looking for a free option, there's always things like the Sharepoint Learning Kit, and I'm fairly positive there's commercial solutions around as well.

[penfold_99]

Just had a meeting with SLT where it was deemed that teachers would find MOODLE too cumbersome to use, Moodle is supplied by our RBC. So it's up to me to come up with an alternative that would be intuitive and 'easy' enough for the kids, ahem!!! teachers to use on a daily basis.

I need something that the staff would feel comfortable with, because if we stay with MOODLE I know that it will be down to us all in IT to administer it on a day to day basis, and that quite frankly defeats the object of a VLE in my book.

I also need something that would sit nicely with SIMS for parental access.

Many thanks

I have perental access on my list of SIMS.net integration, personnally i would stay with moodle and host it intnerally then you can integrate with SIMS.net and your administration time in then minimal.

[secretlife]

because if we stay with MOODLE I know that it will be down to us all in IT to administer it on a day to day basis
I really think you should reconsider Moodle (but then I would say that !) All the hundreds of regular teachers in regular schools who use it can't be wrong - and as for admin, I'm an MFL teacher and have no issues administering it on a day to day basis and once the teachers have their basic training they can put stuff on it themselves. You'd have a worse job with a commercial one I assure you. But that's just my opinion.

[jcollings]

If you want parental access to SIMS then I'm assuming you're talking about SLG, in which case any VLE which sits on top of Sharepoint would allow you to integrate with SLG to whatever level you wanted.

If you're looking for a free option, there's always things like the Sharepoint Learning Kit, and I'm fairly positive there's commercial solutions around as well.

If your going to buy SLG you may as well use that as your VLE too. It's a sharepoint solution after all and it puts everything in one place. The great thing about SLG is that it gives you read/write access to SIMS and will easily fulfil the 2010 requirements.

That said I am not sure that I would say sharepoint is any easier or more difficult than Moodle to use. I think it's just a matter of getting familiar with any product and that does take time.

When we were evaluating VLEs I think one of the easiest to use was Frog but I don't have clue what Frog have done about SIMS integration at the moment.

I don't know where you are based but CLEO are working on the MIDAS project to integrate SIMS with Moodle. It's anybodys guess how well that will go. I was supposed to be going to a meeting about that today but it all came through at a bit short notice.

[andykemp]

I would carefuly consider Frog, which will provide the parental portal element which integrates with SIMS and is significantly simpler for the average user than moodle or sharepoint.

Don't get me wrong I am a huge moodle fan and with sufficient training it can be made to work very well in schools but if you want something a little more inutitive then I would also have a look at frog.

[GrumbleDook]

To be honest *no* VLE is too cumbersome ... it just may be that too much change of how the school / teachers / you work is the problem.

Probably the best thing to do is for the school to look at the tools that each VLE offers, how they fit together, how your curriculum fits around it and how teachers and students use it. If you fancy sticking with Moodle then going to have a chat with other schools that make serious use of it would be your best bet, or have a look at some of the strategy docs that folk like Fronter, Frog, LP+ etc have ... it may be that some of these (ie most) are aimed at senior manglement but it is worth a read up.

When it comes to supporting a VLE you either have to accept that you buy something in and don't get quite the flexibility because you don't support it, or you support it but take on the extra work involved. It's all about a bit of give and take.