Anyone Using Frog?

[Danjns]

Hey Guys,

Just wanted to know if anyone is using frog and how they're getting on with it?

We've been given fronter by our LEA for 2 years for free but aren't finding it particularly user friendly and the teachers we're working with can't seem to get their heads round it.

I saw a presentation on frog and it seemed pretty good - but then it was a promo!

I understand the cost difference but i'd rather spend the money and get it right than re-do it in 2 years time.

Cheers!

[jdoyle]

surprised teachers are having problems with Fronter. Is it really Fronter that's the problem or VLE's in general?

[teak]

Sorry for hijacking your thread (seems a waste to start another frog topic), but I am interested to know how those using Frog have found it too.

Any issues or considerations worth noting when going with Frog? Would be interested to know what software you are using alongside Frog, for attendance, assessment, behaviour, etc. If Frog integrates well with them, (ie SIMS, Lesson monitor, bromcom, etc)?

Parent reporting and assessment modules fully working?

thanks.

[gibbo_ap]

looked at frog and it looks great, doesnt have the write back to sims that we are after and are looking at sims learning gateway and talmos.

frog just cost too much

[Danjns]

The Teachers are the two members of staff that have been appointed to help with roll out. The head of ICT and the Head of RE - both competent IT users.

It's a lot to do with how counter intuitive everything seems - they're able to do it but we're all worried about the other members of staff that aren't so IT confident.

[teak]

Notice Frog promote TASC Software PARS, for SIMS read/write access.

[Danjns]

Notice Frog promote TASC Software PARS, for SIMS read/write access.

is that an added extra cost or something thats included?

[Danjns]

Is anyone using frog near the Croydon area? Would be good to come over and see how you've implimented frog and see any real time issues/drawbacks

[jdoyle]

The Teachers are the two members of staff that have been appointed to help with roll out. The head of ICT and the Head of RE - both competent IT users.

It's a lot to do with how counter intuitive everything seems - they're able to do it but we're all worried about the other members of staff that aren't so IT confident.

I've got non techy teachers in History, Science, Food Tech, Geography etc using Fronter reasonably OK.

What in particular do they find counter intuitive about Fronter? Does this relate to setting up pages in rooms, uploading and downloading resources, adding news items, creating messages, managing hand in folders, managing room membership, setting up tests/surveys, running SCORM courses, embedding video/flash?

[dsm]

We're a Frog school and we love it. It has bought so many benefits to the school in terms of admin, organisation as well as the more obvious teaching and learning improvements.

[Danjns]

I've got non techy teachers in History, Science, Food Tech, Geography etc using Fronter reasonably OK.

What in particular do they find counter intuitive about Fronter? Does this relate to setting up pages in rooms, uploading and downloading resources, adding news items, creating messages, managing hand in folders, managing room membership, setting up tests/surveys, running SCORM courses, embedding video/flash?

yep thats about it...

[teak]

is that an added extra cost or something thats included?

Looks to be an additional purchase, a web based frontend to SIMS data-entry I think. An alternative to using SIMS.net, Bromcom Win/Webfolder, etc. Would seem you still need additional software with Frog as well, but guess you add them as icons in the VLE so all in one place.

Easy of use and reduced workload are concerns of ours too for staff. Currently they are having to logon and learn several different products to do everything. The likes of SIMS.net, SLN2, etc all look a bit too office/admin in design with too much clutter. Not sure of PARS, but some staff like the look of the new Bromcom Webfolder; seems to do attendance, assessment and behaviour all within one website/logon. Bromcom also seem to do a parental portal and VLE, but cannot find much information on their VLE (not released yet?).

[Cue]

I found a couple of problems with Frog, notably the fact that it has an incredibly poor forum, with no form of editing, etc. It feels more like a guestbook that anything else, a guestbook with forums and threads, but still. I tried to push to have PHPBB3 installed and linked into AD but the net admin wasn't too fond of the idea.

Frog Bricks are... ehhh, they're okay, I like to mess with the source which it won't let you do directly (you can only edit between the body tags using a HTML brick, which can be problematic if you want to edit other things, though there is a nice array of options for editing the body...).

All in all, unless you're a fussy kinda guy like I am, you'll probably love Frog, it can be quite intuitive, I'm not entirely sure if we actually have everything up and running yet, there seems to be a lot of Facebook-esque Social Networking widgets that don't work for me. I guess the folk in charge of our VLE didn't actually enable them.

RE: SIMS, we have timetables, etc plugged into the student planner on Frog, so it does work.

[teak]

All in all, unless you're a fussy kinda guy like I am, you'll probably love Frog, it can be quite intuitive, I'm not entirely sure if we actually have everything up and running yet, there seems to be a lot of Facebook-esque Social Networking widgets that don't work for me. I guess the folk in charge of our VLE didn't actually enable them.

RE: SIMS, we have timetables, etc plugged into the student planner on Frog, so it does work.

Do you also use SIMS with Frog for everything else, attendance, assessment, behaviour? If so, are you just linking from Frog to a local install of SIMS.net, SIMS terminal server, SIMS web parts?

[Cue]

Do you also use SIMS with Frog for everything else, attendance, assessment, behaviour? If so, are you just linking from Frog to a local install of SIMS.net, SIMS terminal server, SIMS web parts?

I'm not entirely sure, I believe we just use it for the timetable, can't say I've seen any of the other stuff around.