FrogTeacher VLE Questions??

[sycho666]

Hello All,

Our Head of ICT has pretty much decided to go with this choice of VLE (despite all attempts by me not too). I am trying to get some kind of feedback from other shcools IT department with their views or experiences of this VLE. They claim the usual features such as AD intergration and SIMS integration, but dont explain how...What a surprise.
Anyway any feedback would be appreiciated to help me smooth the process of implementaion that is imminant. :sad1:

Cheers

[beeswax]

I do know that FrogTeacher recently announced it was gettinbg into bed with Sharepoint Server (March 7th). I saw a very short demo of it before the nuptuals, and it seemd to offer quite a lot, though a more forensic investigation might reveal huge gaps below the water line.

[sycho666]

Though a more forensic investigation might reveal huge gaps below the water line.

Thanks beeswax,

Thats the kind of thing im hoping wont happen. Although they say its an all singing all dancing VLE, I am still a bit unsure as to how good it really is. The sales person who did the demo to our SLT, said that they were being used by BECTA as the model VLE to use to get your school to BECTA's phase 3 target of 2010. It just seems to me to be to good to be true. But if someone can prove me wrong, Please do. [-o<

[rob101]

We are also getting this and im a little worred to say the least when i hear words like ad intergration i am offen not convinced.

will let you know when i know more but atm the slg is drawing out how it will look and run.

[sycho666]

rob101 - Have you by any chance seen the software licence and service level agreements for it. They are well worth a look with statement such as

"FrogTrade cannot guarantee that the product provided will meet your requirements, and may not be uninterrupted or error free".

Worth a read. We were asked to skim over it and highlight any points worth looking at, pretty much every page of the 20 page document had at least one point that needed highlighting. But I suspect if your at the point of drawing up the designs your school has already gone with it. I just hope all goes well.

[ctbjs]

Hi Sycho666

We have a few schools in our Borough that are using Frog and have been for a while. If you like I could post them on here in case you want to contact them direct. Could be worth a visit to some sites that use it. I don't know your location so they may not be of any use to you.

Hathershaw Technology College use it but I am not sure to what extent as they had some issues with the back end security you might want to ask whether that has been sorted, you don't want a leaking back end!!!

[petectid]

I've got frog here PM me if you want the low down.

[GrumbleDook]

The Hathershaw stuff was an issue with a rogue ex-student more than a problem with Frog ... and also the way some of it had been setup (ie, not completely following the guidelines ... which have been re-iterated to Frog schools).

I'll dig out some more details about AD and MIS integration during the hols, but it can do both ... I just don't have the relevant papers to hand to explain some of the technicalities of it.

[ctbjs]

Indeed Tony and apparently that rogue ex-student is still at it too interfereing with telephones and the like. It's not a total frog issue although they did accept that there were issues as you alluded to. I quite liked the frog vle when i first saw it.

[GrumbleDook]

He's still at it? I would have thought that they had a damn good case for harrassment if nothing else ...

[petectid]

I'll dig out some more details about AD and MIS integration during the hols, but it can do both ... I just don't have the relevant papers to hand to explain some of the technicalities of it.

With respect Tony, yes it does do Sims integration, not MIS, they are working on a CMIS connection. Sims integration can only be achieved using extra software = extra expense. There is not any Sims integration out of the box. Do you have a Frogserver at your site?

[StArbiter]

I believe the SIMS integration is done by using PARS software from TASC. Read data from SIMS is quite cheap but the write back requires the purchase of a full PARS licencne.

[Richie_OLSJ]

Reading data from SIMS can be done for free - I've got a report that gets exported as a CSV daily. I then use this report to enable students to view their timetable (I import the CSV into an SQL Express database).
Getting back to the original topic, though, we have a Frog VLE.
It's pretty good and easy to use, but it's web design side is non-standard, so teaching the students how to design a website on it is pretty useless if they aren't going to work in an environment that has a frog VLE.
It's totally web based for management, has a very basic integration with active directory (passwords are integrated, but there is no way to create/edit/delete users outside the frog web management system).
It's got email (but no spam filtering).
There's web filtering (dans guardian)
There's ict room internet control
The SIMS integration is pretty new and can be a bit of a pain to set up if your users (staff and students) are split into groups across servers.
On the whole it's a good system, but, if I had the time, I'd like to have built my own system - or used a free one that I could customise to our own needs (I think moodle is the only free one, isn't it)

Richie

[Messa]

Hi,

So what about internet blocking for specific students how is it done??
is it easy to use for the staff and is there any way they could cause problems with our current setup?

Thanks in advance

[GrumbleDook]

@ritchie
Another free VLE is bodington That was originally developed by the university of Leeds, but now worked on by many others including Oxford and UHI (though some are also running Moodle alongside).