2013 and the state of VLEs in some schools

[speckytecky]

I'm a NM in a KS3 Special school and also have a daughter who is a student in an otherwise pretty good KS3 / 4 school in another town. Neither school currently has a VLE and having read about the advantages here I'm wondering how to set about establishing one in the school I work in and enquiring why my daughter's school doesn't have one / suggesting they look into having one. Pointers would be welcome.

[SYNACK]

VLEs are only any good with massive staff buy in otherwise they languish and end up doing more harm than good. Your best bet will be to try and generate large amounts of genuine interest in the staff to actually get it off the ground.

[speckytecky]

Umph! Best I don't bother raising the question in my Special then - been a seriously uphill task getting any content for the website so I somehow doubt that my pleas for input to a VLE would meet with any great enthusiasm then

 

That said the VLE was one of the things (as was the whole in house ICT support scene) that was functional and useful at my daughter's previous school. So, I'm going to try and get her present school to build one.

 

VLEs are only any good with massive staff buy in otherwise they languish and end up doing more harm than good. Your best bet will be to try and generate large amounts of genuine interest in the staff to actually get it off the ground.

Edited August 3, 2013 by speckytecky

[FishCustard]

Exactly this. We 'have' Fronter, but it is universally disliked, and almost nobody uses it. We'll probably replace it with a few separate solutions that are best for that individual task (handing in work, online course content, etc.).

 

No solution is any good if the users don't want to use it!

[flyinghaggis]

VLEs are only any good with massive staff buy in otherwise they languish and end up doing more harm than good.

 

+1

 

We've been trying implement a SharePoint system for whole school use but there's too many staff with their own ideas about how they want to use online resources and ultimately every department wants the flexibility to pick and choose their own sites for sharing resources.

 

I've given up on trying to implement a single system for staff to use as departments are unable to agree on one and all it does is cause friction between us and staff. I've come to the conclusion that the best way forward is to give staff the freedom to use what they want and simply offer advice if they ask.

[fouldsy]

I work for Frog (no cloak and dagger) and I'm sure you've heard of us already.

 

Synack is right, the simple fact is that a lot of schools buy a VLE without the the 'buy in' from their SLT. By that I don't mean the money spent, I mean it is them who make the decisions after all, and a humble Network Manager cannot force his colleagues into using the VLE, whereas the SLT can.

 

Actually making sure every member of staff use the VLE will eventually break down any initial barrier caused by lack of technical knowledge/confidence, and they will see exactly how this software can help them with lessons, homework and engaging their students.

 

Cheers

 

Matt

Edited August 7, 2013 by fouldsy
Slap on the hand for first post ;)

[unixman_again]

I've been in three schools, with three different VLE experiences :

 

School 1 - we implemented MoinMoin as VLE and the students loved it, but most staff refused to add content saying "I haven't got time to learn new stuff" or "I've been doing it this way since 19xx and I won't change now". The annoying thing was staff were still generating new teaching resources. One teacher had developed a website hosted outside the school and was (with the blessing of SMT) putting his materials there.

 

School 2 - they were using Sharepoint and some departments used it extensively and others not at all. I can fully understand this as SP is a beast and the interface is not very intuitive. Some teachers who weren't using it had tried, but couldn't get to grips with it. Just as I was leaving (18 months ago) the school switched to Frog and there has been a much larger uptake by staff.

 

School 3 (actually a college) - we use Moodle and all departments use it, in varying degrees. A few just use it as a document repository - there is a willingness by these staff to learn more about the use of Moodle. Some use it extensively, with students submitting work directly using Moodle. There is a push towards more of these paperless courses and there is a pilot to get more teachers doing this. SMT are very keen to do more paperless courses and to this end, staff that sign up are given a iPad. If they drop out of the pilot, they lose the iPad.

 

We have a minor issue with teachers who want to learn more about Moodle. At the last inset day, the principal announced that I was offering one to one Moodle training sessions and staff were encouraged to sign up. (I wish I'd been told that I was offering this one to one training!) Not being a teacher, I don't actually use Moodle, however the sessions went well enough and I was able to show staff things they hadn't thought of like embedding videos into a page. There is now a group of teachers who have become mentors in various things, one of which is the use of Moodle. These are the very experienced Moodle users and they are running sessions to pass knowledge on.

 

The VLE has been a huge success here and this success will only increase.

[NewOrder]

Adoption of a VLE is very difficult. Whatever one you select does not depend on the technology but the group of people to drive it forward. SharePoint is both a success and failure in the commercial world for the same reasons. If its well implemented with governance and the topdown message it works. If its just put out there then it fails. It becomes a glorified shared drive.

[edutech4schools]

My primary schools all use Google Apps as the VLE and We created Google sites to hold all the content and apps. Its the only system I could get the staff to learn as it is so simple.

[zag]

We use sharepoint here, I wouldnt say its an essential part of the school, but some departments use it as a nice document store that can be accessed from home.

 

Basically don't spend too much time or money on one unless there is a defined need. Back when Labour were running the country they spent hundreds of millions of pounds trying to get them to roll out and nothing really came of it.

[Boredguy]

We used uniservity's school-portal, but during the transfer to their new Life platform we found too many compatibility issues so over the summer break we've installed Moodle primarily to host the scorm files from the ActivTeach software and provided another shared drive for class resources via HAP.

 

We might look at expanding Moodle for blogs etc if we don't use that feature in office 365's sharepoint.

[demsley]

VLEs are only any good with massive staff buy in otherwise they languish and end up doing more harm than good. Your best bet will be to try and generate large amounts of genuine interest in the staff to actually get it off the ground.

 

Definitely agree with this. Staff buy-in is the only way to generate this.... unless.......

 

...what about student buy in?

 

Change can come from the bottom and it may be that if you can engineer a desire within the student body you might get staff buy in on the back of this.

 

How does the school manage it's online reporting responsibility? Maybe you could sell the idea to the SLT through that aspect?

[Griff]

glorified dropbox staff hate it kids get their homework from it we pay way too much for it

[Tall_Paul]

We use Fronter here. Staff grumbled about it a lot at the start (two years ago), but SMT essentially forced their hand and I have to say it does not get very heavy usage now.

[rdk]

We use Google Apps as the VLE. First we got a Apps for Education registration, made sure every kid had a logon (initially made logon essentially same user name and password as existing system) then one or two teachers started using sites/drive etc. After a while other teachers saw the advantages, and the kids started expecting resources to be available on the subject/faculty sites. The big advantage is its free, and can run in parallel with any existing system. I would recommend thinking through exactly how it would be used were everyone to buy in and make sure that teachers start using it that way from the start - ie which account owns documents (teachers or faculty accounts etc), naming conventions for sites, role of faculty co-ordinator vs individuals and so on. Then, any questions from teachers about "how to" do things online recommend them the google solution. Sites has a bit of a learning curve, so make sure you know the ins and outs first.

 

After the first few subject sites were made we made faculty sites with links to the individual sites. Then we mapped them so http://english.ourschool.vic.edu.au (for example) goes to the English site (just a page) which has links to the individual year level sites. After that we put the links to these on our website here: Subject Websites | Killester College (most will require logon, but Science for instance is open to look at). Science faculty has one site with all the year levels combined, which is different to English. But kids know that mapped science/mathematics/humanities addresses will take them where they need to go.

 

This was not forced on anyone, but simply modelled then suggested and supported when staff wanted to work online. So much so that after two years we're confident in telling staff that our old solution will be closing in six months and everyone expected to be on google apps, and we'll not have any backlash as staff can see how well it works.

[witch]

We have moodle which is extensively used by the IT staff and the children, and by a few teachers - not nearly enough.

The head doesnt like it, and when looking for a respository for staff weekly planning he was told it could be done easily on moodle, accessible from outside the school etc - password protected if necessary - really safe etc etc and so he went for dropbox...

I was talking to the head of the high school at the top of our pyramid last night and he has implemented Sharepoint there - he freely admits it is because he comes from a sharepoint school - and we were discussing the value of one site for the whole pyramid - with each school having their own website "front-end" and then other things being available to all.

That's the point really - he is very IT literate and wants to use it more and more - he is pushing his staff to do so and it WILL be used.

[mthomas08]

As others have said, really need backing from management. They will need to push it just as much as you (if not more) at the end of the day this is about allowing the students to pretty much learn/do work anywhere. This is for students during the half terms, at the end of the day, school shutdown days and sick days.

 

I am still surprised that some schools still don't have VLEs (or what ever fancy term you want to use because some don't like the term). Most of the kids have access to Wifi through a device so to me it makes sense having access to as much as possible at home. We here have moodle but just not long purchased RealSmart which integrates with all the Google Apps, Gmail, Drive etc. At the moment staff/students have been using it just to see what they can do and it seems positive so far (minus the realsmart rep whom a lot of staff didn't like).

 

It is a lot of work but the benefits out weigh that by far, this is about educating the kids after all. If all content was online and available anywhere then the kids don't have to worry about going to the library for books (which seems to be fazing out in many towns). The idea is you have all the required work and research materials all in one location and if you can make it look attractive and linked directly to their homework/learning progress then even better. I know some schools are still using basic file storages for their homework which to me is very outdated.

[JimmyTown]

Only jumping in because I have had to do something with Moodle recently. Don't go with Moodle unless you have a dedicated Moodle lord!

 

It just feels like intranet software from 1999 and just doesn't stand up against other modern web services available.

 

If you have a budget then you have to look at the Sharepoints, Fireflys and Frogs to get something that will engage students and staff. Shiney shiney! horrible to admit it but its the truth. (yes you can skin Moodle but thats like painting a Austin Meastro Ferrari Red, its still a Meastro!)

[Griff]

Got Frog coming in 25th Nov to demo the product I saw it back in 2009 but nearly fainted when we saw the price. Apparently the pricing structure has been reviewed so its less of a shock (I doubt this as I fear the setup cost is going to cause a minor heart attack)