FrogOS

[cogrady84]

Hi Everyone,

 

Is anyone out there still using Frog? I'm looking for some input on a situation I currently find myself in...

 

As we're currently looking at migrating from our currently underdeveloped/underused Frog3 platform, to FrogOS, there has been renewed interest from key people to get it right this time. This will be our 4th attempt at implementing a VLE, of which the last 3 haven't taken off. I personally don't really see the value in a VLE, my experience so far tells me that it is a solution to a problem we don't have. Despite that, it has been bought and we need to do something with it.

 

The staff driving this forward are pushing to begin this new dawn with SSO, integrating Google so that we can force users to use Frog by basically telling them, the only way you can access Email, Calendar, Drive etc... is by signing into Frog. I have 2 issues with this... firstly, it doesn't seem like it forces anything, all it does is change the credential handler for google services to your Frog server. The issue being that we are not using the hosted service, we have a single server in our council DMZ, so effectively if we do setup SSO, we become reliant on this single, 5 year old server. We suddenly become susceptible to a host of failure scenarios that wouldn't be a problem if we carried on as we are. Hardware/software failure, load balancing, bad updates, council network downtime etc etc... Google has the uptime statistics they have for a reason, i'd hate to think we suffer some kind of local problem and nobody can access email or other google services for days due to this, or the server falls over during a holiday... o_o

 

Secondly, I don't think forcing people to do something is going to help sell the solution, we need to find a USP, a reason to actually use it. What does it do better? What do you guys use it for, how do you engage your staff and students? I imagine alot of you have lost your staff at the first mention of VLE, but those of you who haven't and are effectively using it... what do you do?

 

Thanks!

[Linfit]

Very interesting post, and I agree with all of it and then some.

 

We were in the exact same position last summer, only difference being we are an Office 365 school rather than Google. Our Frog server was even older and probably would not have coped well with Frog OS. We had it for nearly 9 years and usage was never high and had tailed off considerably. I could find no USP for Frog OS and no outcry for it, so I gave everyone three months notice and switched it off at the end of June. Pretty much no one noticed.

 

Staff who want to do everything on line use Office 365, and most of the content was so old and unused we didn't even get hassled to copy it off.

I took great delight in the summer holidays in unracking the server. smashing the drive platters and throwing it in the skip.

 

I was never a fan of VLE's anyway and they seem very last decade now when there are things like Google Docs and Office 365 out there. We replaced the parent portal, which was fiddly and difficult to configure, with TASC Insight and this was cost neutral. Combine that with Frog's terrible documentation and its not inconsiderable expense and management overhead and I think its a no-brainer. Unless its a solution to a major problem, its not worth it.

 

I have found in the past that these things linger long after their sell-by date because the people who originally championed them don't want to admit that actually, it was a bit of a damp squib, but technology moves on and five years is a long time in IT - they need to get past it. I was fortunate that the senior staff who had originally driven our purchase of Frog were long gone, so no-one was invested in making it work no matter what.

[jmak]

I am working towards SLT and the ICT coordinator coming up with a suggestion that we don't need a vle... Very keen to get rid as I see it as a waste of money, but don't want anyone to think it's my idea until I'm proved right

 

I think if you want online services, you need to define your requirements and go and find the specialist provider - if it's storage, Google Apps or O365, subject specialists for curriculum resources. If you chose carefully, there's no way a single vle provider can keep up on such a broad front. Then bring it together in one place - a page on your school website?

 

Just my 2p

Edited January 13, 2016 by jmak

[dblight]

Been in two Frog schools now, old school have binned it completely and my current school are moving away from it more and more.

 

Again the "champions" have moved on now so the push to use it has long gone. Hopefully I can go in and rip it out in the not so distant future!

[thimon]

We've got FrogOS here. I actually really like it, you can set homework via Frog which students can then upload work to and the teachers mark on Frog, parents can see what homework their children have been set, as well as what negative behaviour points have been marked in SIMS, positive marks in Vivo and their attendance score. Students can view their timetables. If used properly teachers can use it as a great learning tool during lessons with quizzes being a favourite, as well as past lessons and lesson plans being posted to help with homework or if kids have missed lessons. Granted, Frog is the only VLE I've had experience with but I've seen how it's changed over time and in it's current form it's looking good. I know a lot of schools have had bad experiences with VLE's and ours is no exception, because of this it has been an uphill struggle to get staff involved with Frog but a lot of them now see it as a benefit to them rather than just another box ticking exercise.

[edmokeski]

We're a FrogOS school, having migrated from 3 about a year ago. Still pretty mixed economy, as all of those dusty department websites that were made in the initial burst of enthusiasm are, of course, still in 3. Our dashboards are in 4, and a handful of other things that I personally manage.

Despite officially being a VLE Mgr, I'm not sure I see the point of one in pre-tertiary (I optimistically imagined several upon starting here, in my first role outside HE). They're great if you've got a hybrid online/face-to-face course model, or if you're in a uni scenario where you don't necessarily see students more than once a week and it's up to them if they show up to your lecture, but you need a tool to simplify distributing and collecting assignments and course materials. VLEs solve a problem we don't really have in secondary, so it's been a hard sell outside a few niche uses. FrogOS has a lot of potential, but all of it requires too much time investment for teachers who have no extra time to give. I expect we'll bin it within the next 12-18. Our workflow has moved to GAfE, thanks to Classroom, and all that's really left on Frog is room booking (for which there are better, cheaper, specialized tools out there) and a sort of "portal" page of links that is the dashboard, which I could just as easily replicate in HTML. My time is more taken up by GAfE and general edtech integration than looking after Frog, these days. Just gotta get me a new title first, lest I end up in the skip with the Frog box!

 

Edit: Also, all SLT who were in any way pro-Frog are now long gone, including those who originally bought it, which makes a big difference in deciding whether it's worth keeping or not..

Edited January 28, 2016 by edmokeski
Additional comment

[bligh001g]

We have been using Frog for approx 5 years now and are very satisfied with the current direction and progression of the product. We have gone through the transition of Frog3 to FrogLearn (FrogOS) and are looking at getting Frog3 turned off very soon so we can solely focus on the newer platform.

 

I took on the role of iLearning Co-ordinator in 2012 and have built Frog up to be a platform we heavily rely on in school as it holds all department resources, staff information including cover, Year 8's submit their option choices through it and the creation of Frog 'Sites' really helps students outside of lessons revise and learn, especially A Level students in their free periods. That is just a taste of what we do but of course, there is much more to it.

 

I think lots of schools now are claiming that VLE's are 'old technology' and 'not relevant' but this really isn't the case with Frog. They have done a good job of creating tablet versions and iPad/Android apps to genuinely make life easier. For example, our teachers love the FrogSnap app as you can instantly send an image/video/audio clip from your phone/tablet onto the Frog platform for students and parents to see.

 

Setting homework is a breeze and so is managing it from a head of department/SLT point of view. There is a monitor app which allows them to see which homework teachers are setting and the quality of it too.

 

Overall, we have made Frog critical here and if we turned it off tomorrow then it would have a massive effect.

[Honeill]

Hello all,

 

We launched September 2015 and it has been very useful. We didn’t have a VLE before; we had Moodle so anything would have been a win to be fair.

 

In general, our approach has been to make sure staff know how to use it so it helps them day to day, it supports children’s learning and improves transparency and inclusion for parents.

 

We have stayed transparent by providing training tools on Frog, getting SMT on board and keeping the energy up whilst going to as many MSL and events as we can.

 

Frog does a lot of things for us and we have a lot planned, just with Frog learn (not including frog parent, progress and play which we are looking at currently).

 

Frog tends to do most things better. Given, sometimes files can be clunky such as getting things out of a folder but apart from that everything else is quite useful.

 

We are using it day to day for staff as a working system. Everything we use daily can be put on Frog and this makes things easier and more streamlined to use. Students can easily access learning support and keep up to date with what’s happening throughout the school and parents can get more involved in their children’s learning (in addition to supporting them to support their children, as the resources used in school are readily available).

 

Sites can be about anything and everything and can be as private or public as you want them to be. The limits are only with what you can think of! Staff, students and parents use their dashboard as their access hub for information, learning resources, access to areas and to communicate with the school.

 

I wouldn’t say that we have ‘lost staff’ but there will always be those who are more comfortable with new technology and those who are not so comfortable with it. It is up to the school to target those who need help as well as at the same time pushing your top achievers with Frog to make sure there are good successful examples to show them! The key here is to provide good training, allow staff to have time to play and experiment with the platform, get SMT on board first and foremost and make sure that it is maintained, staying relevant and up to date.

 

There are some great examples on the community site of success stories, including my presentation in the eat share and learn at BETT 2016. My slides on how we launched at Rushy Meadow Primary should also be on the community site. The community site has been great for us as a reference guide. We have also kept in good contact with Frog, the service desk and our SRM who make sure that Frog is working and that there is a good relationship between Frog and the school.

 

One example of this is that I know Greenshaw High School have gone paperless. They have made it so that Frog is their main system in school, all homework goes through Frog and they are reaping the benefits of the system and how easy it is to use and manage.

A good thing to use might be the SAMR model which you can find online. We started by making sure that Frog was running successfully alongside other current systems and, given time, Frog is gradually taking over as all the time more and more people are asking about it and saying how effective it is being.

Nothing happens over night!

 

Harrison O’Neill

Rushy Meadow Primary

[Edu-IT]

Hello all,

 

We launched September 2015 and it has been very useful. We didn’t have a VLE before; we had Moodle so anything would have been a win to be fair.

 

In general, our approach has been to make sure staff know how to use it so it helps them day to day, it supports children’s learning and improves transparency and inclusion for parents.

 

We have stayed transparent by providing training tools on Frog, getting SMT on board and keeping the energy up whilst going to as many MSL and events as we can.

 

Frog does a lot of things for us and we have a lot planned, just with Frog learn (not including frog parent, progress and play which we are looking at currently).

 

Frog tends to do most things better. Given, sometimes files can be clunky such as getting things out of a folder but apart from that everything else is quite useful.

 

We are using it day to day for staff as a working system. Everything we use daily can be put on Frog and this makes things easier and more streamlined to use. Students can easily access learning support and keep up to date with what’s happening throughout the school and parents can get more involved in their children’s learning (in addition to supporting them to support their children, as the resources used in school are readily available).

 

Sites can be about anything and everything and can be as private or public as you want them to be. The limits are only with what you can think of! Staff, students and parents use their dashboard as their access hub for information, learning resources, access to areas and to communicate with the school.

 

I wouldn’t say that we have ‘lost staff’ but there will always be those who are more comfortable with new technology and those who are not so comfortable with it. It is up to the school to target those who need help as well as at the same time pushing your top achievers with Frog to make sure there are good successful examples to show them! The key here is to provide good training, allow staff to have time to play and experiment with the platform, get SMT on board first and foremost and make sure that it is maintained, staying relevant and up to date.

 

There are some great examples on the community site of success stories, including my presentation in the eat share and learn at BETT 2016. My slides on how we launched at Rushy Meadow Primary should also be on the community site. The community site has been great for us as a reference guide. We have also kept in good contact with Frog, the service desk and our SRM who make sure that Frog is working and that there is a good relationship between Frog and the school.

 

One example of this is that I know Greenshaw High School have gone paperless. They have made it so that Frog is their main system in school, all homework goes through Frog and they are reaping the benefits of the system and how easy it is to use and manage.

A good thing to use might be the SAMR model which you can find online. We started by making sure that Frog was running successfully alongside other current systems and, given time, Frog is gradually taking over as all the time more and more people are asking about it and saying how effective it is being.

Nothing happens over night!

 

Harrison O’Neill

Rushy Meadow Primary

Do you have a link to the Powerpoint than anyone can access?

[fouldsy]

You can find Harrison's slides on the Community Site: https://frog.frogcommunity.com/alphaplus_msl

 

Cheers

 

Matt

[mthomas08]

Secondly, I don't think forcing people to do something is going to help sell the solution, we need to find a USP, a reason to actually use it. What does it do better? What do you guys use it for, how do you engage your staff and students? I imagine alot of you have lost your staff at the first mention of VLE, but those of you who haven't and are effectively using it... what do you do?

 

Used Frog many a year ago, our idea was putting all work online. Lesson plans for cover staff, materials and coursework for Students. All visible at home, on their mobile, on their equipment, in IT lessons - effectively any where. Similar how Universities present their courses, you still have your seminars and day to day lessons but you are physically able to access a lot online. Without needing to carry a ton of books etc.

 

To be honest, only works if everyone or most are on board. If you have too many that are not with it, then it will effectively become a waste of money. When I was working on Frog at a School, the majority of those above Supported and could see the benefit. Then again the HT at the time was very Pro IT, very pro Online, Reports, giving parents access to it all and because we had a lot of PCs than most Schools it was a primary focus. Until new management come along who already made their opinion before they arrived.

 

Our setup currently is mainly Moodle, although not developed no where near as I would hope. We simply don't have that kind of time plus we have gone to other companies for other services. So we have Moodle, SLG, RealSmart and another company for our School Website. There is also a few external services for content related stuff. I personally would like a single setup like Frog for all the above because of the amount everything costs (which is far more than Frog's biggest package). We are looking at cutbacks with RealSmart but the others will stay.

 

SLG - for Homework and Parent Access

Moodle for online work materials (we also have revision stuff). Actually can't stress how much is actually stored online and it does get used.

ReaSmart for online portfolios

External Access to email and their data through various means.

 

Still at the end of the day if you have Staff that don't really see the benefit even after showing them, you could potentially waste their time (been there done that). Then again when you go for something ten steps back, you may find people are sick of it (again I have experience in this).

 

I for one am a believer in having access to pretty much everything no matter where I am and I cant stress the nightmare that RealSmart, SLG and the content providers are not SSO.

Edited February 24, 2016 by mthomas08