Learning Portal Plus

[Pear]

I was wondering if anyone else has experienced Learning Portal Plus. Various people in my school want to take this up but I think Moodle is an adequate alternative. I'm not asking for VLE's I just want to know what makes the better/worse than all the others.

[Ric_]

Other than the costs involved, the potentially slower speeds with it being hosted by a 3rd party (LgFL are going to be offering hosted Moodle to Lancashire schools soon and that's on the CLEO WAN).

 

If you don't currently have a VLE, how do you know that enough people will take it up to justify the cost?

[Pear]

That has been my argument, we are really slow to take technology up and when staff are forced they rebel against it.

 

Apparently, I heard lp+ will deliver class preperation (to me thats just the creation of office documents), act like moodle, have attendance, have customisation (sounds like I'm advertising for them now) and whatever else the salespeople said.

 

I spoke to someone from PE who has been testing it and he isn't impressed as its not fully customisable, especially the layouts which is something Moodle has the advantage with.

[Ric_]

PM Dos_Box to see if he can advise further on the Lancashire Moodle scheme.

[Pear]

I know all about those schemes, I have my fingers in a lot of pies at the moment. Apparently I (and the rest of lancashire) might be allowed reverse proxies for moodle, it is to be decided next week. I wanted it for other things too though so they are a bit resiliant to letting me have my own way.

 

Of course, if all else fails I can go with the ngfl schemes.

[Dos_Box]

Moodle will do all of that. We WILL give you a free, fully hosted and supported Moodle. Just contact the web team at the Schools ICT Centre. The reason that we have been quiet about Moodle and our plans is that Moodle had to become a BECTA 'approved' platform, and has only just got that status in the past month or so. My advice would be to save your cash and go with our method, which has a fully manned web team working on it constantly and will endevour to fit in any custom components you might need, but looking at LPs' site it really does nothing that Moodle does not do.

[Pear]

Two Things:

1. I have the problem with the internet dying around 2-3pm everyday, thats pretty useless for Moodle in the afternoon.

2. I need a linux server, theres a few things its needed for and its getting desperate, so if I say I am going to put Moodle on it then that helps the cause which I will hopefully put forward tomorrow.

 

I will of course recommend all other schools contact you.

 

Before when I was on the phone I told whoever I was speaking to at the Westfield Centre about Moodle being approved and he said it wasn't confirmed, he said it wouldn't be until SIMS could be intergrated. But of course I trust what I hear on here more than them. He also suggested I look at the Becta website. However I can find nothing about Becta approving Moodle though.

[Ric_]

From what I can see, Becta have 'approved' Moodle as a learning environment but at the present time there isn't integration with SIMS so using that combination won't meet the Becta 'Learning Platform Interoperability Scheme' framework. I believe this is being worked on but progress has been slow due to the costs of becoming a Capita partner.

 

As for the dire net connection problems, you should have noticed a marked improvement since the new firewall has been implemented and the LgFL solution shouldn't really be affected in theory since it is within the CLEO wan (i.e. before you reach the firewall).