Frog or Firefly?

[GCS52]

Please could you give me advice on the pros and cons of the two VLEs? Due to current school closures, my school is investigating both and I’m finding it hard to find independent reviews. We are not in the UK and need a bit of guidance. Thanks in advance!

[Wubbalubbadub]

Used FROG some years a go... It was a bit clunky. I imagine/hope it has improved since then.

 

I have heard good things about firefly, I seem to remember a lot of private schools using it. But I know it is VERY expensive.

 

Not the answer you're probably looking for. But take a look at cloud design box. It uses SharePoint. (So cheaper than buying another VLE), but is effectively a VLE.

Edited May 2, 2020 by Wubbalubbadub

[chris11256]

We're a Firefly school, costs us about £8000 a year based on 480 pupils and is a good VLE and is very easy to use.

 

Firefly are usually happy to do a demo site for you. They only offer cloud hosted now, their locally hosted platform is being discontinued.

[TwistedHelixis]

Or you could just use Office 365 or G Suite for free and create your own VLE

[MicrodigitUK]

1+ for Office365 Teams/SharePoint managed by Cloud Design Box.

 

https://www.clouddesignbox.co.uk/education

 

I have used Frog3 and FrogLearn and I found it lost it’s pizzazz 7 years ago during the fudged upgrade path from Frog3 to FrogLearn. I think it was around this time that lots of ex-Frog customers jumped to Firefly.

I have heard very good stories from Firefly customers, so sounds like a good product.

However I would recommend you look at one of the big boys like Microsoft and just use Office 365. And if you work with a partner like Cloud Design Box you can quickly replicate a traditional VLE using SharePoint and Teams.

[synaesthesia]

Yeah, as above - this day and age I don't particularly believe that a standalone VLE is worth the money - it won't add anything to education, and the money you save can be spent buying in some decent cloud based stuff for specific subjects or wider of course. Could be worth looking at the gov's £2k grant thing to get you set up on Gsuite/O365.

[mthomas08]

Can't give advice on FIreFly but if you are looking at Frog now I wouldn't waste my time. DOn't get me wrong, what you can do with it etc (assuming its even better now etc) is a good idea BUT.. it takes time to get working and setup. Takes time to get all the content created/online ready. And with its high price tag (back in my day it was) I wouldn't bother.

 

By the time you have it setup I assume most of this would be blown over.

 

EduLink is a nice option and doesn't take long to setup but it is quite limited compared to Frog but it is only £2K a year. This is the perfect time to have a system like Frog but only if you have it setup. Still, I see schools realising the true potential of online learning now being forced to use it.

 

Depends exactly what you want. We have multiple systems which has caused a problem for some students/parents. SOmething like Frog should have everything all linked through a single platform. We have G Suite, Office 365, EduLink, Moodle VLE, home access to drives, email (exchange) plus MyMaths, Kerboodle, Seneca.. I think thats everything. All requiring username/passwords and mostly all different (because we also save money).

[Wubbalubbadub]

We're a Firefly school, costs us about £8000 a year based on 480 pupils and is a good VLE and is very easy to use.

 

Firefly are usually happy to do a demo site for you. They only offer cloud hosted now, their locally hosted platform is being discontinued.

8k!!! [emoji2961][emoji2961][emoji2961][emoji2961]

[chris11256]

8k!!! [emoji2961][emoji2961][emoji2961][emoji2961]

Haha yep, £8520 to be exact!

 

Thankfully it doesn't come out of the IT budget!

[thimon]

Used Frog in my last school, using Firefly in my current school. I have to say Firefly is ahead of Frog in terms of O365 integration, speed and features available. I can confirm Frog always felt clunky, this was using FrogLearn, however this was our experience, I can't comment on behalf of other schools. Recently Firefly is now even better integrated with Planet eStream, Google Docs, OneDrive and Teams.

[bligh001g]

Hi all, we use Frog at our school. We've used it for about 8 years. It's transformed the way we do stuff - and integrates with our GSuite and Office 365 if you use that. The best thing to probably do is to watch these videos on our website, which outlines how we are using Frog for our home learning for Y10 at the moment:

 

https://www.greenshaw.co.uk/information/school-life/home-learning/year-10-home-learning

[Brimstone]

I've got 3 schools that have now dumped Firefly, each one switched to using Showbie on their iPads. the cost for Showbie in each school was less than ONE SIXTH of the yearly cost of Firefly.

 

N.B. I do not work for Showbie