Which VLE Moodle, Digital Brain, Oracle, Fronter, SIMS LG

[ITWombat]

Can people say which VLE they use and why?

 

Moodle seems to be very popular but oher than being free in both senses, is it really the best one on the market.

[Jake]

Moodle here , cost for one, and secondly for popularity really. With more and more folks using moodle, its garnering a decent community, which is handy for modding and troubleshooting

[Geoff]

Moodle here as well.

 

http://vle.carrhill.lancs.sch.uk

[StewartKnight]

We've got moodle, but no-one seems to be making much use of it at the moment.

 

If anyone has some flashy content they'd like to share....!

[mighty.grey.eagle]

There is only one answer: Moodle. All of the rest cost money and support from a commercial company costs money so they cut corners by responding slowly. With Moodle the forum support is second to none. Most of the problems are solved within the hour (and they tend to be caused by me not reading the help properly). Quite often it is the writer of the module that gives an answer - can you imagine M$ doing that! Think about how quickly Firefox is updated when there is a problem - compare that with Internet Explorer.

 

Secondly. Our school tried a Blackboard demo system last year. Some staff put a lot of work into it then, when the demo ended, they lost all of their materials. Whatever VLE system is adopted you need control of it.

 

Thirdly. Moodle may not be the "best" system (although that is open to argument) but it easily can be. The more people using it the better it will become. Moodle 1.6 will be out in beta towards the middle of this month and, from all accounts, it is very impressive.

 

Lastly, in education we are forever re-inventing the wheel. Even within departments we go our different ways - often creating very similar worksheets. Now is the time to share and the technology helps. As my gesture towards this goal I offer notes on the AQA Advanced Computing (CPT1,2,3,4,5 and 6) together with a KS4 ICT Revision course. All released under the creative commons blurb. Not brilliant but I am sure that someone can improve on it and then offer it back. Contact me through my account details if you are interested or you can pick them up from http://www.e-subjects.co.uk/

[Face-Man]

Hi,

 

This is a really important debate. The government, Becta DFES are really keen for a all encompansing solution so a kid can go to any school and get their work or at least know how to use the VLE. This means mega money is going to be around and so crap companies are going to give flashy presentation and win a contract and then we will have to make it work. The moodle commuinty needs to get in their first and partion the disition makes in LEAs and above to implement the best solution with support for schools that don't have the tech to do it themselves. The DFES need to listen to the people that use technology in education rather than thouse who talk a good talk...

 

Rant over..

[woody]

Moodle.

[Norphy]

We're still thinking about it. However I feel we've narrowed it down to between Moodle or MS Learning Platform. Yes the MS solution costs a fair whack of money but the automatic and single signon malarky is nice feature. Like I said we're still thinking about it, nothing is final yet.

 

We looked into other solutions (Capita Learning Platform, Digital Brain, Kaliedos) but didn't like any of them, primarily because you have to rely on a third party for hosting.

[Geoff]

Yes the MS solution costs a fair whack of money but the automatic and single signon malarky is nice feature.

 

Got that here with Moodle..

[Netman]

Sharepoint Portal Server here - with class server on it's way....

Without doubt SP is one of the best products I've ever used. Very powerful and reasonably user friendly... integrates nicely with Exchange and AD (as you'd expect) and NOT expensive if you have a Schools Agreement in place...

[webman]

If it was down to me, I'd go down the Moodle path. But I haven't been given the chance to test others or go to the same meetings the people who make the decisions go to. But no matter which decision we go with, I don't have a choice as it'll be my job to scan documents and books for teachers and upload them to the VLE... *ahem* sorry, manage the VLE.

[Dos_Box]

Moodle. Lets face it, when O'Reilly release a book on a product you know its big (and free to boot!).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596008635/qid=1141729492/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_0_1/203-7267486-3948767

[Sylv3r]

If it was down to me, I'd go down the Moodle path. But I haven't been given the chance to test others or go to the same meetings the people who make the decisions go to. But no matter which decision we go with, I don't have a choice as it'll be my job to scan documents and books for teachers and upload them to the VLE... *ahem* sorry, manage the VLE.

 

Webman

 

I see your from Durham LEA, have you heard of anything in the pipeline regarding a county wide VLE - our Headteacher mentioned this to me a while ago that they were working on something, but never heard any more about it.

 

Thanks

[webman]

If it was down to me, I'd go down the Moodle path. But I haven't been given the chance to test others or go to the same meetings the people who make the decisions go to. But no matter which decision we go with, I don't have a choice as it'll be my job to scan documents and books for teachers and upload them to the VLE... *ahem* sorry, manage the VLE.

 

Webman

 

I see your from Durham LEA, have you heard of anything in the pipeline regarding a county wide VLE - our Headteacher mentioned this to me a while ago that they were working on something, but never heard any more about it.

 

Thanks

 

You have a PM

[pcprofessor]

Hi all, a couple of things of questionable relevance here:

you can find a comparison of Blackboard and Moodle carried out by an Humboldt State University here. http://www.humboldt.edu/~jdv1/moodle/all.htm

 

also for anyone in the North West, their LEA (through Lancashire grid for Learning and CLEO) are offering a Moodle installation free of charge. "if schools wish to investigate the potential of using a learning platform we can set up a full functional moodle vle at no cost to the school. if you are interested in joining the 40 schools currently using this facility, please contact rob.musker@ict.lancsgfl.ac.uk Contact rob also on 01257 516379

[linuxgirlie]

Moodle here

[spc-rocket]

Hi all,

 

The ideason schools implementing some sort of VLE is a positive one but i see that DFES or becta will spoil the show because recently here have been quite a lot of development in terms of the RBCs offering these services and schools will have to use these. Having said this there is nothing wrong with implementing a VLE - at least this will get the staff and students using it and be familiar with the concept of a VLE. So when the RBCs offer these solutions its not too much hassle for the teachers and pupil to understand the concept of a VLE.

 

We have a VLE but in the past have faced a problem with keeping it up to date with the latest info so this year (ine fact just last year) we have appointed someone to do exactly this - upload content, keep it up to date and manage it. I think just upload a lot of materials is not enought there should be some process to update it, modify it and even delete unwanted content.

 

There is too many things going on at the moment to do with education that its not really helping schools. The e portfolios, personal web space and allow a pupil to have access to his/her work from anywhere will no doubt put up big challenges to the RBCs and also schools. Too many peope have too many ideas and everyone is trying to get their ideas or recommendations forward.

 

Ash.

[Richie1972]

We're currently using Frogserver (http://www.frogtrade.com) and we find it to be excellent - the students seem to like it too.

It handles school website, VLE, email, web filtering (even blocking internet access for PCs) and more.

Integrates with AD to a certain extent, and they are in the process of developing links into SIMS.

Pupils and staff can access their work over the internet.

It's not cheap I believe, but it does offer a lot.

[wesleyw]

Our LEA is pushing Teknical's VLE anyone ever used this and would like to comment?

 

Thanks

 

Wes

[krisd32]

anybody using uniservity?

if so can they let me know what they think etc...

 

cheers

 

Kris

[danIT]

dare i say, microsoft learning gateway

[krisd32]

any body any thought on this?

 

cheers

kris

[mighty.grey.eagle]

Looked at the Uniservity site a few weeks back. Looks like they are trying to jump on the VLE bandwagon and (this is the teacher coming out in me) the site was full of spelling mistakes!

 

Don't look at anything but Moodle. Go to Moodle.org and browse the forums. Ideas flowing everywhere and fantastic support.

[gcheeseman]

I am told that Becta are likely to insist on SCORM 2004 'standards based' content for VLE's. And that Moodle does not meet these standards.

 

I'm not aware of what SCORM 2004 is. Will this blow Moodle out of the water?

[sahmeepee]

I read on the MS class server newsgroup that they are releasing a "replacement for class server" in July. Is that just MS Learning Gateway?

 

SCORM compliant resources are a good idea in theory - it's just a shame that hardly anyone makes them. Perhaps when we've all had VLEs thrust upon us the market will be there and we'll start buying all the stuff we've had for years in swanky new SCORM format. Yet again, things have gone back to front - VLEs to be in place by next year or so, just in time for years of eLC funding to run out so you won't be able to afford any 3rd party content.

 

VLEs all seem to be a tart to set up because there's nothing to tie your AD accounts into SIMS user data, so you have to break out Excel and do some voodoo to map the two together. Depending on your user naming system (another recent thread) this can be non-trivial . Any VLE which eased that burden somehow would get my vote (especially if it did nightly synchronisation).