Fronter - where is everyone else getting help?

[jdavey6]

Hi. i am new to the London area and have been given the job of embedding Fronter across the school.

 

i have found the Fronter help documents which are OK but not as helpful as they could be.

 

i have been unable to find an official Fronter help centre other than for technical issues.

 

given that so many schools across London are using Fronter i was hoping to find a dedicated help forum but haven't managed to track one down.

 

i have many questions regarding the everyday use of Fronter, many of which must have been resolved already.

 

can anybody let me have a link to a help forum?

is there a 'room' in Fronter that i can access that acts as a help centre?

 

thank you in advance for your assistance

 

john

[contink]

Probably most of your problems are down to the fact that different fronterer customers have different policies on sharing information, etc..

 

When I contacted Fronterer directly they forwarded my request for demo access to the LEA tech department responsible for my schools. Instead of welcoming the query I was shutdown PDQ although it was polite the inference was that they don't want techs involved but to encourage teaching staff to work the system out themselves. Conveniently forgetting that the techs are the first port of call when "it just doesn't work!". The fact that I'm third party service provider probably has something to do with it but that's supposition on my part. My guess is more that they haven't worked out the kinks themselves yet and don't want a tech pulling things apart.

 

For my money, when things finally kick off I will be spending some time getting to grips with it all and then creating some camtasia guides which I'll be happy to share. No idea when that will be though.

[leco]

The lack of response may also be to do with the contract that your LEA has with Fronter. Only the Admin user/Super user has contact with Fronter - as far as I know school people need to contact the school's first line support, who will then contact the next layer up.

[jdavey6]

hi. thanks for the replies.

i guess i am really looking for a self help group that can answer questions like;

 

how can i get equations etc into answers in a multiple choice test?

 

how can i set up a survey? the screen i get is very different from that shown in the user guide for surveys

 

how do i set tests up in a text document so that they can be imported. i have lots of tests but don't know what format to use. the help notes only cover creating or importing questions set up in Fronter

 

there must be loads of teachers with Question Databases that they have developed. are any available to share?

 

how are others using Fronter?

do they have good ideas to share?

 

cheers

 

john

[mattmoo]

Probably most of your problems are down to the fact that different fronterer customers have different policies on sharing information, etc..

 

When I contacted Fronterer directly they forwarded my request for demo access to the LEA tech department responsible for my schools. Instead of welcoming the query I was shutdown PDQ although it was polite the inference was that they don't want techs involved but to encourage teaching staff to work the system out themselves. Conveniently forgetting that the techs are the first port of call when "it just doesn't work!". The fact that I'm third party service provider probably has something to do with it but that's supposition on my part. My guess is more that they haven't worked out the kinks themselves yet and don't want a tech pulling things apart.

 

For my money, when things finally kick off I will be spending some time getting to grips with it all and then creating some camtasia guides which I'll be happy to share. No idea when that will be though.

 

I was met with the same sort of response.

I tried to get a login so i can get a look at the whole thing and was just told this could not happen until i have been on the training (or until they can throw me their sales patter about how good it is).

 

Strange!

 

Matt

[contink]

T'is frustrating indeed...

 

Luckily I'm in a position where I can sit in on the training sessions with the staff and make notes (whenever that happens) so I'll be able to distill that and borrow a staff account to learn the process when they do.

 

I'm also not entirely against their having to learn and teach themselves and each other. They need the practice in that lost art..

[Face-Man]

I'm a Fronter trainer so I'll try my best on these ones (I'm only on the admin side so teaching and learning stuff will have to wait till I can ask a colleague). I'm also not paid by Fronter though my learning centre does get some money to cover costs if I do training. There are other learning platforms out there that may be as good/better.

 

First If you want to have a look at it try

 

http://www.fronter.com/ukusers

 

Login: primary (or secondary)

Password: London

 

It's a little bit basic but but has some help videos on it and examples. If enough people want to see the admin side and back end before committing I could have a try at getting one setup either here or alternatively by fronter as a demo.

 

jdavey6 if you pm me I maybe able to find you a training centre near your school. I know in our LA there are lots of plans a foot for resources but not a lot of content just yet.

[jdavey6]

hi Face man

 

thanks for the reply and the link which is useful to see what others have done but i am still surprised that there isn't a help forum.

i am scheduled to have some training towards the end of November so i may find out then, but it does seem strange that i can't track one down.

 

i think this is the first bit of software i have tried to use that isn't as intuitive as i would like, except perhaps for MS Access, and that hasn't got an obvious on line help community

[IC176]

Totally un-intuitive is what I am finding; and if I am finding the interface hard how are the teaching staff going to get on.

 

Have any school had issues with Stickies and inapropriate messages?

 

The other problem that I am worries about is the ability of pupils to place inapropite images and vidoes on the own frontpage or in there my document area?

[mattmoo]

Hmmm looks ok if not a rip off of moodle/sharepoint.

 

Interesting how our LEA said there was no dummy account yet here faceman has posted one.

 

How amazing that the internet has won again.

 

Anyways, back to fronter yes it would be nice to see the admin part as well.

 

Matt

[jdoyle]

Totally un-intuitive is what I am finding; and if I am finding the interface hard how are the teaching staff going to get on.

 

Have any school had issues with Stickies and inapropriate messages?

 

The other problem that I am worries about is the ability of pupils to place inapropite images and vidoes on the own frontpage or in there my document area?

 

I've switched Stickies and FIM off - there's no mechanism in place for checking appropriate vs inappropriate usage.

 

I went to the Uk Fronter Reference Group meeting in Leicester last week and Stickies were mentioned - there are plans to add logging features to Stickies.

 

Students can use the MyCalendar invite feature as pseudo stickies.

 

The admin side is hard to get into but once you've made the breakthrough it becomes easier.

[m2d2]

There is a Fronter support site Fronter support. This looks to be used most for service annoucements and FAQs.

 

There is also a forum for Fronter admins http://fronter.com/fronter

You'll have to approach your account manager for a logon as the site is a customised Fronter building.

It doesn't seem to get many posts but maybe edugeek members can do something about that