TALMOS

[kingswood]

Anyone heard of this- and if so- what's it like?

 

Our head has committed us to three years of this without any explanation and the "server" is being installed in three weeks' time!

 

You can email me or post here- any help appreciated.

 

Paul

[plexer]

Well unfortunately you have signed the lease and the machine is coming.

It's a lesson planning system with lots of resources allready installed for your teachers to use, schemes of work etc...

 

The sales guy we had here was very high pressure sales to get us to sign.

 

They provide remote access so your teachers and presumably pupils can access the thing remotely.

 

For the money which was around 5k a year on a 5 year lease here I think you could do a lot more with any other vle and pay for content.

 

My biggest issues with it are that they use your mis system for user logins so that they can integrate the pupils timetable rather than their AD login. So everytime you have a new pupil or change a timetable or add anything you have to export that info from your mis and import it into TALMOS.

 

Same goes for creating new users. We are migrating from Phoenix golf to E1 which gives us web access to our mis therefore we don't need the timetable to be in talmos so that negates that whole functionality.

 

Because it looks pretty the heads like it. I have to say I don't someone else's server I don't control and I've got to feed it backup tapes not for me thanks.

 

Ben

[plexer]

Snuffkins: thats my point really, we've only in the last year or so been having staff using the resources we allready have above word documents and I think there are soo many things you can do to add interaction into documents using flash and other tools etc... that you can explore before going down the router of talmos.

 

Even then I suppose having a vle like moodle then allows you to integrate these documents into modules and teach them from there. Once they are created they can be tweaked all of this at a far lower cost than something like TALMOS.

 

Digital Projectors and to some extent interactive whiteboards are more of a boon to whole class collaborative learning as a starting point than this.

 

I would want all staff to be using the system to justify it's cost.

 

Ben

[plexer]

Ok where did snuffkins reply go? did you delete it while I was typing a reply to it? thats has really messed the thread up now

 

Ben

[GrumbleDook]

Being honest ... I am sick and tired of the rep turning up now ... I cancelled a meeting yesterday with him and he stilled turned up "no ... I never got the message", just as I am about to go to another local school to talk about a collaboration of Learning gateway between the school. Took me 15 minutes to get rid of him.

 

The sales drone is very persuasive and the system is like any other system ... if implemented right it could make a big difference. The thing I really disliked was the "We have been in school X and they are going for it" when in reality most of the other schools weren't. I have a feeling that this is what he did to your Head.

 

If the papers haven't been signed then please get your Head to ring me or Stuart Williams at BWCTC on Monday ... I have an interesting offer about a collaborative Learning Gateway setup between BWCTC, CCC, and us ... mainly funded by Leading Edge money.

[kingswood]

He has signed :-(

 

The server will be installed on the 2nd of June.

 

It seems like it could offer some nice features- but I'm passing this one up to the Systems' Manager- lol.

 

Your collaborative learning gateway would have been good Tony- but this is what Talmos is touted as being and you can have clusters of schools all sharing the lesson materials and stuff throughout the cluster. Blah.

 

This should be fun anyway...

 

Thanks guys.

 

Paul

[GrumbleDook]

There is nothing stop your place still using the Learning Gateway. We are still looking at using FirstClass for the rest of the year and also looking at having at leat one Moodle installation via the EMBC for collaboration with other schools.

 

The objects in TALMOS are meant to be SCORM compliant and tagged according to BECTa specs. Nothing wrong with using more than one place for stuff ...

[kingswood]

Let me see what exactly TALMOS offers and I'll get in touch with you Tony if there will be no overlap. There's definitely nothing wrong with using more than one place for stuff, but increasing complexity breeds increasing support-- and I don't have the manpower to cope with much in the way of additional support needs right now.

 

Having said all of that, email me some details of what you are doing and how/why and I will look it over. Or you could all just buy TALMOS ;-)

[Snuffkins]

Yeah i did delete it, sowwy... I spotted a much better response and thought my post wouldn't be any use.

 

It's costing us 18k over three years i think and no one uses it yet. I can only imagine that by the time it gets used if at all the three years will be up... The biggest problem for us is we are also using a sharepoint gateway that also isn't used very much either. So basically we have two very useful systems and neither of which are being used and one of which will end up being the winner. So quite what the point of buying into both systems at the same time was i'm not sure.

 

But i shall have to wait and see what happens i guess. Maybe the staff will be stubborn and not use either at all... Hopefully though they won't see it as extra work for them and use it.

[wesleyw]

Of course they'll see it as extra work! lol

 

Sharepoint Gateway? Isn't that just an M$ product?

 

6k a year for no use seems a little bit steep especially when the money could be put to other things like resource materials themselves etc..

 

What's sharepoint like?

 

Our LEA is going to provide all the schools in the borough with a VLE hosted by them I believe or at least supported by them. No sure what they've chosen yet if anything.

 

We have just installed a new email server/proxy/web server/remote access/etcetera.. unit which could easily be used for a VLE by installing moodle so I think I'll have a look at doing that.

 

Wes

[kingswood]

Moodle is excellent.

 

I am still testing some Moodle stuff at home and learning from various sources its ins-and-outs, but will hold off implementing it now because I don't think we have just bought into the TALMOS VLE-like solution; we have also (it seems) bought their attendance deal and also their web filtering stuff too. Oh boy. Summer can't come quick enough for me :?

 

Paul

[pcully]

I am new to this forum but from what I have read it could be my Life Saver.

 

Our head seems very keen to get TALMOS installed in our school but as yet I have not come across any school in Norfolk that has it up and running (one has had the kit for nearly a year and it is still not fully operational).

 

I am also told that although the company says that it integrates fully with PHOENIX this is not wholly true and the data transfer is not automated so this rather negates the use of the registration module. We have truancycall integrated into Phoenix and this works really well but I can see problems with Talmos if the registration is not automatic!!

 

Peter

[plexer]

Peter,

 

If you want to discuss my thoughts on TALMOS feel free to pm me and I'll give you my phone number. Our head was also very interested but that's just the sales reps being pushy and we are now not proceeding with it.

 

What school are you at?

 

Ben

[alan-d]

Our ICT Co-ord attended a presentaton for TALMOS (teaching and management Open System)

 

Anyone used it / is using it?

 

Any comments or things I should look out for?

 

Apart from cost - is there any reason I should use it instead of moodle?

[webman]

Two schools near us uses it. Carmel RC Technology College (http://www.carmel.org.uk) and St John's RC Technology College (http://www.stjohnsrc.org.uk). Don't know the name of the person who manages or who is responsible for it though.

[kingswood]

We are starting to use it now- if you want to know more or need some advice let me know via email or PM. It's certainly an interesting system!

[plexer]

Been discussed on here at length before our head was very interested but the cost was one huge factor as well as a number of other things that we weren't happy with.

 

I'd advise anyone that is tempted to have the lease details checked by your LEA legal team as ours was not 100% convinced that it met with the requirements of a school lease.

 

Ben

[Slartibartfast]

Their salesperson will never leave you alone if you express any interest. He will lie through his teeth to get you to sign on the dotted line.

 

I would also be very sceptical of any claims they make about any school which is supposedly using the system.

[alan-d]

Ooops - sorry - missed that thread http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=2757&highlight=TALMOS

[thom]

I can also provide a reference if needed, pm me for a true case study

[alan-d]

All info would be gratefully received - apparently we have a meeting with a rep after the half term break.

 

I'd like to be as armed as possible

 

pm or email me details if they are unfit for public consumption

 

@thom - yes please

[SpuffMonkey]

I can also provide a reference if needed, pm me for a true case study

 

I'd appreciate a pm of that too - as we seem to be getting entangled too. Thanks

[GrumbleDook]

We are starting to use it now- if you want to know more or need some advice let me know via email or PM. It's certainly an interesting system!

 

I can hear the sarcasm in that from over here ... I'd be interested to pop over and see how it is progressing. We are still pussy-footing around technical, political and financial stuff at the combined one between us, and the other 2 places. It is making for an *interesting * project ... and we can see certain things are going to decided on for the wrong reasons.

[kingswood]

We are starting to use it now- if you want to know more or need some advice let me know via email or PM. It's certainly an interesting system!

 

I can hear the sarcasm in that from over here ... I'd be interested to pop over and see how it is progressing. We are still pussy-footing around technical, political and financial stuff at the combined one between us, and the other 2 places. It is making for an *interesting * project ... and we can see certain things are going to decided on for the wrong reasons.

 

Me? Sarcasm? Never.

 

Best time to come over is after the Humanities department tack on to it- and John is already setting his sites on some (apparently) nice built-in Channel 4 content for some lessons they are planning. Time frame for that would be some time in November. I can let you know if you like?

 

The company that sold the system to the Head are *really* pushy. We recently had two weeks free trial of Securus- which they have priced at nearly £6000! They are now dancing around us when we have requested they lift their equipment- the Head and I agreed that we should wait on that one. But oh no- not this company. They want to ask the Head about tacking it on to our TALMOS agreement (over three years). I don't really like their style. And I won't even mention exactly how much TALMOS is costing us over those three years---it's scary. And it's way more than the £18000 another school here quoted.

 

:x

[wesleyw]

I know Snuffkins on this site has a Talmos box but the cost is quite high though if you have partner schools they'll install servers in each of these for very little and you can have a combined system I've heard!

 

 

Wes