Brpilot99 Posted September 7, 2011 Posted September 7, 2011 Hi everybody ... We are now looking to impliment a VLE and have seen that there are a number of options available ... This is kind of a poll to find out what others are doing and comments regarding ease of use for staff etc. Ive heard about the google VLE .. anybody found out of its any good? Any help welcome and thanks in advance Brian Network Manager Courthill School Poole
K.C.Leblanc Posted September 7, 2011 Posted September 7, 2011 We've got uniservity, as a user experience it's somewhere between a caravan holiday and being stabbed in the eye with a compass. 1
MaceZ4 Posted September 7, 2011 Posted September 7, 2011 In my experience I've found that lots of people like to use the Moodle VLE, it's pretty simple to use for both staff and students... There's also lots of free resources out there for it... 1
edutech4schools Posted September 7, 2011 Posted September 7, 2011 Google is fantastic for a primary school website as its so easy to use and update. Not used as a vle but it does come with docs that can be sent to the website. I would sign up for a free single user site. Just sign up for a google email account and you get the lot for free and have a play with the sites, they have a school site template. Then if you like that sign up for Google apps for ed which is free for schools, this gives you an admin control page to add users and control all sorts of things. 1
Guest Guest Posted September 7, 2011 Posted September 7, 2011 We're going with Edmodo - free and simple and it looks like facebook
glennda Posted September 7, 2011 Posted September 7, 2011 Another vote for moodle - its pretty good and easily customizable. 1
cpjitservices Posted September 7, 2011 Posted September 7, 2011 +1 for Moodle, dead easy to implement, popular and easy to use.!! 1
Devontechie Posted September 7, 2011 Posted September 7, 2011 another +1 for Moodle. Have used it loads. Had it running since version 1.6. 1
Roberto Posted September 7, 2011 Posted September 7, 2011 We use Blackboard. As @Norphy will agree, its fair enough when set up and can do a lot of stuff, but setting it up is about as much fun as cleaning your teeth with a chainsaw while being forced to watch someone surfing 'goatse' style websites. 1
sjatkn Posted September 7, 2011 Posted September 7, 2011 We have Frog. The teachers generally like it and it does seem reasonably easy to do most of the things we want. Advantages: Hosted on a Frog server in your own building, so no reliance on broadband to access it, great if you have a slow or dodgy connection. Flexible, can do lots of things. Allows access to existing network drives. Tech support via phones for simple issues is excellent. MIS integration. User accounts are created automatically overnight. Disadvantages: Very expensive. Seems to suffer from a number of bugs (then I guess all the rest do to). Tech support via email very slow. Has been known to take 2-3 weeks, I usually email and then phone them. Tech support for complex issues is very slow. We have a problem with the MIS importer not pulling parents email addresses across and it has been with the developers since January with no sign of a fix yet. Despite at least 2 new versions of the importer since I reported it. 1
CyberNerd Posted September 7, 2011 Posted September 7, 2011 google doesnt have a VLE, but google apps does integrate very well with moodle. 1
Norphy Posted September 8, 2011 Posted September 8, 2011 (edited) We use Blackboard. As @Norphy will agree, its fair enough when set up and can do a lot of stuff, but setting it up is about as much fun as cleaning your teeth with a chainsaw while being forced to watch someone surfing 'goatse' style websites. That much fun? Gosh. You also have to pay uber money for the benefit of all of that, Blackboard ain't a cheap product! It has reasonable ability to sync with MIS systems and you can authenticate against AD using integrated authenication on IIS. To be honest though, I think it's more geared towards universities and huge colleges than schools. I think that even a college the size of this one could be considered a bit small for it. Edited September 8, 2011 by Norphy 1
bart21 Posted September 8, 2011 Posted September 8, 2011 Another +1 for moodle It's so easy to use and highly customisable Take a look around this one . http://Http://www.thepeele.co.uk Nick 2
glennda Posted September 8, 2011 Posted September 8, 2011 Oh Yeah - if you want to look at another example you can look here The Weald School's Virtual Learning Environment 1
GrumbleDook Posted September 8, 2011 Posted September 8, 2011 There are a heap of existing threads about opinions and experiences on VLEs and I would strongly recommend you searching on that (which you may have done already and you are just looking for more recent / up to date comments). I would also recommend you have a look at the Learning Platform Network to see the work done by a group of leading Educators and Becta ... To be honest, it doesn't matter what VLE / LP you choose, it will be down to how the curriculum fits to it or it fits to the curriculum. Most of the tools are the same between the different products out there ... Wikis, file stores, discussion areas, polls / surveys, blogs, collaborative docs. You could have each of these individually or all wrapped in together under one product. I would recommend that the school looks at what it needs first and then thinks about the product. If it is a case of opinions on look and feel that you are after, or experiences of management of the product / tools then that is a slightly different kettle of fish. For all that lots of people will shout Moodle a lot ... and there is an equally vocal group out there who will shout Sharepoint ... the look and feel can be made as bespoke as you want it for both of these. For both you can buy a pre-built and pre-designed version (or simply what comes out of the install with standard templates) but the more successful builds tend to have had a certain amount of bespoke work. Be careful about this when planning. 1
Guest Guest Posted September 8, 2011 Posted September 8, 2011 I agree with GrumbleDook, implementation makes or breaks the whole thing. We're rolling out Edmodo and staff training is proving to be critical
john Posted September 8, 2011 Posted September 8, 2011 Another vote for Moodle, although have also had good success with SharePoint as well 1
lthompson Posted September 29, 2011 Posted September 29, 2011 I second this sentiment We've got uniservity, as a user experience it's somewhere between a caravan holiday and being stabbed in the eye with a compass.
kili Posted September 29, 2011 Posted September 29, 2011 We've got uniservity, as a user experience it's somewhere between a caravan holiday and being stabbed in the eye with a compass. Lol... and that's being polite. The biggest pile of **** you will ever come across
sonofsanta Posted September 29, 2011 Posted September 29, 2011 Moodle works pretty well for us. Those that can be bothered to put the bit of time in early on find it straightforward enough to use - ultimately any VLE will be used through a web browser, so that limits the usability to a large extent, but it's pretty good as these things go. My Uni had Blackboard way back when, first half of last decade - was a bit of a pain in the proverbial then as well.
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