Fronter Y11 Demo site

[Face-Man]

Have a look at the demo site for the upcoming changes to the fronter interface comeing by the end of the month

 

https://fronter.com/y11demo/

 

user-names either

 

play (primary school interface)

or

classic (all other users)

 

password : guest

[jdoyle]

absolutely horrid.

[john]

Urgh horrid!!

 

Glad we left for come back to Moodle

[gshaw]

Wow I knew Fronter was nasty, didn't know it was that bad!

[Butters]

How many more counties will be signed up to this junk?

[Edu-IT]

Can you guys saying it's 'nasty' provide some useful feedback on why you think this? It'd be interesting to hear your thoughts.

[localzuk]

Not quite sure why people are saying it is horrible, looks pretty clean to me!

 

Much nicer than the default Moodle interface anyway, as that is very boxey and old looking in my experience.

[Edu-IT]

Not quite sure why people are saying it is horrible, looks pretty clean to me!

 

Much nicer than the default Moodle interface anyway, as that is very boxey and old looking in my experience.

Agreed. I prefer the 'play' design though. Not sure how it's childish? I'd use it as my default.

[Edu-IT]

There's a noticable speed increase too.

[gshaw]

Not quite sure why people are saying it is horrible, looks pretty clean to me!

 

Much nicer than the default Moodle interface anyway, as that is very boxey and old looking in my experience.

 

The default Moodle theme is only meant to be there for about 30 seconds... as long as it takes to download a decent theme and enable it

 

The whole Fronter interface looks like something you'd give to a 5-year-old, seems to just be a big glut of resources and a calendar. It also goes from big over-the-top icons to very text heavy within 2 clicks.

 

If it was open-source you might say fair enough but for what the LEAs must be paying it I'd expect a lot more.

[localzuk]

The default Moodle theme is only meant to be there for about 30 seconds... as long as it takes to download a decent theme and enable it

 

The whole Fronter interface looks like something you'd give to a 5-year-old, seems to just be a big glut of resources and a calendar. It also goes from big over-the-top icons to very text heavy within 2 clicks.

 

If it was open-source you might say fair enough but for what the LEAs must be paying it I'd expect a lot more.

 

What, you mean 'user friendly' interfaces are for 5 year olds? Hmm... My university lecturers must've been wrong then. Also, guess what, the people using these sites are kids. Sure, not all are 5, but having seen the ability of many, a big user friendly interface is a good thing. Moodle's interface is far from user friendly for most younger kids.

[gshaw]

There's a fine line between user friendly and condescending... looks just about OK for primary school level but past that it just looks silly.

 

As for "what, you mean 'user friendly' interfaces are for 5 year olds?"... nope but there's a big difference between a good user friendly interface and a bad one...

[Admiral208]

The whole Fronter interface looks like something you'd give to a 5-year-old

 

Thats the point of it!!

 

I agree with localzuk, moodle is (in my opinion) more unfriendly than fronter, and this new version of fronter is vastly better looking than the current version.

[jdoyle]

Can you guys saying it's 'nasty' provide some useful feedback on why you think this? It'd be interesting to hear your thoughts.

 

I like Fronter in general and prefer the look of Y10. This new look just grates on my eyes. Should be customizable.

 

version Y11 Roadmap :

 

http://www.fronter.info/downloads/Y11Roadmap.pdf

 

a lot of functionality I don't need; no updates for the things I do need sorted.

[john]

It looks even more 3 year old-ish yet actual under the hood usability is PhD level. I've yet to meet a person that once shown a decent Moodle site (including a number from members on here) that they don't go that is much easier than Fronter to add resources to, modify files and work with.

 

Fine the starter interface is a bit bland, but with something like 2000+ themes online you will find one that suits you fine, I know we have found a great theme for ours and our cluster schools and its looking great so far and really pleased with it

[nickjelly]

Fronter has announced Y11 has been delayed.

[john]

Fronter has announced Y11 has been delayed.

Any reasons behind it? Maybe the fact its looks were majorly different made people go OMG no etc?

[Face-Man]

The reason for the delay is to do with browsers caching y10 version causing issue when fronter then changes to y11. Nothing ctrl-f5 could fix but probably best to get it right first time

[jdoyle]

"the interface should disappear into the background"

 

Fronter Global

 

 

"An exciting development in Y11 is the introduction of a license expiry option. This will allow an administrator to set an expiry date for a license either through an import or on a user's contact card. This may be useful for defining a time frame for a temporary user account and will ensure the user cannot continue to login beyond the set expiry date."

 

Not sure I'd use the word exciting but possibly a useful feature. Definitely not high on the list of things I'd want addressed though!! Recognising that a Key Stage 4 room might be needed for 2years rather than 1 and adding an expiration date to the room might be more useful.......

 

Don't think the issue of cleaning staff being imported from SIMs and taking up user licenses has been addressed. Not sure if the groups created for classroom teachers are being used in this version.

 

Clicking on the + symbol in an Open Forum entry way down the list to see a reply refreshes the screen back to the top of the page and forces you to scroll back down to see the entry you are interested in. Poor.

 

Are student timetables imported yet? Does Fronter recognise the difference between teachers and support staff yet? Is Fronter able to recognise that we've activated the LDAP option and to then automatically set the LDAP password code as new users are imported?

 

Is the room/resource booking feature worth using now? Is there a way of associating a TA with a students and that TA then having access to the same rooms as the student they support?

 

"The Page Tool has been improved, primarily in the form of single click editing:" whereas getting to Logout, Calendar, Rooms is now "single click+"...

 

Where is the demonstration of the better integration with Pearson's gateway or a demonstration SCORM course to show how much faster it loads and how much better the navigation is?

 

 

So much marketing spin; so little real progress.

[localzuk]

Don't think the issue of cleaning staff being imported from SIMs and taking up user licenses has been addressed. Not sure if the groups created for classroom teachers are being used in this version.

 

This never happened at my last school. Only teachers appeared. I'm pretty sure this is a configuration issue, not a problem with Fronter.

[john]

"the interface should disappear into the background"

 

Fronter Global

 

Anyone think Tom Soron the guy in that video looks a little like our @Domino

[jdoyle]

This never happened at my last school. Only teachers appeared. I'm pretty sure this is a configuration issue, not a problem with Fronter.

 

lucky you. When cleaning staff are appearing in Fronter and taking up licenses, it's a Fronter problem, for which I expect Fronter support to suggest a solution be that a config change in Fronter or a pointer re something in SIMs.

[Fronter]

lucky you. When cleaning staff are appearing in Fronter and taking up licenses, it's a Fronter problem, for which I expect Fronter support to suggest a solution be that a config change in Fronter or a pointer re something in SIMs.

 

The data that is sent to Fronter from the MIS system is dictated by the IMS standard. Fronter import the data that they are sent. If cleaning staff are present in the data export and exported to Fronter (as they are included in the IMS standard) then they will be created in Fronter. If you do not want this then you will need to lobby for the IMS standard to be changed.

 

We have examples of schools where the cleaning staff have their own facilities room and use it for shift rota's, uploading and maintaining policy documents and involving the support staff in the school community.

[jdoyle]

The data that is sent to Fronter from the MIS system is dictated by the IMS standard. Fronter import the data that they are sent. If cleaning staff are present in the data export and exported to Fronter (as they are included in the IMS standard) then they will be created in Fronter. If you do not want this then you will need to lobby for the IMS standard to be changed.

 

is this really meant to be a serious answer?

 

We have examples of schools where the cleaning staff have their own facilities room and use it for shift rota's, uploading and maintaining policy documents and involving the support staff in the school community.

 

Can you post a link to any case studies re this?

 

We have used Fronter for some administration purposes but having subsequently gone with Sharepoint as our Intranet we are generally moving admin tasks/documents etc there.

[rbryant]

Looks pretty good - we go live tomorrow (fingers crossed) with Y11.