Which VLE to go with??

[mthomas08]

+1 frog here. We have had it a while and this is the year where we start to get Staff/Students trained in its usage and then the Representative training.

 

Some people will say "Well theres all these flaws!" Its true but frankly find me one VLE which is perfect. No such thing.

We spent a lot of time looking at fronter/moodle and with fronter it wasnt for us, with moodle it was simple we dont have the man power to sit there and make it in to some thing that we wanted.

 

The fresh basic install of Frog was brilliant, it gives you what a VLE is supposed to and it gives it pretty well like other top VLEs it gives a MIS (SIMs for us) exporting tool which is run over night. It gives all the basics with Assigning home work, online resources and access to Home/Public drives from home. There is the parent portal which can be purchased (we got everything) and they can also setup your Frog Site (Costs) which again meets your needs, they also did our Main College site which again looks very nice.

 

They look professionally done, individual touch to your school and good looking for Students. We also purchased Secure GateWay which we have yet to sort out at our end but that will give the final piece of our External Access Puzzle (Allowing students/staff to remote in and access our system from home).

 

The cost is the biggest downside for Frog but if you want a VLE which takes weeks to get up and running (Still looking good) then you are having to pay a lot of money. As for the Cost - Forgetting one VERY important thing they do not charge per user or per GB used as other VLEs have been doing. If your school signs up additional Staff/Students or even takes on External Centres which ours is doing then the Cost of frog is worth it.

 

Is it perfect? No - Some one like me who wants to do all sorts but isnt really a programmer I have found limitations. I wanted to produce a help centre similar to what we got on SharePoint (its like an online access database) this doesnt work in Frog but they are improving their version (Called Forms). That is another bonus - it is constantly growing and it is among the top UK growing companies (people dont realise their company wasnt that big not that long ago).

 

One piece of advice I can say is - take your time to investigate the VLE you choose before purchasing it. The more time I spent with Frog I did find it more appealing and the strange thing was two of my colleagues agreed (usually we never agree on anything).

 

The good thing I find with Frog is, the more time you spend on it the more you will think wow I could do that, I could do this (of course you will again find limitations at times - this month it has been no Wiki) but frog are constantly developing and the more ideas they get thrown at them the better the platform is. If your after JUST a VLE then Frog is still brilliant but if you are after a Platform Frog is by far the best one out there.

 

I have recently been doing a Frog Note list which is just something to show staff what they can currently do in frog and it is currently three pages long and I am still working on it. I have also setup websites for MFL, Food Hall, IT Support and the recent Frog Representatives & Champions website with nice fancy Crystal menu's. If you want more Frog Info or even Screenshots by all means let me know, I will never claim Frog to be perfect but the criticisms of Frog seem very limited to Costs and its few limitations. Considering the man hours I have put in to Frog to get what is currently there is a small % of what I would have if I went some where else especially towards the Moodle route.

[nickpowell1980]

I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with Openhive. I am looking on behalf of a family friend, and they are the headteacher at a primary school. It needs to be easy to use, so any pros and cons would be much appreciated.