Uniservity Life learning platform

[Andie]

Just flagging up that we have been using the Life learning platform from Uniservity since September. We are currently using it with year 6 classes, and some small groups, and will start with year 3 after Easter. However, it is not all plain sailing, and I am happy to pm anyone who needs an honest opinion about the platform if they are considering it.

[Janyo]

Hi,

Our school has subscribed to the new life cloud and I must say that we are extremely disappointed with its functionality (or rather lack of it). We never really got to the stage of actually using it as it has got lots of flaws. We are a bit stuck though as we want to buy into a new product that works, but have already signed a new contract with Uniservity life. What is your experience?

[Andie]

Hi,

Our school has subscribed to the new life cloud and I must say that we are extremely disappointed with its functionality (or rather lack of it). We never really got to the stage of actually using it as it has got lots of flaws. We are a bit stuck though as we want to buy into a new product that works, but have already signed a new contract with Uniservity life. What is your experience?

 

Sorry for the delay in replying. I'm one of the lucky ones that only works term time. I'll send you a private message with our experience, if that's OK. But it does depend on what you are trying to do with the platform. Our last platform was based on Sharepoint, and it was OK for admin use and storage, but we couldn't get it up and running with pupils. Life is the opposite for us, but even using it with the pupils has been glitchy, and I do have a number of serious concerns that are currently being looked at by their development team. I'll message you as soon as I get a chance to do it in detail.

[Janyo]

That would be fantastic as I am concerned about the Life a lot!.....just about anything. I just wonder if there are other people out there finding the new Life cloud pain in the ...!

[Dunc491625]

Hello,

 

Our Life Cloud has been provided by the LA. I'm really struggling to get my head around it. Any chance you could briefly describe what you're using it for with Year 6? I'm currently trying to get my Year 3 and 4s using it and seem to be spending a lot of time just trying to understand how it works.

 

For instance I'd like to get my children looking at each others' sites but don't seem to be able to get them to access them?

 

I'm getting grey hairs!

[Andie]

Hello,

 

Our Life Cloud has been provided by the LA. I'm really struggling to get my head around it. Any chance you could briefly describe what you're using it for with Year 6? I'm currently trying to get my Year 3 and 4s using it and seem to be spending a lot of time just trying to understand how it works.

 

For instance I'd like to get my children looking at each others' sites but don't seem to be able to get them to access them?

 

I'm getting grey hairs!

 

The school are following the Edison creative curriculum. With all years, we are creating a class page, then creating Life pages for each Edison topic. With Year 6, this was to do with World War II to start with. We used posties so that pupils could ask questions about the war, and then other pupils would answer these questions using web links on the page or their research from books, etc. We used a forum (conversation) which involved the teacher posting a scenario about a family during the war, with pupils then responding in character as that member of family, describing how that incident during the war affects them (eg. evacuation, joining up, blitz, etc.). With Year 3, their topic relates to minibeasts, and they are going to use posties to gather facts about insects.

 

We have also used posties with literacy. For example, younger pupils are being asked to add posties for better words for said.

 

Setting up permissions is initially quite tricky. Have you had Life Builder training from Uniservity to get you going? You need to set up permissions on the sites themselves, and then all the individual resources. Best advice I can give is to start with View permissions for pupils on everything, then change the bits that they actually have to interact with (posties, forums, etc) to take part or custom when you've got that working.

[Andie]

seem to be spending a lot of time just trying to understand how it works.

 

For instance I'd like to get my children looking at each others' sites but don't seem to be able to get them to access them?

 

I'm getting grey hairs!

 

I'd be happy to try and give you some help with this over half term, if I can find some time. Didn't offer earlier as not something I think I should be doing in work time. But if you are still struggling, and can clarify what you are having problems with, pm me and I'll see what I can do. Perhaps you haven't tried emailing Life support yet though??