Jobos Posted May 12, 2009 Posted May 12, 2009 The HT at one of my schools keeps saying that Fronter in not used enough and despite me telling her repeatedly that Fronter is cr*p the HT wants me to produce a report for and against Fronter. Our LEA (Leicester City) introduced Fronter to us around 18 months ago and in that time I have not seen anything to convince me that Fronter is worth the time and trouble in using it. Even the LEA pages on Fronter look like they have been made by a pupil in year 3 using Frontpage 2000. Anyone got examples of good Fronter use at their school?
Pottsey Posted May 12, 2009 Posted May 12, 2009 (edited) We are having the same problem. The only semi useful part of Frontier so far for us is a Staff room with the shared calendar. Been thinking about a booking page for the mini bus and we have an upload folder to hand in staff reports. But so far everyone just use’s email. The problem with Frontier is mostly it’s just a different way to do things we already do. We have yet to find a way to make Frontier improve children’s learning or make staffs lives easier. I see Frontier as really good in theory but a waste of time in practise at least for us. If you’re doing a for and against Fronter, one big against is it’s not inclusive. There is pretty much zero SEN support and you could argue Frontier is discriminating against special needs users who cannot acess it. EDIT: Its little things like you cannot change the font, font size or font colour in tests/surveys. There is no switch access. No way to switch a colour profile on for one user who is colour blind or needs high contrast and well you could spend hours writeing up reasons why Fronter is not SEN friendly. Edited May 12, 2009 by Pottsey
Face-Man Posted May 12, 2009 Posted May 12, 2009 You can see some demo stuff at cms.lgfl.net - Learning Platforms there is also a demo site at Login: primary (or secondary) Password: London https://fronter.com/ukusers/ If you are looking at creating resources best have a look at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xerte/ 2
Pottsey Posted May 12, 2009 Posted May 12, 2009 Those demo sites seem to have done things I didn’t think are possible. Go to Login: secondary Password: London https://fronter.com/ukusers/ Now go to the GCSE ICT room. The boxes are not aligned up and the whole page has been tweaked far beyond other pages. How can we do that?
Face-Man Posted May 12, 2009 Posted May 12, 2009 Now go to the GCSE ICT room. The boxes are not aligned up and the whole page has been tweaked far beyond other pages. How can we do that? That's because it's not been created in Fronter. If you notice the icon at the top of the room tool packages it's a link. This link goes to the resources folder were there is a folder called ICT website with all the code in (ready to be adapted). Interesting approach !! I may have to give it a try myself sometime soon. You can see the website here http://www.parliamenthill.camden.sch.uk/images/stories/dept/ICTwebsite/index.html
GenieNitro Posted May 13, 2009 Posted May 13, 2009 (edited) I've started doing similar things to that for our Fronter site. So far, i've embedded some pages from our school website into Fronter as they look better and are easier to set up... I'd actually like to embed some Fronter pages in the school website too (thus having password protected areas for staff to use). Can't quite get that to work as I am given a Shibboleth idp error saying my session has timed out... Will keep trying though! Steve Edited May 13, 2009 by GenieNitro typos!
Pottsey Posted May 13, 2009 Posted May 13, 2009 Starting to change my mind on Fronter thanks to Face-man pointing out you can use files created outside of Fronter. Now I am re-designing every page/room outside of Fronter with a web flash page and it already look x10 better.
GenieNitro Posted May 13, 2009 Posted May 13, 2009 (edited) I've started doing similar things to that for our Fronter site. So far, i've embedded some pages from our school website into Fronter as they look better and are easier to set up... I'd actually like to embed some Fronter pages in the school website too (thus having password protected areas for staff to use). Can't quite get that to work as I am given a Shibboleth idp error saying my session has timed out... Will keep trying though! Steve Ironically, when I got to school today, I found that all the embedding on my Fronter pages was suddenly broken! Still is now... No flash, no video no iFrames. Fronter must be reading this and have decided to punish me! Steve Edited May 13, 2009 by GenieNitro
GenieNitro Posted May 13, 2009 Posted May 13, 2009 How do I embed webpages in Fronter Well, I just made a new fronter page and put this in as text your browser does not support IFRAMEs Worked just fine until this morning!!! Steve
leco Posted May 13, 2009 Posted May 13, 2009 Well, I just made a new fronter page and put this in as text your browser does not support IFRAMEs Worked just fine until this morning!!! Steve Are you putting that into a text container? I've tried and all I see is - the text:(
CAM Posted May 13, 2009 Posted May 13, 2009 The input box for text should have an option to show HTML. Have you tried it in there?
Wallgo Posted May 14, 2009 Posted May 14, 2009 What's the logic in putting a website's pages within Fronter though?
GenieNitro Posted May 14, 2009 Posted May 14, 2009 Are you putting that into a text container? I've tried and all I see is - the text:( Well, as I said before, it seems to be broken as of yesterday. I'm only seeing the text too and not the embedded pages (all of which were working beautifully until yesterday morning). Steve
GenieNitro Posted May 14, 2009 Posted May 14, 2009 What's the logic in putting a website's pages within Fronter though? The logic is that the pages one can make with Fronter are simple, ugly and clunky. It's easy enough (when it's working) to just set up a Fronter page with an iFrame and use a better authoring programme to fill in the content. Steve
tmcd35 Posted May 14, 2009 Posted May 14, 2009 (edited) Last time I tried, a few months back, Fronter was auto stripping iframe and embed tags entered in the source view. Back to clever use of slow loading nested tables to get anything half decent out of Fronter as far as I can see. edit: I've not tried, but can you upload html format pages into fronter using the normal file upload process? Would this then display the page correctly without stripping tags? Edited May 14, 2009 by tmcd35
Wallgo Posted May 14, 2009 Posted May 14, 2009 The logic is that the pages one can make with Fronter are simple, ugly and clunky. It's easy enough (when it's working) to just set up a Fronter page with an iFrame and use a better authoring programme to fill in the content. Steve Why not just make a website and not lock it into Fronter?
GenieNitro Posted May 14, 2009 Posted May 14, 2009 Why not just make a website and not lock it into Fronter? Well I'm wanting the best of both orlds I guess - the individualised bit (my today and quizzes etc) but also want it to look nice. I'm wondering how this nested tables thing works.. maybe I could try that... I'd also like to figure out how that demo GCSE ICT site (referred to earlier in this thread) works... it seems just to be a website hosted in the resources folder. Clicking in the index brings it up. When I make a simple page in iWeb and save it to a folder in thre resources section on ours, clicking the index file just brings up a blank white page. Any idea how they got it working on that site? Steve
tmcd35 Posted May 14, 2009 Posted May 14, 2009 (edited) Well I'm wanting the best of both orlds I guess - the individualised bit (my today and quizzes etc) but also want it to look nice. I'm wondering how this nested tables thing works.. maybe I could try that... I'd also like to figure out how that demo GCSE ICT site (referred to earlier in this thread) works... it seems just to be a website hosted in the resources folder. Clicking in the index brings it up. When I make a simple page in iWeb and save it to a folder in thre resources section on ours, clicking the index file just brings up a blank white page. Any idea how they got it working on that site? Steve Here's a link to what I'm currently working on. The basis of our new school homepage... http://www.hobart.norfolk.sch.uk/webfronter Created entirely with nested tables. Visit the site and view the source. The code is not pretty, but serves a purpose. Why not just make a website and not lock it into Fronter? I want staff other than myself to be able to very easily update contents. Play to the lowest common denominator. They all have Fronter accounts. They all know how to use a word processor. They can all edit and update the pages once I've set them up. Edited May 14, 2009 by tmcd35 1
GenieNitro Posted May 14, 2009 Posted May 14, 2009 Here's a link to what I'm currently working on. The basis of our new school homepage... http://www.hobart.norfolk.sch.uk/webfronter Created entirely with nested tables. Visit the site and view the source. The code is not pretty, but serves a purpose. I want staff other than myself to be able to very easily update contents. Play to the lowest common denominator. They all have Fronter accounts. They all know how to use a word processor. They can all edit and update the pages once I've set them up. OK, I'm afraid I'm not to good with html so I don't really understand how that works. Does anyone think this snipping of iframes is something that can be turned on or off by the administrator? (ours is a central fellow working at the borough). I'm a little suspicious as one of his colleagues Emailed me complementing me on how good out Google calendar looked on the staffroom page and enquiring how I did it. I replied that it was an embedded Google calendar and the very next morning it stopped working, along with my other iframe embedded pages. Perhaps I'm being paranoid, perhaps it's a coincidence... Steve
Wallgo Posted May 15, 2009 Posted May 15, 2009 Here's a link to what I'm currently working on. The basis of our new school homepage... http://www.hobart.norfolk.sch.uk/webfronter Created entirely with nested tables. Visit the site and view the source. The code is not pretty, but serves a purpose. I want staff other than myself to be able to very easily update contents. Play to the lowest common denominator. They all have Fronter accounts. They all know how to use a word processor. They can all edit and update the pages once I've set them up. Fairy nuff....I scrapped Fronter as it was cack, have set up a Moodle instead. Nice little page you have (though I'd spell 'Governors' right if I were you!)
Face-Man Posted May 15, 2009 Posted May 15, 2009 Does anyone think this snipping of iframes is something that can be turned on or off by the administrator? (ours is a central fellow working at the borough). I'm a little suspicious as one of his colleagues Emailed me complementing me on how good out Google calendar looked on the staffroom page and enquiring how I did it. I replied that it was an embedded Google calendar and the very next morning it stopped working, along with my other iframe embedded pages Fronter does strip code. I surprised it was working at all. I've tried to stop stripping code (there is a code for the LA) but it still removes potentially dangerous code. I've just got the google calendar in a room using "user defined tool" for the rooms tool pack cutting the URL from the embed code and pasting it. The scaling is crap but the calendar is there
GenieNitro Posted May 15, 2009 Posted May 15, 2009 That's because it's not been created in Fronter. If you notice the icon at the top of the room tool packages it's a link. This link goes to the resources folder were there is a folder called ICT website with all the code in (ready to be adapted). Interesting approach !! I may have to give it a try myself sometime soon. You can see the website here http://www.parliamenthill.camden.sch.uk/images/stories/dept/ICTwebsite/index.html Ok, so how do they make the external page the room's front page? I notice that the 'welcome' frontapge just seems to have nothing but an 'index.html' link on it. I guess this must somehow be auto opening when the page is chosen (without having to click the link) thus upening the external site as the home instead... So has anyone any idea how to do that? Steve
tmcd35 Posted May 15, 2009 Posted May 15, 2009 (edited) Just a guess (not tried it out)... Customise the rooms tool package add a 'user-defined button' pointing at your URL of choice move the new button to the top of your rooms tool package Whichever button is at the top of the tool package is that rooms home page. EDIT: Just tested the above and it *IS* how it was done. I've just http://www.google.com as the welcome page in one of our rooms EDIT-2: More testing. The user defined button actually opens *ANY* webpage within a iFrame within Fronter. It doesn't open webpages in a new tab/window as you'd first expect. Just by being at the top makes it the rooms default welcome page, thus auto opens. Edited May 15, 2009 by tmcd35
GenieNitro Posted May 15, 2009 Posted May 15, 2009 Just a guess (not tried it out)... Customise the rooms tool package add a 'user-defined button' pointing at your URL of choice move the new button to the top of your rooms tool package Whichever button is at the top of the tool package is that rooms home page. Excellent! Thanks very much, that works brilliantly! I feel like I'm back in control of how the place looks! Steve
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