edutech4schools Posted November 3, 2010 Posted November 3, 2010 Hi all, The previous Government required all schools to have some form of e-portfolio or online area for the students to save work to. One of my schools has asked me to look at changing our VLE as nobody is using it in the way it should and I wanted to look at options without this storage area. I know that MIS information for parents to view has been dropped but does anyone have any info about VLE's. Cheers.
Tricky_Dicky Posted November 3, 2010 Posted November 3, 2010 Hi all, One of my schools has asked me to look at changing our VLE as nobody is using it in the way it should .... I think that will probably be your problem regardless of what you implement. A VLE is only as good as the information put in to it by the teachers and then in repsonse by the pupils. You could put in the greatest VLE ever known that does everything they could want, but unless the head leads by saying I want this used and then explaining why you will be fighting a loosing battle. Having said that, if you want a good VLE then Moodle is great and with the right plugins from people such as Salamandersoft it will intergrate with your MIS to provide reporting to parents and you can also implement linking to storage with the school and SSO if you would like. Rich
edutech4schools Posted November 3, 2010 Author Posted November 3, 2010 Well you have not used uniservity. If its not a requirement for the pupils to have an online area I don't need a VLE and that opens up far more options in regards to the schools website as it has to be held offsite and we would need to pay even for moodle.
penfold_99 Posted November 4, 2010 Posted November 4, 2010 @edutech4schools The driver for a VLE and Parental Engagment is now coming from OFSTED. Under the new framework a school wont be able to achieve outstanding without having a vle at the centre of their students learning and if they dont engage with parents. If you are using uniservity (I have used it), moodle is a step up and far more flexible.
jamesreedersmith Posted November 4, 2010 Posted November 4, 2010 @edutech4schools The driver for a VLE and Parental Engagment is now coming from OFSTED. Under the new framework a school wont be able to achieve outstanding without having a vle at the centre of their students learning and if they dont engage with parents. If you are using uniservity (I have used it), moodle is a step up and far more flexible. @penfold_99 Can you provide references for this please?
SimpleSi Posted November 4, 2010 Posted November 4, 2010 If you are using uniservity (I have used it), moodle is a step up and far more flexible. Just to slightly redress the Moodle love ...) I find the admin side of Moodle to be very counter intuitive and many times I find myself clicking and scrolling on pages far more than I should have too. Teachers that buy into it can make it sing - standard ones usually either hate it or simply don't understand how to use it from one training session to the next. As others have said, unless its lead from the front - it ends up not being used This is in primaries in Lancs with CLEO hosted Moodles regards Simon
penfold_99 Posted November 4, 2010 Posted November 4, 2010 @jamesreedersmith StrategicICT - New OfSTED Inspection Framework 1
edutech4schools Posted November 4, 2010 Author Posted November 4, 2010 a school wont be able to achieve outstanding without having a vle What part of the website do they class as the VLE. For example if I created a site that contained class pages for the students to upload work into to be viewed by all visitors on the site does that count? or do they need somewhere that only they have access to store work in (e-portfolio)? Originally primary schools were going to pass the portfolio onto the secondary schools but as non of the secondary schools use the same systems as primary schools that is not going to happen.
Peeqwar Posted November 7, 2010 Posted November 7, 2010 Hi The previous Government required all schools to have some form of e-portfolio or online area for the students to save work to. I don't think this is actually true...although I'm not 100% sure. I think the idea that students had to have an on-line storage area was a BECTA ''recommendation''. The only thing that is statutory in Primary schools with regard to provision is National Curriculum. Having said that if OFSTED roll up and you're not jumping through the latest hoop, whether statutory or not, you'll need to have a good reason as to why you're not doing it.
Andie Posted February 2, 2011 Posted February 2, 2011 Hi all, I know that MIS information for parents to view has been dropped but does anyone have any info about VLE's. Cheers. Hello. Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but can you tell me where you got the info on the dropping of the MIS info for parents? We are going through the procurement process for VLP at moment, like others, and getting hold of definitive answers as to what we have to have (statutory wise) is really hard. Can you reference this? Thanks.
edutech4schools Posted February 2, 2011 Author Posted February 2, 2011 I called the DFE and was told on the phone and pointed to a page on the site. Home - The Department for Education cant remember what page, sorry.
edutech4schools Posted February 2, 2011 Author Posted February 2, 2011 Update: The page basically said the school need a method to give parents information they request on their child within a reasonable amount of time. The old page wanted the info in real-time. If you call the dfe can you post back if things have changed.
Tapiochre Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 Working with several schools, the message that the Coalition has removed the expectation for online reporting to parents has come as a relief, but you can bet it won't be too long before it is reintroduced in a new guise. This link was discovered, ok its from Nov 2010, but we don't think anything has been found that gives more detail yet. Speaking as CoG at my local primary, having a secure and globally accessible (i.e. Governor, Teacher, Pupil, Parent) VLE should be thought as best practice and we're working out how to to do that this year. As long as its accessible (read 'easy to access, login, edit, and use'), VLE's will gain traction and it should definitely be a top-down driven model. Working on LPPLUS in Northants I'm seeing strong signs of benefiting all of these groups. Once the Governing body see the management benefits and the staff have the right support and tools in place to make life easy, you are on a winner and the kids will use it with their parents (Kaboom! Parental Engagement starts then!)
edutech4schools Posted February 3, 2011 Author Posted February 3, 2011 MIS info for parents is a hot topic for Primary schools as they might only have a part time tech, a part time Sims administrator and normally see all the parents each day when they drop the kids into school. The kids normally stay in one class all day, and the register is done on paper and handed into the office. I can see it would be handy if my child was at secondary school so I can check they have been into a lesson. I do think all schools should have a VLE but parental engagement can also be achieved by me giving the students a maths website to visit while at home. 2
tdkmillsy Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 I was in a meeting with representatives from around 20 schools the other day and they were asking the exact same question. Even the ones that were heavily behind VLE's and using it well were really questioning its need, simply due to its cost. I'm not a teacher but I'm not sure they need a VLE, would a free storage area, blog and the use of various free resources not be enough especially in the current climate?
SimpleSi Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 As long as its accessible (read 'easy to access, login, edit, and use'), VLE's will gain traction And there's the rub The "free" one - Moodle is not easy to edit and use (although it can be made easy to use if the the editor is skilled ) But the main block needed for a VLE being sucessful is one-one access to computers. This can be acheived in lessons in most Secondaries/6th Form Colleges with a high percentage of college students having a high computer availability at home. But this is not true in primaries and their therefore a VLE usefullness is greatly reduced . regards Simon
edutech4schools Posted February 3, 2011 Author Posted February 3, 2011 was in a meeting with representatives from around 20 schools the other day and they were asking the exact same question. Even the ones that were heavily behind VLE's and using it well were really questioning its need, simply due to its cost. I'm not a teacher but I'm not sure they need a VLE, would a free storage area, blog and the use of various free resources not be enough especially in the current climate? I am currently setting up Google Apps for Education as our VLE / Website. The great thing with it is the pupils get to write files and documents using Docs (bit like office) which they can access from home so they end up using the same system in school and home for all their work. Oh its free The website part is so easy I have done a full demo in 20 mins.
Tapiochre Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 You raise a good point Simon, and I know a great number of primaries who not only have few PCs, they have few PCs which can even support modern web content (i.e. they may still be running IE6, with 7bytes of RAM and a 40MB Hard drive (he jested). Seriously though, I know of schools who "want" to support a VLE but often need help figuring out the best way to do it (internal/external/"private"/"public"/free/paid/Open Source/proprietary) and those choices need support and knowledge that occasionally does not reside within the walls of the school.
Tapiochre Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 I am currently setting up Google Apps for Education as our VLE / Website. Are you using your school's website and did you have any difficulty setting up DNS changes to get Google Apps to cooperate? Vis this link. My head teacher was worried about security as well.... what is your take on it so far?
tdkmillsy Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 Are you using your school's website and did you have any difficulty setting up DNS changes to get Google Apps to cooperate? Vis this link. My head teacher was worried about security as well.... what is your take on it so far? I asked our Information Management Unit about this after finding this on a website. Google Apps, EU / UK Data Privacy laws, and Charities They replied to say this is enough for me to evaluate using it in schools. hope this helps Ian
edutech4schools Posted February 3, 2011 Author Posted February 3, 2011 Some local authorities are getting the schools to use Google. For testing I got a new domain name http://www.schoolname-primary.net from csnewmedia.co.uk. I then have a choice of keeping this or changing the cname records to our .sch.uk domain. 1
Andie Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 Update: The page basically said the school need a method to give parents information they request on their child within a reasonable amount of time. The old page wanted the info in real-time. If you call the dfe can you post back if things have changed. Thanks. I've done some digging on the website before and found nothing. Ringing is obviously the better method. The project manager in charge of LP procurement was going to ring DfE, so if I get anything concrete from them by that route I'll post back.
Tapiochre Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 Interesting I can also recommend netpivotal.co.uk (or .com) - their hosting is great, and they appear to offer more bang for your buck. Support is very good too (they purchase the domain inclusive in the hosting fee)
pmp4 Posted April 6, 2011 Posted April 6, 2011 On 14 Feb 2011 the Department for Education updated its guidance on Online Reporting to Parents. This says, "There is an expectation that schools will move towards online reporting, which will offer parents online access to information on their child's attendance, behaviour and progress in learning. The online reporting expectation does not replace face-to-face and direct engagement, nor does it duplicate or replace the existing statutory requirement to provide annual pupil reports for parents; but it is intended to provide parents with up-to-date information at appropriate points through the year to maintain their interest and enable a richer dialogue." The can be viewed at.. ....Online reporting to parents - The Department for Education It is quite a vague comment with not much information but worth taking notice of for now at least.
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