ebarr

I have read the above comments with interest. I started at the school as Network Manager last September, previously working in commercial/business environment. The contract to continue with the LEA had already been signed so we are stuck with it for the term of the contract at least. I am astounded at the attitude of Babcock re the implementaton of this project. Where in any other environment would it be acceptable to give 48 hours notice of the actual changeover of a broadband provider where potentially the business would have half a day without internet? Apart from the issue of cost I have a real problem with a provider determining when a change over of this type takes place. Who is the customer? This is one of the many reasons we will certainly consider changing our broadband supplier when the contract comes to an end.

Your VLE manifesto reflects my vision exactly. I started a similar threat on 6 June "selecting the right VLE". I want a single sign on system with everything available seemlessly from one place. As you say teachers and students and parents don't want or need to know apps etc they are using or even if they are an app, they just need to access everything from one place. I have looked at the Core Education offering which seems to offer the type of interface and single sign on I am after. It is based on SharePoint, which I think is the way to go and offers the one place single sign on interface I want. I have also looked at Open Hive but am not so sure this will supply everything we want - the demo was good but I want to see it in use in a School. I am also hoping to do the same for the Core system. Happy to keep you informed on my findings.

Interesting comments re Open Hive. I will take a look at Pixelmill. Our schedule is to get it up and running for March/April 2012.

Your comment re Moodle "We currently use Moodle at our school, and have done ever since the concept of a VLE/Learning Platform was introduced to the school. Some four years after unveiling it to staff and pupils there is still a lot of learning to do to get the best out of the system." is exactly the reason I am looking to find a system where users automatically get all their resources from one screen after single signon , so it's not a case of further logging on to any VLE. I agree with you re Uniservity, we have decided we don't want to continue with it or move to the new Life product which was very unimpressive I thought. Anyone looked at the Core Education Sharepoint VLE?

Something that looks a bit like iGoogle with a personalised dashboard, so uers can see their email, calendar, access applications, documents, resources etc, web parts, Sims etc from one place, dependant on permissions and with single sign on.

We are exploring alternative VLE's. Currently we have Uniservity and having looked at their new Life VLE have decided this is not the way we want to go. We want a dashboard, single sign on, Sharepoint based system (we think) and have looked at Open Hive and Core Education's VLE both of which are impressive. Open Hive is a Cloud based system, the Core Education VLE would be hosted in house. Does anyone have any experience and or view's to share? A lot of you are very keen on Moodle, I have no experience of this and am put off because of what I perceive to be significant in house resource to manage this? Also not sure it would allow us to do everything we want to, ie dashboard, single sign on, Sharepoint doc management, web parts including links to Sims info etc., seemlessly. Thanks