Ian_CUP

here is is a blog that touches on MS's ULURU: Changing the game?: Microsoft, Moodle & Ayers Rock I cannot vouch for its validity in that it is not my blog but the guy who writes it has a lot of experience and knowledge in these matters, - and it might be of use to you guys.

What and who do you buy software from? - Thinking either content or tools, - and do you buy site licenses, subscriptions or just for specific year groups, and how do you administer or keep record of licensed software within your schools? Just looking for a bit of feedback really following on from a conversation where the school stated that they only buy's MS Office and SIMS for the school, - the rest is down to department heads to spend against their budget. There appeared to be no centralised administration or knowledge of exactly what the teachers and pupils we using and wondered if that was the "norm". Ian

Hi again New Order, It was launched to publishers a couple of weeks ago, - it works as is. We have it up and running now. Bigger debate than probably want to get into - certainly at this time of night ...But the reality is that as of here and now there is no common standard, there is no real directive and as a tool to deliver teaching (remember the IT should be invisible) my personal belief is that the wider teaching profession is probably not that concerned about which standard is used more that they can create interactive lesson resource which Semblio does very well....Appreciate that this thread was originally about Scorm. It is a free MS Office tool created specifically for teaching and learning. I think having it delivered via a LP will be down to the LP providers. It certainly has web based interaction, - searches, embeds web content, allows import of non MS standard etc. Ian

If I remember correctly Grava was the pre-launch beta name for Semblio which will be launched at BETT 2010, - I have seen it working as it searches and imports our Global Grid for Learning content, - we showed it to a group of LA advisers who were very impressed with the ease of use and functionality within the classroom. Ian

thank you webman, - that is indeed the one, - I have just sent a PM to the originator of that thread. Any more information would be gratefully received, - the idea of this is to help all of us with what is seen as a bit of a mess, - and the Digital Britain report did not tackle or mention the issue from an education point of view. Ian

We at EB have been asked to advise an all party political group on copyright issues within the education sector. The long term idea being to make it easier for the sector at teacher and pupil level to understand what they can or cannot do with digital content and the copyright laws that surround it. I have been asked to provide some evidence of schools encountering problems, either a small telling off or major legal action. Anonymity is not a problem but the APPG would like some hard facts facing schools. We are one of the publishers giving our side which is mainly around misunderstanding due to the complexity of the majority of license agreements. If you have any specifics around this could you post your experience or send me a message? I do recall reading a thread a while back about a school who was sent a large bill for using images on their website but can no longer find it. thank you Ian

an old thread but I thought I would bring some life back into it.... We at EB have been asked to advise an all party political group on copyright issues within the education sector. The long term idea being to make it easier for the sector at teacher and pupil level to understand what they can or cannot do with digital content and the copyright laws that surround it. I have been asked to provide some evidence of schools encountering problems, either a small telling off or major legal action. Anonymity is not a problem but the APPG would like some hard facts facing schools. We are one of the publishers giving our side which from is mainly around misunderstanding due to the complexity of the majority of license agreements. Please send me a message if you can help. Ian

my understanding is that Merlin is not a VLE, - it is a portal that VLE's and LP's will sit inside (or authenticate from). Content providers have been encouraged to authenticate via Shibboleth from the Merlin portal (which we invested time and money into doing) but getting a response from people involved in this project is frustrating to say the least...Any schools using Merlin interested in testing the authentication and therefore Britannica content do send me a PM. It is correct to state that the portal was developed by RM and Netmedia, - the early years portal/VLE/whatever is really nice.

agree with what you say Karl, except the bit about Arsenal, but as a Spurs supporter you might not be surprised about that! "What VLE" is very individual, and interesting that for 2 years now this debate has sparked such territorial debate within many circles! - Having worked with a number of them I would say that they all do something different from the next one so you as a school have to decide what suits your requirements best, and think about the level of support offered. For a school to buy a VLE it will require a fair investment of time and effort so perhaps understandably after taking a leap of faith people will defend that decision with a passion. Ian

Hi HodgeHi, regarding content within VLE's you are right there is not a great amount at the moment aimed at specifically Primary level that has been integrated. Not wanting this to sound like an advert but at Encyclopaedia Britannica (who I work for as you might tell from my login name) we have been working with a number of VLE providers for some years. Some of them search our content across multiple resources including user generated content and allow it to be re-purposed in quite a clever way - direct into lesson creation tools. - Our content is more than just an encyclopedic research tool, - as it has a lot of multimedia, flash based learning games, interactive quizzes, videos, printable worksheets and more. - And it is linked to the Nat Curriculum. Our primary database of content is specifically written in primary friendly language and in British English. Forum Moderators, Again sorry if this post sounds like a bit of an advert, - as you will see from my profile I have been a member of this forum for a while but not posted in this way before but this question did appear aimed at an area that we have been working on for some time now and might be of some use. Ian