funkyfin2000

I will provide a serious answer. I don't think so in the immediate future. I don't believe there are many front end benefits any how.

How are you tied in? Or do you mean in terms of you have paid out so much money you "have" to use it? I thought it was pay a lump sum and then annual maintenance fee?

Definetly a big improvement from our end. True, some of our pages have needed adjustment but this is to make sure they now sit in the correct resolution to operate correctly for everyone as it has a fixed width. A very good job all round and a worthy LP!

Certainly does load much faster. Fixed pages and fixed width and is far nicer looking! The VLE has been considerably improved as well evidently.

Hi All, What do people think of the upgraded look and feel? I think it looks a whole lot moderner and appears to be far easier to use. Fin

Sounds interesting, whats the cost to the primary version? Is it at expensive as the secondary one?

I think maybe Insular is the key word here. Glass half full, or half empty? Certainly no wider vision for collaboration IMO. But the world would be boring if we were all the same!

Kitsch, I think the point i'm trying to get at, and as you may have illustrated in your post, is that ALL technology moves on, thats how the merry-go-round of technology life goes! To not use Kaleidos at home (and to ultimately not upgrade your machine) just because your hardware/software doesn't work is terribly short sited IMHO. As you illustrated it would seem other things are slow/not working (not JUST Kaleidos) more than likely again due to the use of old technology, be that software or hardware. TBH, the fact Kaleidos doesn't work could be to not running the latest version of Flash! Any how I'm not getting at you personally....just saying the pace of technology moves fast. Mind you if you kept up with pace of hardware constantly, you would have had to had won the £85mill euromillions to afford it this weekend! :-) Give Kaleidos a go at school, take bite size chunks, take a positive outlook and things maybe different? If the whole world was run by pessimists where would we be?

VLE Lover, if you would like to PM me I could give you some information on some schools. A lot of the posts above are based on a technological view, and not from a "change management view" Typical from this kind of forum of course, since its predominantly Techie based. The push for VLE/Learning Platforms has to be from the top. A top down approach you might say. The SMT must enforce changes that are quick wins. For Example, how about rather than printing out cover and sticking it on the Staffroom wall, you publish it in the Learning Platform! Easy Really? Some schools have meetings each week to go over the diary for the week after, pop it on the Learning Platform so its viewable and consultable whenever a teacher/member of staff wants? Simple and quick effective wins are what are needed....bitesize chunks you might say..... Oh yeah and of course, remember this software is about the Learners and Parents rather than the Teachers! The problem with schools/IT Techs is they spend far to long procrastinating about products and things they have to do, which ultimately wastes time. Get on with the parts that work (and work for the school), and build on that with direction from your SMT and you might just implement a LP that is worth using! Kaleidos in my opinion is just as good as any other VLE, it's how you use it and implement it within a school that is the key, and that is in the majority what schools arn't able to do. There are many different reasons why this is, but effectively its for the reasons above, the "change management" procedure isn't being seized and the bigger picture isn't effectively being seen!

Kitsch, Technology moves on, a 6 yr old mac? Try running Office 2007 or the up and coming Office 2010 off it? I expect it will be slow. (Don't know MACs that well but something like the latest Cubase or Cakewalk!) Most Learning Platforms are tending to run Sharepoint 2007, this is MS's latest incarnation with Sharepoint 14 coming soon. This is powerful stuff, you're basically saying, for example, that you have a 6yr car stereo that can play Cd's but because it's 2009 it should play MP3's! Nope you will need a new machine! Technology moves on, that is the way of the world! That's how large conglomerates make money! One of the other issues is, people expect Learning Platforms to work like they were using google! They will never be that fast due to the underlying technology, difference in things that are going on and reliance on bandwith etc! Its all about expectations! I am sure if you dig deep enough, RM's Kaleidos has a minimum spec posted on their website, I would suspect and be inclined to think your 6yr Mac probably doesn't meet them!

Could i suggest in other conferences this is offered to all customers, rather than the select?

Wifi wasn't free thats for sure!

Very Interesting... Also Interesting to look at the head's website for the school and it was last updated in Oct 2008! Must have got bored of websites too!

By the way is there any free wifi available at the conference to use please?

Im a numpty

Guys, I have registered for 5 sessions and the cost is well over £800!!!! Not the £150! Am I doing something wrong?

I don't think negotiation has anything to do with it. It's blimin expensive. Add all the extra bits on top for the full package and you are easily hitting £32k..... I agree Primaries will be cheaper, economies of scale.

Learning Galaxy?

£25k up front cost for 1st year? Your not wrong it costs alot!

Yeah but sadly New Order, with the best will in the world, you will never EVER get a provider to sign up to a contract with 100% up time. That would be corporate suicide. I know the contents of our contract with our provider and I know its not far off 100%. If it breaches that, then said company would be brought to task, by the LA Lawyers!

I'm sure every Secondary school would have the money and time to put a solution like that together, let alone a Primary school!

Russ is correct. I suspect if you hosted a solution yourself, trying to fix a similiar issue or dead PSU in your server would have taken over 5 hrs of core time. It's easy to run RM in to the ground as they are a major player in the Education market, but they certainly listen to their customers and alter things as requested. How many other companies have the resource and ears to do that?

And RM were open and honest about the issue which is a positive, it was fixed promptly with many updates. These kind of things can happen to any provider.

Ttable issues should be resolved and corrected for past portal installation before Sept. all portals installed after Sept seem to have been fine for us. We also have the slow attendance issue but it seems to complete eventually, a lot of people I have spoken to say there attendance just falls over but its probably due to the amount of good hardware we have in schools that it does eventually complete rather than time out like others. As already mentioned awaiting a Nov Capita fix for this! Fin