Forwarded on behalf of Roger Broadie
----------
From: Roger Broadie <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 17 May 2006 15:57:11 +0100
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [VLES] LEA Advises against Moodle!!??
Ted and all,
The European Education Partnership (http://www.eep-edu.org) is hosting a
series of 'neutral forum' meetings to grapple with the difficult
learning
platforms-for-schools issues - difficult educationally, commercially and
politically.
A significant number of the commercial learning platform suppliers have
attended the last two meetings and been joined by representatives of
Naace,
NCSL, QCA and SSAT. At the last meeting on 27th April we were also
joined by
DfES and Becta (Becta as observer only because of the OJEU tender).
Attendees from DfES were Chris Stolberg and Steve Hogger and Robin Ball
came
from Becta.
You are right Ted - there are a whole host of points. (And I would like
to
see the letter - E.E.P. has a guidance sheet for schools in draft.)
As a result of the discussion at the last meeting, Chris Stolberg made a
statement to the meeting to clarify various points. This statement will
be
placed in the Becta Quickplace site for all to see, as soon as Chris has
cleared the wording which was minuted (Chris has been away until
yesterday hence the delay).
While I cannot share the statement with you until it has been cleared
and
made public, the gist of it (which is pretty much public knowledge
anyway)
is -
- DfES and Becta are pushing suppliers and schools to adopt better, more
sustainable and more inter-operable technology than is currently being
implemented.
- While DfES would much prefer some form of aggregated purchasing, from
suppliers who have been accepted under the Becta learning platforms
framework agreement, they can only actually insist on this for a very
small
percentage of the money that will be available for schools to spend on
learning platforms. They can however guide and express their view
forcefully.
- For the large majority of the money available to spend on learning
platforms, it is schools that have the power to decide what to purchase
and
this decision should come directly from a 'statement of requirement'
worked
up by the school from their educational development plans.
If any of you wish to get inside these discussions and understand better
what the issues are, and the different pressures and viewpoints, we
would be
delighted to have you as E.E.P. members. There will be a some public
output
from the E.E.P. on this, informed by the discussions, but the meeting
notes
and internal E.E.P. discussion docs etc are in the Members' area of the
website, which you need to be a member to access.
As a personal comment on this, it was noted at the Feb meeting that
commercial suppliers are quite happy to bid against Moodle provided this
happens on a level playing field with all costs in the open.
My own view on Moodle is that it is presenting serious competition to
the
commercial suppliers (which is good) but at school level the key issues
are
how the support and development of the system is funded and managed, and
particularly how succession is managed, so that loss of key members of
staff, even if more than one at a time, does not cripple the system.
It is also worthy of mention that Becta is now using the Quickplace site
for
debate about MIS issues and we can shortly expect to see an MIS
framework
agreement coming into place. I expect this to be quite aggressive about
the
interoperability this demands, between MIS systems and between MIS and
VLE
systems.
And as a final comment, the core of the issues around learning platforms
is
politics, both Politics and politics. There is tension between
government
policy (education policy generally and that of getting ICT into
education -
for which we urgently need to see stronger ROI), the difficulties of
change
management in the education system, and the need for innovation in a
vibrant
commercial sector. (And you can include in 'commercial sector' if you
like,
the innovation funded with 'funny money' around Moodle.)
The technical issues can be cracked once people are determined to do so.
The
people issues are much more difficult.
Regards,
Roger.
Roger Broadie,
Chief Executive,
European Education Partnership.
PO Box 18, Chatteris,
Cambs, PE16 6YH, UK.
[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]
www.eep-edu.org
tel: +44 1 354 695583
fax: +44 1 354 696647
on 5/17/06 12:24, Walker - Ted at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> I'm glad I raised this can of worms - I think there are a whole host
of
> points coming out of it.
>
> I am happy to share the text of the letter - perhaps that would best
be
> done off list. It clearly, as suggested, does come from a DFES
roadshow.
> The most relevant paragraph reads:
>
> "Current advice from DFES is that schools should not buy a VLE
> individually but that they should bulk buy either through their LA or
> Regional Broadband Consortium. Home grown systems based on 'open
source
> software', e.g. Moodle, were not to be preferred as they will not meet
> national requirements, they relied on local expertise and will be
> incompatible with other systems for exchanging information. Also that
> families of schools should use the same VLE to facilitate sharing of
> materials and work on transition projects."
>
> I understand the issues are somewhere along these lines:
>
> Total cost of ownership: We do have about 25 hours a week of
technician
> support time, but this isn't as a result of using Open Source
software,
> it is a web designer who we use for training and development of all
> e-learning and web developments. It is helping us build up a culture
of
> innovative use of online teaching and learning, and we would benefit
> from this regardless of brand of learning platform. In fact, the
nature
> of Moodle lends itself to much more open and distributed management
and
> we can allow teachers and even students to manage courses within it.
>
> Specific local knowledge: I set up a Moodle installation on my laptop,
> from scratch, in an hour or two as a pilot (including downloading
> software etc.) ICT support were therefore able to install a corporate
> version on a hosted server very quickly. The main issues were opening
up
> ports, network speed etc, which are dependent on our relationship with
> our RBC. Our technician, who is now the resident expert, had never
heard
> of Moodle when he joined us in December, but the transparency of the
> system makes it straightforward to get on top of.
>
> Common sign in: We have set up LDAP so that users simply log on with
> their network password. No problems. We are interested in developing
> Shibboleth (which I understand will cross authenticate with other
> platforms - Bodington et al) as well as Moodle, and see that as a
> potential route for sharing resources with the Moodle or 'open source'
> "family of schools", as and when we make suitable relationships.
>
> Interoperability: We have not yet managed to link Moodle with SIMS
(our
> current MIS). I think there are issues here, and my hope was that
BECTA
> would be forcing SIMS to conform to much more transparent standards,
> although I'm not much of an expert. This is my most serious concern.
>
> Commercial support / future developments: There are commercial
> organisations available to support Moodle and other open source
software
> for those who need it. Even if we disbelieve the philosophy that says
> Moodle will continue to be developed and in the public source, why is
it
> any more vulnerable to having the plug pulled than Blackboard / WebCT
or
> any other commercial incarnation that can only survive whilst there is
a
> market (and when the product is discontinued the provider will have no
> interest in providing support)? Any commercial product is likely to
have
> upgrades and changes over the development cycle, and it may well be
that
> in 5 years time we will have all had to change / upgrade / reengineer
> our platforms anyway. As I understand it Moodle is SCORM compliant and
> pretty transparent.
>
>
> I think Moodle is a great product, and was definitely an appropriate
> choice to develop the use of a learning platform and e-learning
culture
> within this institution in the current timescale. We went along this
> road because we thought it would be a positive help towards improving
> teaching, learning and the school culture; it just seemed to be a
bonus
> as we thought that it was also in line with DFES best practice. It
would
> be a shame if the DFES, RBCs and LAs discourage schools from this and
> try to direct us into a corporate project where we feel we have no
> ownership.
>
>
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