This may be a useful tool  - not necessarily to make you decision for you, 
but it may help you define which questions you want to ask of a system.

http://www.edutools.info/course/compare/

Roger Emery




Please respond to Virtual Learning Environments <[log in to unmask]>
Sent by:        Virtual Learning Environments <[log in to unmask]>
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Subject:        Re: VLE Constraints

Cynicism on its own may be a negative thing but if it helps you
understand what you're up against you may be better equipped to devise a
constructive approach....

Nitin,

it sounds like you have a chance to influence the 'standard' plan
because things are at an early stage. I would try to start a debate
about what your college is trying to acheive. First of all - will your
on-line activities cater for a homogenous group of students on a
homogenous set of courses. (E.g. they are all teenagers on distance
taught vocational training courses or e.g. they are all prisoners
studying basic literacy) If not can you define the heterogeneity? I.e.
do you need to look at vocational courses separate from A level courses,
do you have on-campus courses separate from distance taught, do you need
to deal with science subjects separate from humanities because teaching
methods are so different, do you think language teaching will have
unique teaching methods on-line etc.

You now have one or more defined sets of courses and you can produce a
better set of basic requirements for the VLE (or VLEs). You might then
persuade management to allow input from teachers when building a set of
requirements. When defining a requirement which is unique to one set of
courses you can judge just how important it is, what it might cost to
acquire a VLE that implements it and how many students will benefit from
it. You might include some either/or requirements - i.e. if an unusual
but rarely implemented bit of functionality is absent you could use a
different bit of functionality to teach the same skill or knowledge.

If you wanted to be systematic (managers will love this) you could build
a spreadsheet which lists VLE functionality requirements and for each
set of courses against each of the VLE products estimates a suitability
index. It could highlight a group of courses that is badly served by a
particular VLE product. The idea would be to find the best match to all
the courses or to help you decide to get more than one product.

Good luck!

Jon Maber


Jay.Deeble wrote:

>-----Original Message-
>Cynical but true...
>Jay Deeble
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Virtual Learning Environments [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>Behalf Of Jon Maber
>Sent: 16 January 2006 19:48
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: [VLES] VLE Constraints
>
>
> From your senior management point of view there are no constraints
>because their standard plan is;
>
>1) Define some 'broad brush strokes' principles of how the college will
>teach on-line.
>2) Select a VLE that more or less fits those principles.
>3) Put the principles in the bin.
>4) Base best practice advice to course designers on what the software is
>
>capable of.
>5) Measure success based on the the percentage of teaching done on-line
>regardless of the value of the activity.
>
>What constraints?
>
>Jon Maber
>
>
>Nitin Parmar wrote:
>
>
>
>>All,
>>
>>I've recently being going through some old postings from this mailing
>>list that I've had sitting in my mailboxes. Quite a few back in
>>November/December last year commented on reasons *not* to use a VLE.
>>
>>Recently at my own FE college, we put to someone in Senior Management
>>that realisitically we needed to "recognise constraints in establishing
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>VLE. eg. staff laptops, access to ICT, staff training" before
>>implementing a VLE [which will be Moodle]. However, the response was:
>>"there are no constraints in VLE; just opportunities to enhance
>>teaching and learning!"
>>
>>Has anyone got any ideas on how best to counter such attitudes and
>>feelings, that I'm sure aren't only applicable for my college only?
>>
>>Best Regards,
>>
>>
>>Nitin
>>
>>***************** List information: *****************
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>>vle
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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>
>
>***************** List information: *****************
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>
>

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