VLEs, MLEs, LPs… Help!
I have a confession to make… VLEs confuse me. The number of terms used to describe them is the first hurdle (Virtual Learning Environments / Managed Learning Environments / Learning Platforms / Portals…)
I’ve done lots of research online, spoken to colleagues in Kent and further afield and chatted to different providers at exhibitions like BETT but I’m still confused about what they do and what schools are expected to have in place for their teachers, parents and pupils. This video is a helpful starting point:
I’ve always liked to explore new technologies at school. We won a BECTA award for our school website. We were one of first schools to try live school radio and podcasting… but when it comes to setting up a VLE, I’ve been putting off signing up for one. Why?
From what I’ve seen, they seem to require a huge investment of time and money. But are the benefits large enough to make all of the hard work worthwhile? Do teachers want to be interacting with pupils outside of regular ‘teaching hours’? Should they be expected to be marking electronic homework online? Doesn’t everyone deserve a break? Don’t we already bring enough planning and marking home with us? Finally, do they offer anything in addition to what we are already providing, or that which is available online for free already?
Although we need to think about online reporting to parents, initially I wanted to think about how a VLE will be of use to pupils… it is called a virtual LEARNING environment after all.
Here’s an outline of what we’re already providing for our pupils.
- Our School website – This is the main place where we share and celebrate our children’s work. Photographs, examples of school work, podcasts and more are posted online where comments can be added, giving valuable feedback to our pupils. The children can have usernames / passwords to add their own work – although this isn’t set up yet, I’m keen to start this soon. By posting work on the school site, it is visible to the public. If that same work were posted on a VLE, it would probably be hidden away in a private area only accessible to those with the right username and password. Isn’t the greatest benefit of putting work online the fact that anyone can see and celebrate the achievement? If it’s only visible to those in the school community within the VLE, it may just as well go on a display board in a school corridor somewhere. The school site is also a place for parents (and others) to find out important information about the school.
- Superclubs Plus – Our Key Stage 2 pupils have been using Superclubs since 2004. As my previous post explains, the site provides safe, moderated email for children… their own web pages (where they can learn simple HTML coding if appropriate)… school web pages which they can contribute to… moderated forums to chat and discuss hobbies with other children… competitions… development of new ICT skills with instant rewards in the form of stars and badges… access to Encyclopedia Britannica online and more. Although Superclubs isn’t officially a VLE / Learning Platform, they are planning to add extra features which will give schools ‘learning platform functionality’ this year.
- Of course, we’re also using lots of free online services to support our children’s learning online at school and at home (e.g. Tutpup, Edmodo, Voicethread…).
Here are the VLEs that I’ve seen and heard a little about already… along with some personal opinions:
- Our LEA are promoting KLZ, a ‘portal’ based on Sharepoint which, again, isn’t officially a VLE. From what I’ve seen it’s more of a tool for staff and parents to use. I certainly can’t see primary children using it in it’s current state (and I don’t know of any schools who are using it in this way).
- DBPrimary – This has a really simple interface for primary children. It seems to give a few additional features compared to what we are already providing with Superclubs Plus. However, on first impressions it seems quite basic, so will it end up being restrictive, limiting what we can actually do with it?
- Frog – I had a look at Frog at BETT and it has lots of fantastic features, however, it is extremely expensive and I’m sure that kind of money could be better spent elsewhere in school.
- Studywiz – I wanted to look at what Studywiz were providing when I went to BETT, but their stand had mysteriously disappeared from the show.
- Fronter – I have heard lots of negative comments about Fronter from schools in my local area and also on Twitter. When I looked at a demo, it seemed to make the simplest of steps a five click process. Teachers don’t want / need (or have the time for) that kind of complexity when they should be able to do something relatively simply and easily.
So, what do we do? Is there ONE virtual learning environment which:
- Is going to help our pupils to learn online, both at school and home, providing more than we already do?
- Is going to be easy to set up and manage… initially by the ICT co-ordinator (me!) and in the long term by teachers who already have a long list of jobs?
- Is going to fulfil all of the requirements that we have to meet?
- Is good value for money?
So far in this post, I’ve asked lots of questions, used lots of bullet points and generally been quite negative about things! To move things forward in my school, I’ve been looking at the work of Porchester Junior School and Parkfield Primary School. I particularly admire the way they use their websites as a springboard to help their children find safe online tools. I’ve tried to do this in sections on our school site, but the pages sometimes get buried in amongst the other content.
So, I’ve set a new ‘online learning portal’ (at least that’s what I’m calling it) for our pupils. I’m hoping that this will be a useful springboard to some exciting online tools which our children can use at school and at home to extend their learning in different areas of the curriculum. It is a very new development for us, but here is my plan so far.
The new site is… TheDowns.ME
With the help of my wonderful wife (who drew the pictures), I’ve set up a simple and colourful site which can give our pupils a fun, educational and safe starting point whenever they go online. The site is divided into four sections:
- Our Favourites – This area has links to Superclubs Plus (providing the services mentioned previously) and three other online services which we have recently subscribed to. These are 2Simple Online Tools (giving children access to lots of creative ICT tools and online storage so they can start work at school and continue it at home, and vice versa), Interactive Resources (where they can ‘play’ lots of Maths games and practice the activities that we already use in the classroom) and Education City (where children can develop their Literacy / Maths / Science skills and to complete any homework that their teacher might set for them).
- Other Sites – Links to some other safe educational sites that the children might enjoy. If anyone has any more suggestions for links to add to this area, I would love to hear them.
- Search Safely – Two search boxes, allowing children to search the web (using Primary School Safe Search) and search for images (using Picsearch). Whilst no search tool is 100% safe, these are much more appropriate for our primary pupils and they will reinforce the e-safety messages that we share regularly at school.
- Great Downloads – Providing links to some free software which children can download and use to learn at home.
I hope to be able to go around the different classes over the next few terms and introduce the children to the site. I also need to spend some time showing teachers (and parents) around, explaining what the site, and the different sites that it links to, provide for the pupils.
My one concern with the site is the management of usernames and passwords for the sites listed in the ‘Our Favourites’ section. Children have different log-in details for the four sites which could be difficult to manage. Unfortunately, the sites have different registration systems and I do not have the technical skills to set up a ’single sign-on’ system which would log the pupils into the other tools automatically with one username / password. To ease these problems, I’ve set up spreadsheets for each class with log-in details for each pupil. This information will then be printed using mail merge onto an individual ‘MEcard’ for the children to take home. Teachers will also have lists of the registration details if any children forget their usernames / passwords during lessons.
After writing this post and setting up our own ‘portal’, I’m still not quite sure how much of the requirements we are fulfilling. However, I am sure that children will use the new site and the additional services that we are providing. Superclubs Plus has become an integral part of our children’s ICT work, so I hope that the other tools will do the same.
What are your thoughts about VLEs? Has you school set one up? Are pupils using it? Do you have any suggestions for TheDowns.ME?
Am I the only one who is still confused? I would love to hear your comments…
I have concerns about VLE too. Ours is useful as a place to store plans accessible to all staff in school and at home. It has replaced sign-up sheets for booking rooms. It has diary entries, SEN and G&T info in staff area.
However, we do not use worksheets in school and I was dismayed when a colleague simply gave children a ‘virtual’ worksheet through the VLE for an RE lesson as opposed to actually teaching. I doubt many, if any parents access it for info.
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ianaddison Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
If used badly, a VLE becomes a dumping ground for plans or a way of producing digital worksheets. If used well, it can be a hub of discussion and sharing of ideas. We have just under 800 teachers in an area on our VLE from across the county. They are sharing ideas and plans. It is at the very beginning, but we will get there
We also have many comments from schools that have told us how useful the VLE has been for parents. The snow recently highlighted the home use, whether this is through galleries, discussions or games. I have met with a few parents and they are keen to see the work that their child is doing at school and ways to help them at home. This is something that most were not doing 6/12/18 months ago before they started using their VLE.
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Mark
Love the ME idea and simple interface. I sit alongside you in total bewildermment at where to go or what to do regarding VLE, KLZ (which following conversations on Thursday I am totally convinced is a long way from being the one stop shop it wnats to be) I am also sitting tight on e mail provision and websites. You are right it seems to be a case of pay big money or set yourself up for loads of work. Just the structuring of the KLZ sharepoint portal is time consuming enough. I wait with eager anticipation for someone to answer your questions and will hopefully have some of my own answered. Keep up the excellent work. Will retweet your Blogpost.
M@
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My opinions on VLEs? well, let’s start with my current day job. I’m seconded to Hampshire LA to train teachers in 400+ schools to use our VLE, Studywiz. I am 100% behind your thought of learning through the VLE and that is at the heart of everything that we do.
For some schools, a VLE wouldn’t be worthwhile. The examples you give, (yours and both Simon’s) are led by excellent teachers with a techy background. For the majority of schools, they don’t have a dedicated person with this level of ability or a fantastic website that can be changed or adapted to suit current needs. I think of many of the school websites I see and they are very basic, very static pages that couldn’t handle some of the online requirements or features you mention.
I suggest to some schools the thought of sharing work or photos online, but their website is run by the governor’s friend or an ex-member of staff. Providing an online photo gallery would be next to impossible, let alone one children could comment on!
For these schools, a VLE can help. Yes, they still need someone leading it, someone with an interest in ICT but from my experience, the VLE is letting these schools do something that they hadn’t done before. I have previously reluctant schools sharing work, learning and tools online where they couldn’t have done so before.
I could write for pages and pages, but in summary, for schools without a dynamic teacher at the cutting edge, a VLE is a good place to start. Yes, they can be expensive sometimes and frustrating for people who want perfection, but for most schools, it can be a good tool for sharing children’s learning.
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What a great looking Online Learning Portal – am glad to have inspired you
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with saying that the biggest restriction of VLEs is that their primary aim is to act as private area for children/staff to work in.
In my opinion, sharing and publishing your work to a worldwide audience is much more rewarding – two inspiring examples are http://y62010.heathfieldcps.net/ where a Year 6 girl decided to spend her Saturday night making up her own Wallwisher to embed about features of good story, and http://gpyear4.greenparkschool.org.uk/ where children are given ownership of their own blog. Indeed OfSTED say that “By the time all schools have established virtual learning environments, the technology may well have moved on, making
them an expensive irrelevance. Further consideration should be given to the value for money provided by this national initiative.” (http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Publications-and-research/Browse-all-by/Documents-by-type/Thematic-reports/The-importance-of-ICT-information-and-communication-technology-in-primary-and-secondary-schools-2005-2008)
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I love your start/ME page and I agree with your sentiments on the VLE. As a special school we are meant to be introducing Fronter this year for home-school reporting. It has taken our staff 10 years to learn how to check their emails so I’m looking forward to seeing Fronter in action for anything more than this. I’ve played with Fronter and have no intention of using it for anything.
Surely it is more important to have systems in place that work for you, and promote/enhance learning than to jump through hoops trying to set up a proper/official VLE that won’t.
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Some very interesting points Mark – and I like what you have done with the ME. We do have a MLE – we use Fronter. We have just started rolling it out to the children – starting with year 6 then moving down the school. The aim is that the Year 6 children who are very confident will act as teachers in the Year 3/4 classes.
My year 6 class have been using for 2 weeks now – they have all created pages (in their own time), 75% of the class has handed their homework in online and they said they prefer doing it this way.
In the forum they are already discussing where to go on end of year trip and using the links to visit sites/play games etc. I have been really happy so far with their enthusiasm for this. Before hand we had the blogs, so for us this has been great – teachers are also uploading their planning so can access at home and I am uploading notes and slides/resources from INSET sessions run by all staff and visitors.
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Dear Mark,
we have tried so hard yo move IT forward, after quite a time we revisited Fronter and tried again…it is hard work. Unless one has a knowledgeable techy with time to dedicate to the task it is next to impossible to get the momentum required. Your post offers some new thoughts. It would help if there were not so many things blocked to schools.
Cheers David
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A great post Mark, really interesting part about VLEs blocking kids work to the outside world. I understand the safety implications involved but it’s such a thrill to kids and teachers to get a reply from another pupil, especially from overseas. Allowing this kind of access needs careful thinking through of all the e safety implications but the benefits when it goes right are massive.
Generally I’ve been frustrated in our school by SLT and staff being unwilling to use the vle at all. It took me ages to set up a moodle vle and support from the LEA was great but it’s only ever been me and my classes that have used it
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‘Learning Portal’ Good phrase Mark and a great site – the pupils must love it. I guess it doesn’t really matter about what VLE or alternative you end up with provided you’ve had the discussion that you’ve articulated in this blog post, that your solution is manageable by whoever has to do it, that teachers adopt it to use with their pupils and last, but not least, that the pupils enjoy using it and learn whilst doing so.
You’ve chosen the non-VLE route which I understand completely. In so doing however, there are one or two features you might be missing:
Tracking pupil access – which resources are being used, when and by whom (helps with evaluation & planning)
Tool set – things like quiz modules, blogs, wiki pages etc often come as part of the package and you therefore don’t have to source your own … or worry about another set of log ons.
Internal communication tools – email, chat etc … within a ’safe’ environment
Targetting of resources – providing the right resources for each pupil so they don’t have to search through for the materials/activities appropriate for them.
These may not be priorities for you now, or at all, or you may have other ways of addressing them. In the end though, unless you can afford a bespoke solution (yeh, right!) it’s often about compromising and having to accept a solution which perhaps doesn’t tick all the boxes. But in a couple of year’s time, you, your colleagues and your pupils will have a better idea of what’s important and what elements are must-haves and will therefore be in a better position to make an even more informed decision based on your experiences.
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You are spot on with what you say in this post Mark. When I began to build the Porchester site, my headteacher wanted a dynamic site that the children could be a part of. We created that, and as such we gave them a worldwide audience for their work.
We later tried using our LA VLE solution – you’ve mentioned it in your post – but what it offered us was much less than we had already created (and for considerably more money than our bespoke solution costs us).
However, the time I’ve had to invest in our solution must be taken into consideration for anyone thinking of doing the same, and the fact that our solution does not have the ability to use our MIS data means account creation is a long winded process. For this reason alone, we are now looking at the Frog solution – IF the price comes down and they can provide a hosted solution for a small junior school.
The over riding factor though with whatever solution a school chooses, it must one that is right for the pupils, staff and community of that school.
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