On Wednesday this week I am taking part in a debate with Steve Wheeler, Dughall McCormick and Drew Buddy to discuss our feelings around VLEs/Learning Platforms. This debate is entitled ‘The VLE is Dead’ and is being held at the Learning Without Frontiers conference in London.
I have my opinions but I wanted to gauge yours too, so I thought that the best way to do so was with a Google Form. If you can spare two minutes then please fill out the information in the boxes below.
Using the VLE (Moodle) has revolutionised independent learning in my English dept. All homeowrk is set, and submitted via Moodle. All sow are accessed by staff through Moodle, and all resources for every sow are accessible on Moodle by all students and staff. Moodle is used by ataff in every lesson, in conjunction with IWB. Moodle usage by students is extremely high – especially on a specially created revision sites leading up the exams. Our English Moodle was even accessed on Christmas Day! The Moodle is very much alive in the English Dept at The Hayling College!
Over the past year we abandoned the Fronter VLE inflicted upon us (see http://tinyurl.com/83j4aw8) and decided to build our own around Google Docs. This feasible for a primary but not a Secondary (see http://savingict.posterous.com/google-mlemaybe-next-year-perhaps) so we went with RealSmart who have proved to small enough to care and with the expertise to deliver. Initial feedback on the recent launch is very positive with staff throughout the School wanting to use it. Repeat wanting to use it.
We now have the beginnings of a real Personal Learning Environment. With Fronter we had a jail.
I would be interested in the results of your discussions.