TaraNet Tinkering Around the Edges with MLE

2009 Mle Roadshow 4

View more presentations from Paul Seiler.

Ian Munro & Paul Seiler from the MOE were in New Plymouth to speak to schools about Managed Learning Environments. This presentation follows on from their consultation last year. Since this time the MOE have established a reference group, and tendered for and accepted preferred vendors. You can participate in the discussion around MLE by joining the reference group Google group. 

I think a lot of this session may have been  above the heads of many  unless they had participated in previous consultation sessions or had an understanding of online learning environments. It would have been good to see the presentation deviate online to look at examples that were discussed so the audience could make a visual connection to the tools & ideas that Paul was talking about.

TaraNet has been using an MLE – Interact & lately Moodle for the last three years to support our classes but i feel we have only been tinkering around the edges of what is possible. We are reaching a time now that TaraNet schools need to make strategic decisions about adopting an MLE (Coastal & St Mary’s have recently purchased KnowledgeNet). Whether they choose to collaborate and develop our own TaraNet site or choose another vendor and work independently, is another decision they will need to make. I have skirted this issue, trying just to focus on providing the tools for our eteachers & making it available to other teachers through Lead Teacher request. WelCom have made this the overarching goal & focus for their cluster with the development of their MLE and the support of teachers being their ePrincipal’s primary role. It is obvious when visiting WelCom that their goals are coming to fruition with a dynamic, collaborative space being developed that is always busy with students & teachers online.

I have been thinking for sometime that TaraNet schools, who haven’t already, need to make a strategic decision about adopting an MLE. The Moodle site we are currently using needs to move beyond it’s trial phase and off the MOE server and onto a hosted vendor site, which will be a cost to the schools. When schools start investing in an MLE they will want a return on the investment. So there will be a lot of professional learning needed. A new goal for TaraNet 2010 and another opportunity for other schools outside TaraNet to join….maybe.

Managed Learning Environments

If you missed the MOE consultation round, like i did, you can catch up on what the talk is about by viewing Paul's presentation below.

These developments will be great for all our schools but particularly for our elearning classes that are trying to work through all of these things yesterday.

Managed Learning Environments: School Consultation

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: mle lms)

Moodling Along

Lead teachers and other interested TaraNet teachers attending a Moodle PD day at Opunake High School. Moodle is going to be used for the TaraNet Online Campus and has been opened up for all our schools to use for their own purposes also. A huge thankyou to Anton, WelCom ePrincipal, for facilitating this workshop for us and making himself available for any support queries.

Our site is currently hosted as a trial site with the MOE while we become more familiar with this online learning environment. When we are up and running well with this we will look for a permanent home whether this is with a hosting company or in collaboration with other elearning clusters. There may be something in the pipeline here so TaraNet sits in a good position to go either way. We are starting small to suit our immediate purposes without a shared strategic plan for a cluster-wide learning management system (such as WelCom) at this time. I believe that this would be the logical next step if all goes well and once schools pick up on the potential of a TaraNet Moodle site for collaboration and support for f2f classes as well as online classes. We have been going round & round in circles in the last few years in respect of adopting a learning management system for schools, let alone a cluster wide one, so there are still some in our leadership group who are not ready to commit.

Whole school adoption and cluster-wide collaboration requires that commitment to happen - i think that TaraNet is still feeling uncertain after limited success with KnowledgeNet in the past. All we can do is trial Moodle with a few motivated teachers and our online classes to show it could work well for us as it seems to be for WelCom, AorakiNet, Cantatech & WestNet. (Any other clusters Moodling?)

SMS Roadshow

I took myself along to the MOE SMS Roadshow to get up to speed on what is happening with developing initiatives.

The day focused on enrol, electronic attendance, early notification, lms/sms interoperability & e-asTTle. The MOE has set up yahoo user groups for each sms so that feedback & discussion can take place around the performance & the development of these SMS.

I was particularly interested in hearing more about the lms/sms interoperability as many of our schools are ready to go into an lms . I don't think we have anymore conclusive information to help in choosing lms than we did when i wrote about this last year. One thing i was able to determine was that the interoperability development was following open standards, meaning that eventually any lms should work with any sms. For example if you have MUSAC for your sms then you won't be tied into using KnowledgeNet. So i guess my advise for schools choosing an lms now would be just go ahead and make a choice (regardless of your sms) eventually all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle will fit together.

Links from the roadshow

Opunake Kuia Talk Tech - Cellphones

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Originally uploaded by rache65

Having a cuppa with Val & Rona @ Opunake. They were talking about what wonderful things cellphones were. Just to agree with them i showed them how wonderful they are at getting pics straight up onto the internet from anywhere through your phone. As well as being really useful for ringing ahead on school camps to order $300 of fish & chips ;-) One of our eteachers asked about the possibility of txt alerts to our students straight from our lms - thats a great idea but i'm pretty sure Interact doesn't have that capability. I have most of my students numbers & even tho i know they're not supposed to have phones at school i will still contact them that way if i need them in a hurry.
Any ideas about txt alert services through lms or maybe some other site. Something to find out more about...

Say Ahhhhh! Life after Interact?

Yr 3 & 4 kids at SPS were exploring using the cameras today in preparation for their big day out at Puke Ariki tomorrow.

Jane has created a really useful resource for teachers starting out with photography in the classroom it can be downloaded through the Tai o Rupawai cluster area on Interact.

Of note for users of Interact & there are heaps of us that do (especially for the hosting of ICTPD cluster resources) is that Interact is on the way out. Not tomorrow but in the foreseeable future. I only heard about this by accident as a kind person emailed me the details. I host two sites on Interact. One is a repository of shared resources that were developed during our time as the Bard Wired cluster. The other is our TaraNet ECampus site that i was hoping that in the years to come would develop into a vibrant and busy place to support the elearning needs of our secondary school distance learning students. So now to cast an eye across the alternatives - most likely to be Moodle. Time to start playing :-)

Here is the full information for those who don't already know. Contact Glen if you have any questions.

"DearInteract User
Some months ago we informed you that the future of Interact developmentat the University of Canterbury was being reviewed. This process has taken longer than expected but we have now made some firm decisions and are in a position to communicate these to you.
Approvalwas recently given for a project to review the University's LearningManagement Systems with a view to moving to a single system by 2010. This review will consist of an evaluation of a short-list of opensource systems in comparison to Blackboard. It was decided that Interact will not be on the short-list of evaluated systems. This was not an easy decision to make as we believe that Interact is a good product that is meeting the needs of a wide range of users both within and without the University. The following reasons were the basis for this decision:
* For whatever reason the open source release of Interact has not generated a development community. There are a wide range of users of the system, but none of these are contributing development back to the project(perhaps it is because the system is so good they don't need to do any additional development!). This means that the University is 100%responsible for ongoing development, with associated costs and risks.To realistically keep pace with developments in this fast changing area would require at least 2-3 full time programmers, which means that it ceases to be a cost effective solution.

* As mentioned in our previous communication, the other major open sourceplayer in the New Zealand education market, Moodle, has had millions of dollars poured into its development, as well as a worldwide network of voluntary developers contributing back to the project. We don't believe it is viable to compete against that in a market as small as the New Zealand compulsory education sector.
This means that the University will only be supporting Interact for the next two years, until December 2009. We will continue to provide hosting and technical support for this period but there will only be limited development work done, mainly bug fixes, etc. During this time we will be working on migration strategies for moving our own dataout of Interact, which will hopefully provide other users with migration options also if they need them.

Interact is Open Source, so you own all of the source code as well as the data. This means that you are free to keep using Interact on your own or other hosted servers for as long as you wish, so this announcement doesn't require any immediate action on your part. We would however recommend that you review your LMS requirements some time in 2008 so you are in a position to make a decision about your future direction some time before the end of 2009.

It has been a pleasure working with you and we regret any inconveniencethat this move may cause, but given the circumstances we believeit is the best decision for all parties involved. Please feel free to email me at glen.davies@canterbury.ac.nz if you have any questionsabout the above, or wish to discuss this further."

Telecom Trembling??

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Is Telecom shaking in it's boots today to hear that 83% of schools surveyed by the NZPF are planning to look for another Internet provider in dismayed reaction to Telecom axing the Schools Connection Points scheme?
Somehow i think Telecom may just be laughing up their sleeves that they have managed to capture so many of our schools in the SchoolZone net before taking away their much needed support for ICT in schools. Is it a knee jerk reaction for Principals to say we will just go to another provider?
Think it through - it is not just a connection to the Internet that Telecom SZ provides - its a whole managed Internet package. Think about the transition you went through when you changed to SZ - a new way of doing email, learning to use the MyDesktop, uploading users (rolling over the year groups every year), checking up on user internet use, filtering & blocking sites (unfiltering & unblocking sites), many have added on MyClasses - with whole courses being uploaded & accessed through Telecom SchoolZone. The list goes on: internal proxy servers taken out to be served offsite, school websites hosted on SZ servers, personal files of 1000s of NZ students & teachers stored in SZ Personal files boxes. (Hours and hours of staff training nationally - Phew!!) So just switch providers? What A Mission! For my TaraNet schools there is no other providers - Telecom is the only provider locally we can use for Videoconferencing into the VPN. (If you think TaraNet can do this differently please let me know)
When SZ first appeared around 2002/2003 for many of our schools it was like pennies from heaven - a whole integrated, easy to use tool for managing the wild beast the internet had become in our schools (secondary schools in particular). Of course it was great to have Broadband too - SZ & broadband at that time went hand in hand. I have long been a SZ champion but in the last year have been feeling a bit unsettled about having all our eggs in the Telecom basket. Other providers have stepped up with lower prices & better speeds, SZ has had hiccups with its new filtering system & some recent issues with email.
So where to next for schools - what are the options beyond SZ? What support will be needed to change - a truckload for sure. Your thoughts?

LMS Decisions? Wait Just Another Minute!

I have been working with one of my schools as they investigate Learning Management Systems (LMS). It's something their teachers have been asking for (Yahoo! - quick strike while the iron's hot!) but it seems these are unsettled times in the area of LMS in NZ so we should just taihoa for just a bit longer and see what develops.
One reason is the work going into developing interoperability between SMS & LMS. This is currently being trialled & the MOE will be taking Road Shows around the country to inform and advise schools on their LMS decisions. Read more about it here.
Another reason is the review around the continued support of Interact which is used to support many of our learning communities - TaraNet & BardWired are both hosted inside Interact as well as the ICTPD network. Glen has set up a site to explore LMS directions.
Add to this new LMS appearing on the scene every time you turn around - for example Scholaris supported by NewEraIT turned up for the 1st time on my radar screen today.
The MOE released guidelines earlier in the year for choosing MOLEs (managed online learning environment :-) These are helpful for looking at what questions you should ask your LMS vendor & trying to match up your schools needs to an appropriate LMS but they are not as conclusive as the SMS guidelines that provides accreditation of products against the guidelines
There are so many things to consider - for example Scholaris & Mindspring are both based on a school being an existing user of Microsoft Office Software - which might be fine right now. But what about when the Microsoft Schools Software Agreement comes up for renewal in another 3 years - (buzz is it might not be renewed) - where will that leave schools who have a LMS based on Microsoft?
So many variables, so many things to consider, so confusing - even for me & I have spent the last 4 years investigating various LMS. Its so much like dancing on the shifting carpet right now with LMS. I just hope that when schools do make their decisions that the carpet doesn't get pulled away from underneath.
The advice i am giving my school? Narrow your choices down to 3 or 4 LMS, get demo sites up & going so you can have a play, and wait for further information from the MOE roadshow before committing. After that just go hard out with your choice & have lots of support for your staff as they develop in their use of your LMS because at the end of the day it won't be the system you choose thats the most important thing but the people who are using your system.
My LMS Delicious Links.

TaraNet LMS Decisions???

I visited Waitara High School today to catch up with new Acting Principal Jenny & Lead Teacher Marilyn. My main purpose was to promote e-learning options for Waitara students. I intended to explore the courses available through VLN but unfortunately no internet - SZ has been playing up in Stratford in the last few days as well & connection has been very intermittently slow or non-existant!
We had quite a talk about everything from infrastructure updates (go here to see where your school ranks on the NZ network league table), to ICT strategic plans, funding, SMS, the new Waitara High School website and Learning Management Systems (LMS).
LMS has been the subject of much discussion amongst the TaraNet lead teacher group as many of our schools have decided not to continue with KnowledgeNet & are considering alternatives. As i seem to keep returning to this subject I will post my notes that i have shared with the Lead Teacher group here:

• Options to consider as Henry suggested are Moodle.
• Schoodle is hosted Moodle option thru Wintec.
• MyClasses as an addon feature to the SchoolZone desktop – the Volcanics cluster are currently using this and you can check out what it looks like through Mt Albert Grammars’ site. Telecom has yet to set the NZ pricing.
• Interact – externally hosted or if you have a SmartNet server (Coastal I think) it is an addon feature to the new SmartNet server software – minimal setup cost $300 I think and no ongoing costs because you build & maintain it yourself. The TaraNet e-Campus has an Interact space though not used by online teachers so not fully utilized…need more PD here! Toko School have also started to use Interact and successfully used it to host the "NZ History Game"
  
• Mindspring is based on MicroSoft SharePoint software but I think this is comparatively as expensive as KN. http://www.digiops.org.nz/projects/currentprojects/mindspring/
• First Class not sure what this costs – it has been used for sometime by Wellington Girls & I believe integrates with your existing server system so you don’t have to add your stuff separately to places on an intranet (Interact will work like this too on your SmartNet server)
• Think.com still exists and is still free to use – the ICTPD national network used to use this before they switched to Interact.
• Other choices could be online software such as wikis eg http://pbwiki.com/edu/http://www.wikispaces.com/

Need to further investigate this to see what Wiki software can be hosted on our own servers?

For those who couldn't get to SchoolTech06 (like me :-) there has been a Wiki space set up to showcase/ share some of what is going on there.
Note there are MOE guidelines coming up soon – I would suggest u defer decision-making about new LMS till this has been released.

Interacting with Toko

Richard@Toko is just setting up an Interact 'intranet/extranet' on his SmartNet server. I spent some time on Friday exploring this with him & testing it out. You can visit it here - though you need to be a registered user to get into most of the site. Which is the whole idea - a secure, private area that can be used for sharing and communicating within the school and from outside the school as well. Richard is planning to use part of this site to host other schools in a collaborative project to support 'Gifted & Talented'. Look forward to watching this develop :-)