[ubuntu-uk] Persuading a school to switch

Craig craig at zygoid.co.uk
Fri Mar 28 07:57:37 GMT 2008


On Tue, 2008-03-25 at 20:11 +0000, Matt Jones wrote:
> Rob Beard wrote:
> > The final thing I can think of is Moodle (which is included with 
> > Karoshi) which is a complete Virtual Learning Environment.  It's free 
> > and runs on Ubuntu and most other flavours of Linux.  I've had a bit of 
> > a play with it but not being an expert I'm not sure how well it would 
> > fit a schools needs, but as far as I know it is used in schools in this 
> > country and around the world.  I've built a test Moodle server for a 
> > friend's wife who is being put in charge of IT at a primary school and 
> > she seems to think it would do the job.
> >
> > If you need any more help, feel free to drop me an e-mail either on the 
> > Ubuntu list or off list.
> >
> > Good luck.
> >
> > Rob
> >
> >   
> Moodle is used quite extensively in various schools, and espescially 
> colleges for their VLE's. For example, Hereford sixth form (A fine 
> establishment) uses it. The usefulness depends on the content, Some 
> subjects are really good, all information is put on there, which is very 
> useful. Some subjects have very little documents on it, which can be 
> annoying.
This is what will happen with us. The science department have set up their
own website (albeit free one you set up with wizards) which have all the
homework on it, while the geography department are reluctant to take the
register on their laptops and even use the overhead projectors.
I would be interested to know if the whole thing loses its use when
there are such a mix. I myself would probably be discouraged from
looking at it if a lot of the subjects were unused.

> The college is pretty much an all MS system, xp on the desktop, with MS 
> file servers, and an exchange email system for student email.  Moodle is 
> the only piece of open source.
As far as I know, we haven't even bothered with Moodle. I'm still trying
to remember the name of the VLE that was brought... I will see what has
happened to the Moodle that was set up and find out why.

> The college uses a network based register system, I think it may be  a 
> custom system.
> 
> I think if you contact your local LUG, an organised group can have more 
> of an effect than an individual. I think this ties into the discussion 
> about replacing XP, Most schools are running P4 class machines, nothing 
> very fancy, but good solid systems for Linux, but not good enough to run 
> vista comfortably. The cost of replacing 200+machines is not cheap even 
> dealing in large quantities.
I'm just off to do that now. The cost and low specs are obviously one of
the things I will try to emphasise on. Any other information definately
helps. I can't imagine how much money schools are going to waste on
Vista, but very soon they won't have much of an option.

> Mj
> 
Thanks for the reply. As always it is greatly appreciated and extremely
helpful.

Am I spamming the mailing list replying separately or do you want me to
put it all in one email? Tell me if I am...




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