OFTED’s Review of VLE Development

It is perhaps timed to coincide with the 2009 BETT show, but OFSTED have produced a new report on the development of VLEs within schools and colleges in the UK. There is a brief feature here from BBC news and this is the link to the downloadable version of the report. To be quite honest, having slogged my way through it I would spend your time doing something else.

What comes out of the report is that many schools and colleges are moving towards Moodle as their VLE of choice. And that the drive of individual or small groups of teachers within institutions provides the main impetus for VLE development.

“The main factor behind a successful VLE area was the enthusiasm of individual teachers or trainers and often linked with their good use of technology to improve learning in the classroom or workshop.”

Sadly, as is typical of administrators who place methodology and impenetrable jargon above passion and creativity, the report is just about as dry as it gets. The conclusions are mind-numbingly predictable. And what passes for case studies of good practice are grey and uninspiring. Here was a golden opportunity to show case innovative work in primary and secondary schools and in colleges with a report full of screen shot images to peruse and links to explore.

Sadly the opportunity has been missed. Indeed the final line of the report encourages us to head to the BECTA website where we will find “VLE materials”.

Again ... don’t waste your breath waiting for easily accessible resources to use in shaping and developing your VLE. The best you might get is a page directing to you BECTA accredited learning platform providers without even a mention of Moodle and the highly popular open source community that is doing such tremendous work. Type ‘Moodle’ into the BECTA search engine and there are only three (largely irrelevant) search responses!

Fortunately the strength, dynamism and sheer creativity of the Moodle community will always prosper over the rent seeking behaviour of the commercial learning platforms. Open source has come of age - it will probably take BECTA and OFSTED another decade or so to recognise.

Our VLE system continues to evolve, it has been pleasingly buy ahead of the AS economics exams this week. And students from a growing range of schools have been busy on forums, blogging, trying out the self mark tests and accessing other resources as part of their courses. If you would like to take a test drive with a guest log in please email Jim and we can arrange that.

The Times
Schools failing to make the most of the internet, say inspectors