My Classes and Moodle are working on it.

On the SMS side PC School is approved, with eTAP, MUSAC and KAMAR working on it.

I am not sure what SMS you use but by the end of this year you should be able to plug the SMS data feed into ultranet.

Paul.

There was more to eFolio’s V2.0 than what I saw when trialling their beta version. I have therefore updated the “Multiple Spaces and Views” to meet this. My apologies to eFolio for missing this.

It is great to hear that you are using Mahara/MyPortfolio and are finding it successful with Year 6’s. I don’t doubt they can navigate it well. What I am interested in is how it will go with the younger ones though? My criteria for finding a suitable platform was strongly influenced by how a 5-7 year old would navigate and like a platform. I tried to think the way they would.

I have blogged with a class of 6-7 year olds and they interacted well with it’s simple layout and were able to navigate and explore it.

Do you believe or have you had experience of 5-7 year old students working well with Mahara?

In the end we need to choose a platform that is easy to use for all users of all ages; students, teachers and Parents.

An open source platform can be hosted and managed for you at a fraction of the cost of a proprietary system. We don’t have to deal with any maintenance / administration issues in our cluster.

I disagree on open source not being user friendly for primary students. It’s the teachers that are the challenge. We have a Year 6 class using Mahara/myportfolio quite nicely. Children will pick up these technologies no problem.

Anyway – will have to agree to disagree on this one.

Good luck with Ultranet. I’m sure it will do the job you want.

I went with a proprietary system instead of open source for two main reasons:
1) The open source products were mostly set up for Tertiary students and so is not user friendly for Primary students (5-10 year olds).
2) As a teacher I want to focus on teaching. I like how the proprietary systems can be hosted online leaving me to focus on teaching and learning. I don’t want the hassle of having to be reasonable for server maintenance, upgrades, password issues, backing the ePortfolios up, etc. Let teachers be teachers.

Yes it was a bit of a journey in the end. It just seemed to get bigger and bigger the more I looked into it.

I had a good chat with Paul Seiler and Ian Munro. They shared with me their developing ideas and the move to have some research done on the concept of having ONE ePortfolio tool for NZ schools. I felt it was in our best interest as a school to get started on the ePortfolio pilot now. That way we can grow in our understanding of the PROCESS of ePortfolios. IF the MOE do create one ePortfolio by the beginning of 2010 we have already decided that we will be open to considering that option when it happens.

The storage size, I understand from talking with the LMS vendors, is ‘unlimited’ only because they are still working out what space a student needs. I have some doubts that it will remain like that. Yes our NZ owned LMS are not cheap and it does concern me because many schools will not be able to offer these great tools to their students and families. I will work with Ultranet for 2009 and in return they have offered us a good deal on their product. So it is a win-win situation for my school.

I too will be following your developments in regards to ePortfolios and the use of mobiles in the classroom. :+)

Keep rocking mate!

It would be great to work with you and together see what we can get out of Ultranet. My kids would be challenged and inspired by your students and maybe we can offer you some inspiration too. I will contact you when Term 2 gets underway.

In the meantime enjoy your break! :+)