Well it has been a quest.  Being part of the Building School for the Future programme we are having a brand new spanking vle and learning platform built for us.  It will be based on the Fronter platform.  The start date for this platform is 2009, with possible early release in August? maybe if we are lucky.  I have had my toes dipped into the murky waters of learning platforms when my school was part of a pilot project called Assimilate.  What a total unmitigated disaster that was.  As a professional I had to try and tap into the mind of some IT web developer to work out how I was going to put resources, register classes, share and use different functions.  We had training until it came out of our ears, more training when the first training didn't work.  Failure when the classes we set up didn't communicate correctly with the resources.  A time consumming disaster.  Teachers and students were often blamed for not making it work.

The past two years we have been involved with the Moodle revolution.  Again, more training and more training and the roll out across school in Gravesham has not been a success.  What is the resistance to these technologies?  It seems that a lot of staff need lots of hand holding and help with vle's and to be honest the platforms are sometimes not the easiest thing to use.  Convoluted and messy, requiring lots of IT support.

However, time has been quickly approaching and my hand has been forced by the introduction of the New Diplomas.  Being the line lead for Engineering and the diverse numbers of schools and practitioners I am involved with, along with the immense overload of information from the QIA (Quality Improvement Agency); SSAT (Specialst Schools Academic Trust); NAA (National Assessment Agency); Exam Boards; Sector Skill Councils; LSC (Learning Skills Council) ...(uncle Tom Cobbly and All..including his dog)...I am folding beneath the information and how best to collaborate.

So....here was my dilemma... traditional email systems were not working and of course you can't share.  What about setting up a collaborative wiki....?  Yes, great idea but a wiki is not allowed on the various school networks and is potentially banned.  I have searched for a way forward and then found Edu2.0  A truly amazing FREE vle.  Based around good web2.0 technologies it is an easy interface and NO IT technical support is needed and staff very quickly can be up and running on it.  Virtual schools can be set up, collaboration tools like wiki are embedded, blogs, flickr compatability, googledocs compatability....

At last I have found a way forward and I have been introducing the package over the past two days whilst delivering Adavanced Diploma Training to the team.  I am amazed how quickly we are moving forward. The added bonus of QUALITY ASSURANCE because of the consistent approach to Scheme of Work construction, Lesson Construction and resources means that delivery partners from a number of organisations will be producing materials I can track, monitor and observe in a transparent way.

One final note of praise for Graham Glass the founder.  An inspirational man who has provided a truly excellent resource for us all (if somewhat in the fledgling stage....).  I know I have high demands in terms of technology and my expectations are becoming more so as time moves on.  The thing about Edu2.0 is the dialogue and feedback that is listened to and you really do feel that you are part of a quiet revolution in terms of Learning Platform delivery.