Splitting some rather random comments into two as I have rambled over the 2000 char limit.

There are examples of good use of all these services. Problems arrive in the way they are put together. When I have signed up for online services that use openID or my twitter account for identity it seems a lot smoother than the way blogs, for example, are implemented and integrated in glow.

A lot of the tools listed have been developed over a long, in Internet years, period of time with good usability it would be useful if the way they are tied together was equally usable.

I've spent most of the last couple of weeks trying to sort out various account problems for many local schools. Even with the support of the ever patient and helpful glow support at RM this has been painful.
Another source of pain is the logon system (much improved this session).

It seems to me that more important than the actual services the thing to get right is how the administration of accounts works and how these accounts integrate with various services. Usability for both the administrators and end users.
We don't know what tools are around the corner, how these tools will be used or how they will develop. We need a mechanism for incorporating one we don't know about that is simple to administrate and transparent for the user.

The idea of a single sign- on is very attractive but the current implementation seems problematic.
For example:
1. PurpleMash is popular with a lot of our primary pupils & teachers, it would be nice to be able to link to particular activities from within glow/a blog/wiki/website. It is possible to do this but it involves figuring out how to turn this:
http://www.purplemash.com/roman_soldiers/
Into this:
https://www.purplemash.com/Shibboleth.sso/GLOW?target=https://www.purplemash.com/members/login/login_shib_glow.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Epurplemash%2Ecom%2Froman_soldiers%2F
Then when pupils visit the link and later hit the browser back button they get a shibboleth error.
2. The way blogs have been implemented seems to lead to them being difficult to upgrade to the latest version of WordPress, and limits various plugins and themes. It also breaks the use of the metaWeblogAPI which would allow some interesting uses.

The way new services are introduced and developed need to be carefully considered. For example Glow Light appeared. Although it was a great improvement to the old glow home pages it had a couple of obvious flaws, at least to my eyes:
The page was very big loading a large amount of HTML and JavaScript that did not seem necessary.
The buttons all look alike although they do different jobs; some open links, some open links in a new window and some hide and show other buttons. (This is a pretty trivial nit-picking example I know.)
It might be better to beta test or be in perpetual beta taking feedback from users and being able to make changes without having to wait for the Summer holidays.

3rd of 2;-)
Finally it would be nice if some of the tools that are potentially 'hackable' (in a good way) are open to being improved by users. The most obvious example of this, to me, would be blogs. Allowing some sort of access by users to install plugins & edit themes would possibly lead to some useful developments. This would, I imagine be difficult but I can imagine some sort of sandbox web server where glow users can set up a site adding open source software. I am sure there are some pupils who would appreciate this too.

Rather than writing an extremely long post about all the ways I use Glow, I have decided to open up my class glow group so people can see first-hand.
http://glo.li/nxWeZY
Glow has totally changed the way I teach in my class, it has allowed me to use ICT in a much more creative and dynamic way. It’s a great way to pull together the content you require into one workspace. It is has also been an extremely valuable tool with our implementation of CofE, providing a place for the pupils to reflect on their learning and evidence the work being undertaken in class.
I agree with John that Glow needs to become easier for the average user. Even though I attended Glow mentor training there was a lot about its functionality that I did not learn till later either through asking members of the Glow team or using the Glow cookbooks. A lot of staff perhaps do not have the time or the patience to gain the knowledge required to get the best use of Glow.
To save staff time at the school I am based I created a template of the glow group you can view above and then made it into a class glow group for them.
I think Glow needs to move forward in several ways – make it easier for average users, provide on-going training opportunities (a lot of staff still prefer a hands on approach with a real person), identify ICT “experts” who can help create and share content for those who need support, an upgrade of appearance and functionality to bring it up to date and in line with the webspaces our young people are used to using.

Charlie, there is one service which is not listed above which I seem to recall. It is a service which is not really in peoples face - and of course it may have been discontinued over time - so apologies if this is the case. This is the SRU/SRW service which allowed content search results to be returned in Glow from participating third party repositories. Originally this included the LTS website and I seem to recall discussions about SCRAN being invovled too. This of course links up with the federated authentication service as users may find content which requires a login to view.

There are four services which I feel are core to Glow as it was originally conceived. SSO - providing access to a range of services/application after having logged in one time. Content search - allowing users to discover relevant content in any part of of Glow ( File Stores/ VLE etc ), and Federated authentication and search which permits access to selected "externally" hosted services and extens the Glow search capabilty to see external content. I believe that all of these are valuable. I would accept that some of these services have be deployed with greater an lesser degrees of success - and it seems that implimentations have improved over time. I would say that these are core services that are worth preserving as they ulimately differentiate Glow from the internet as a whole.

Interoperablity of services in Glow is a key area for devlopment where the platform has the capabilty to make intelligent decistions about who data should be stored thus protecting the end user from having to deal with making integration work. As an illustration, if a user is making a blog post and want to include some photos or view assets, adding the photo should have the effect of having it stored in the photo store service, likewise adding the video should have the effect of adding it to the video store.

There are many things we are doing through Glow that we never could do before:

Single Sign On: has been mentioned already, but this really is a core service. We link through to National Content as well as local paid for content.
Video Conferencing: what used to be a dark art is now one click away on a desktop.Glow Meet V2 was a huge improvement on V1 and we now have schools comfortable with joining national events, presenting events, using it for transition work in clusters, attending CPD sessions we host, attending meetings. Glow Meet is allowing us to maintain a level of service at management level in recent times, with HR and Headteacher surgeries now being presented without the need to drive across the region. During the snow closures it allowed staff to check in and continue events and support where needed. All through the web browser with a £5 camera!
Wikis and Blogs: we had a few keen Bloggers in the Authority, but the ability to tie the security and creation into Glow certainly helped encourage others to join in.
Leverage: this seems to have been missed by most. Glow allowed us leverage to commit a large proportion of budget to improving bandwidth and infrastructure. Whatever you have to say about Glow, the benefits to the quality and connectivity of technology in certainly our classrooms have been huge.
Data: the MIS content available in the portal has been a godsend. This now highlights timetabling errors, inaccurate information, staffing errors and improves our overall quality of data we hold in the authority. This mutlicheck capability stops issues before they knock on to SQA, Scholar, etc

Where do I think we are going wrong?

Glow Light: it's a lovely interface, but users can avoid seeing the news section and they go from a nice navigation system back to the old navigation fairly quickly. The navigation core is wrong.
Glow Learn: Any component that needs a three day training course should ring alarm bells. Clunky, far too difficult to use and slow. Most users achieve better results just setting up a Glow group with a document store.
The Portal: my biggest gripe. For all of the SSO advantages, this mantra was lost a little in translation. Simple tasks are a nightmare, but also browser dependant. So if I create a calendar in one group, then one in another, I cannot nest them together somewhere to show my entries? No! Can I link it to Oulook/Google/other and do a nice secure two way feed? No! If I change my profile to add an alternative email address, will it carry this change through to Glow Mail? No!
I could go on, but this isn't the place for it. The useability and interoperability of the Portal is key to the success of Glow going forward. People were nervous in Glow1 and probably a little cautious and overprotective. This led to stripped out functionality.
The technologies have changed though and we must remember that, some things are possible now that weren't before.
I have to say, overall, I have many things I thank Glow V1 for.

How do you know what works and what doesn't - has there been a single honest independent assessment of the efficacy of any of it? The acid test being how many pupils actually use it in favour of the countless free widely accepted and relevant to the real world resources. I would be willing to bet its very very low.

Robert - thats why it was a question -followed by an opinion - there was never an assertion. I can tell you for a fact that it is used very little in my kids school.I quizzed every teacher I could and NONe were using it although of my kids did say one teacher was using it to prepare lessons that were interesting and interactive - and was going to "try" to find out how to get them on. I hope very much that everyone with any involvement in this GLOW debacle is hanging their heads in shame. An entire generation is being kept out of the greatest educational tool every, by your dithering on a weird closed system that goes against everything that the "open" internet stands for. Why not just open it all up and let the head teachers choose which FREE tools to use?

Are you actually saying that the internet has no impact on learning? Look once kids leave school - they either come to people like me for a job -or go to Uni then a job. They need to be fully conversant with the real internet. What you are doing is advocating that the kids learn esperanto at school so that they can speak English when they leave.

John Johnston - the problem with the Shibboleth single sign on (I think) is that you have to be redirected to it and then it directs you to the required service as authenticated. The client (the web browser) is doing the authentication and the services need to be written in such a way as to use this authentication process. OpenID (from what I know) allows the service to use it's standard login and then the server authenticates the user with the OpenID server. The authentication happens behind the scenes and is hidden from the user. This server based authentication would allow us to use a variety of tools and their native logins.

I suppose what I'm think of is more like Sign in with Facebook/Twitter that we see all over the web. It would be far easier to implement than the Shibboleth authentication we currently have. Having said that, I know that there have been updates to the Shibboleth service and the kind of authentication I'm talking about may now be possible. But I'm no Shib-expert.

Back again
The biggest drawback to Glow Groups was the usability. A quick tour of Olivia's group above show the usefulness of the concept. Many staff in my LA are doing similar things (mostly with less polish) but it is difficult. The creating and population of the sharepoint weparts is tricky and inconsistent. Most of the functionality could be replaced by Wikis:

•Text Editor WebPart= main Wiki page. (The text editor has been a bit of a problem for us, many primaries are mac users, TextEditor doesn't work in Safari and now is broken in latest version of FireFox. Personally I use the xml webpart and snippets of HTML but not many of out teachers know HTML)
•Document Library= Wiki page with attachments (mindtouch is good at this)
•Picture Library = Wiki page with attachments (mindtouch is good at this)
•Discussion Board= Wiki page with comments, just like this (mindtouch is less good as teachers can't delete pupil comments)
•News and Events webparts =blogs rss feed into Wiki(not sure if Mindtouch does RSS in Glow?)
•Weblinks Part= delicious embed?

I think we should be looking at the functions or outcomes which would like to keep rather than the solutions to obtaining those functions.

For starters I would suggest that Glow made for secure universal sharing and collaboration across the whole of Scotland. In my opinion we don't want to lose that.

Can others add to this?

What's good-
'My Glow' is good in that pupils can move from Primary to secondary and that stays the same- I like that the eportfolios/ blogs can stay in there securely and are pupils' own property. Blogs are great and now easy to give to individual pupils-they can manage themselves. I know that we could have access to more themes etc but can put up with that. Blogs can be made public-audience at last with Glow!
Have had some very good Glow Meets and some not so good but I think that should stay.
The discussion forums were a good addition and I like that we can now save at least our usernames on private computers.
resources are great though not always easy to find!
What's not so good-
'My Glow'-lack of audience. Before and since Glow I have used Superclubsplus with Primary Pupils-it used to be funded by LTS but Glow people reckoned they no longer needed it as Glow would fulfill same functions. Well it doesn't! Glow needs to look to that kind of model for pupils-a place where they can learn to use the internet responsibly, communicate with other pupils and teachers safely, be creative and have audience.
Usability is not intuitive enough.
More resources could be available. Surely in the safety of Glow, teachers could be trusted to access the likes of You Tube!!!
Glow Groups can be clunky and difficult to find!
News does not always get through-a much improved News Feed is needed.
Having said all this, my pupils love going on Glow! Some teachers though take a lot more persuasion and that needs to be addressed!

I think Drew Burret has hit on a crucial point above in his comments on Glow Learn. I am a Glow authority contact and spend a fair bit of my time promting its use and so I feel that I can criticise it with a clear conscience; and where I feel the whole project seriously missed a trick was in failing to provide a substantial resource base for teachers. That was one of the main things - if not the main thing - that was eagerly anticipated about the SSDN. Glow Learn could provide a really good vehicle for that (and there would have to be other routes), as Drew mentions, but at present the system is far short of what was envisaged at the start in that respect. I know that all sorts of technical and/or legal issues prevented us going too far down that route; but if some really substantial bank of quality-assured teaching materials was developed, one would quickly find uptake would increase. We found that when a secondee posted all her planning materials (for primary) on our authority Glow group only. I know the value or otherwise of the other tools within Glow (for example, I am a huge fan of the new Glow Meet and it is invaluable for a remote, island-based authority like ours) and that debate is already well under way here and I have very little to add; but I do feel that we have forgotten the power and usefulness of a national resource base: no more reinventing the wheel! I am absolutely certain, for example, that secondary usage would shoot up overnight if that were to happen. It would just take some positive communication between LAs and Education Scotland. You may well that I am being naive; but I honestly feel it would be worth going for. The tools side of things I am less concerned about - that's the cheap bit of it and so solutions will be found!

I see that this page is now all about the tools. I guess that reinforces the point I was trying to make in my last post. I will take my campaign for co-ordinated content elswhere. :) Having said that, it is true that there are tools which deliver the content in a radically different way online and they must be maintained and developed in Glow. I would highlight as examples Glow Meet and blogs and wikis to deliver e-portfolios.

Some great alternative tools suggested here. Spent the last couple of years looking at Moodle and it has lots of benefits not least of which is a growing number of open source interoperable components. Just a question - how does the reliance on the fabulous range of Google tools/apps fit with the aspiration of avoiding a 'big IT' solution. Think 'big IT' is unhelpful rhetoric - are Twitter and Facebook 'big IT'. Small IT can become big very quickly.

One of the major failures of Glow 1 was the dreadful user interface/user experience - is there a thought that there might be an attempt to pull some of these tools together in a way that makes them accessible to all. This would involve some work from a good designer/experience architect but well worth the investment.

By way of qualification all learning platforms had dreadful UI/UX when Glow 1 was procured. We should invest in the kind of good UI/UX design that can be elegantly adapted and changed as our tools and tastes shift over time.

I am not the technology expert but, as Head teacher, feel qualified to comment on effects and reactions from staff to the product that is GLOW.
Our staff do not find it easy and therefore do not find it helpful and therefore are becoming less and less inclined to use it.
We have access problems - mainly because of limited bandwidth but also because logon sometimes works and sometimes doesn't work! Frustration for a practitioner.
I guess most teachers are between me with a limited technological background and others commenting here who fully understand how GLOW works. In other words, like a car, we want it to work rather than know how it works.
I would rather a limited repetoire that works well all the time than all singing and dancing claims that just aren't met.

This is a very interesting discussion, perhaps in some cases more heat than light. However I think one or two points have emerged which bear repeating.

Firstly nobody wants to keep the Glow interface and nobody is defending it. Secondly, the functions which Glow now has are still largely seen as desirable and so the discussion is about what software can provide similar or better functionality rather than looking for some totally different set of tools.

But one thing I would like to emphasise again is the way Glow has provided a common platform for all Scottish schools. Too much laissez faire will lose that and I think that would be a pity. Training and CPD has had a common ground for all teachers and there has been relatively easy methods for collaboration for both pupils and staff. We should really try to keep that aspect in future. From what I can gather, the English and other countries' experience has been much more fragmented.

Sifting through all the discussion here and elsewhere over the next few weeks should give a good set of indicators for what is needed in future provision.

Lots of interesting discussion here. This is going to be good.

I'm interested in people's thoughts on the alternative tools suggested. There seems to be a prevalence of Google tools and self hosting. I think one of the reasons (and there are many) for the apparent low uptake of Glow is that the quality of end user experience has been reduced by a lack of adequate support at a local level. If LAs can't provide personnel to deal with transitioning accounts from primary to secondary schools what chance will there be of them keeping the Moodles and Wordpresses going. As for Google, all of my many email addresses feed into a GMail account. I love it. However it's my choice to use it this way. Is it correct for someone to decide to direct pupils towards such an overtly commercial service in an educational setting? I fear this attitude may create another YouTube blocking type scenario. Not to mention "safe harbour" - something the Scottish Government don't seem to be able to decide about. At least with the current Glow we know where our data is stored. But maybe that doesn't really matter.

The biggest problem that has to addressed in all of this is how to get the majority of teachers to care about this discussion. The contributors here are not exactly a representative cross section of the Scottish education community. I will attempt to engage my colleagues in the staff base tomorrow but I won't hold my breath.

The unique username is key everything else just needs to be associated with that username; whether it is an Authority blog/e-portfolio pushed out to all users of a certain age in a given Authority or a learning space being made available to senior pupils in schools x,y & z.
What I am trying to say is the tools are not the priority right now, what we need is the ability to quickly associate the best tools with a given individual/group dynamically.

I think there are a few things that are worth raising here first:

1. I don’t think Glow was designed to be modular – it’s modularity was simply RM’s ad hoc way of providing the set of tools requested without them having to build something new and fit for purpose from the outset. A lash-up basically.
2. The idea that a VLE (or MLE) is a separate subset of this suite of tools is also a misnomer perpetuated by RM to justify Glow Learn’s lack of functionality. It’s just post-rationalisation. A good VLE/MLE would have all of Glow’s functionality wrapped up in one consistent product, and many do exactly that.

To add an alternative perspective to this current discussion, my experience working in a London school and rolling out the MLE Fronter couldn’t have been different to my current experience with Glow. Some observations:

1. Fronter has been rolled out across London via the London Grid For Learning so is a similar size of implementation to Glow.
2. Fronter is one large product that does all of what Glow does but within the bounds of a single, integrated, consistent MLE. It is wrong to say this cannot be done just because Glow failed to do so.
3. Fronter consult with local authorities and roll out updates on a 6 monthly basis. Again, Glow’s lack of development is not a problem inherent in a large single product, merely a problem with this contract.
4. Last time I looked, Fronter’s level of adoption and use was significantly higher than Glow’s. Leading implementation in my old school, driving staff use was significantly easier than it has been to do the same in my current school with Glow. Why? Simply because it is a better product, but also I think because it is one product with a consistent user interface.

Anyway, my point is not necessarily to promote Fronter, merely to illustrate that we seem to have jumped to the conclusion that a single product can’t do the job for us just because we procured a turkey.

To finish, what I would say is that a high quality MLE is THE core, essential requirement here. In fact, the right MLE would probably do almost all of what we need in one place, without the need for the disparate suite of tools (just bells and whistles really IMHO) that have been bolted into Glow latterly to make up for RM’s failure to deliver.

And if the new Glow isn’t going to deliver the high quality MLE that we need, then don’t bother doing it at all – tell us now, give us some of the budget back and we can implement our own at local authority level. We just need to be able to be able to wrap it into Glow’s SSO, just in case the new Glow does provide something useful. ;-)

Locking yourself down to a current solution will not be a very future-proof way of doing things. Some kids are often motivated by the new technologies that are always round the next corner. That is not to say that we should not sometimes focus on what is currently good rather than chasing Nirvana all the time ;-)

Here is a video that my pupils helped make to view their opinions http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vceYAnrDH5k

Dave McKee is absolutely right. To achieve effective learning and teaching online pupils and teachers need, and want, structure and focus. A good VLE / MLE provides this and much more, including the ability to plan, track and monitor in a consistent way. Assessment, reporting and accountability are all part of everyday learning and teaching and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

When an excellent VLE, one device per user and ubiquitous access to the internet are in place, there will be real potential to be transformational.

And by the way, what justification is there for the assertion that the use of a set of disparate 'free' tools (or bells and whistles - no matter how useful and enriching) is likely to be more sustainable or "future proof" than a purpose built, properly developed and supported core solution?

I wonder a bit about VLEs, talking to English teachers, where I believe there is a requirement for schools to have a vle, they seem rather under used? This from a primary rather than secondary perspective. It might be worth getting more info from folk like David who have experience of various VLEs down south?
Here is a old (2009) secondary one:
http://www.mrstucke.com/2009/08/25/the-vle-debate-my-thoughts/
Interesting moodle vs Fronter thread here:
http://www.edugeek.net/forums/virtual-learning-platforms/8079-moodle-vs-fronter-need-opinions-2.html
generally favours Fronter, this from a technicians POV rather than Teaching & learning

RM would probably tell us the glow portal & glow learn were 'purpose built & properly developed'.

I think my fear is around earlier discussions I'd heard about whether there was a need for a VLE at all. You can do a lot with Google Docs, Wordpress etc - they're great tools, but they don't really meet the core needs of setting, collecting and assessing pupil work in the (reasonably) elegant way a good MLE/VLE might do. And that's before you start talking about MIS integration and info for parents.

I guess I'd like to know sooner rather than later whether there will or won't be a "proper" MLE provided as part of Glow2.

I don't like that Gmail entry in the Possible Replacement 1 column. Live@edu would be more congruent with the Microsoft Office platform we use in Dundee and we already have it in place.

Assuming that we get a VLE what are the possible options? Glow Learn had many issues but it did offer the functionality of creating assessment, recording it and exporting that data.

Moodle is the only replacement offered so far and I think it is worth seriously investigating. It is already being used in Fife, see comment by Nick Hood, and some schools in Aberdeen. Are there any other users out there?

I have seen Moodle looking clunky but it can also be wrapped in a good GUI. For example Webanywhere are an official Moodle partner:

http://bit.ly/ozzxVY

Moodle has nearly 45 million users worldwide and as far as I can see is the only open source option with the proven scalability required. Most VLEs state they have SCORM compliance but in reality it is very difficult to move data from 1 platform to another. Due to its widespread use, Moodle has the best potential longevity.

Finally, Mahara is interoperable out of the box with Moodle and this would be an obvious choice for e-portfolios.

Having experience of using Moodle, I would agree that it is the obvious replacement for Kaleidos but the learning curve for Moodle for tentative ICT users is far steeper than even Kaleidos. The number and complexity of configuration screens at the backend will put most teachers off. Also to customise Moodle past the plain vanilla look and feel ,even with the plethora of themes available, takes some serious technical knowledge as well as all the problems associated with sign on and making it talk to the MIS system so that it can be populated with accredited users. If this is to be a locally hosted solution, do schools have access to the expertise necessary?

As Moodle is now the VLE of choice for a growing number of Higher and Further Education establishments, it seems an obvious choice for schools if only for reasons of continuity.

Sakai is another possible open source replacement

I'm starting to see talk of "free" tools such as Moodle. For reference I am a real advocate of opensource. This is being posted for a laptop running Linux, so I do walk the walk. But we have to be careful. In this context the word free carries a lot of baggage. In opensource circles the distinction is made between free as in beer and free as in speech - two very diferent concepts.
Of course Moodle is free in that I can go and download it, install on a server and use it. It only continues to be free if I don't value the time I spend getting it to do what I want. In the case of a project like Glow I would suggest that the costs associated with hardware, data centers and salaries will be far in excess of any license fees paid to Microsoft or Adobe.
Now lets say the next version of Glow adopts a more devolved model. Potentially we have situation where individual LAs or schools become responsible for the hosting and maintenance of their own bit of the whole. That will result in fragmentation and a loss of standardisation. At least in theory (at the moment I'm living proof that it doesn't work in practise - glow account moved to new school, email still at previous) the current Glow model uses a standardised approach to ensure that users can be mobile within the system. I think it's clear that the current Government don't like duplication of effort so I think some sort of centralised model will remain.
(continued in next post)

I assume the Government will still have the data centre regardless of what happens in the next version of Glow so the potential is there for them to essentially become a national hosting organisation for education and schools/LAs do what they want on top of that. For me it comes down to what is the best use of a teacher's time - administering Moodle or using it to teach. Can the two activities be separated?
As for "free" services such as Google, Flickr etc. How free are they? We pay for them with our attention. We are the product that Google and Facebook sell to their advertisers. Do we really want our education system to be ad supported?

And this 2000 character limit is exactly the sort of arbitrary limitation that would have your average class teacher cursing this system in the classroom.

Despite the obvious appeal of Google Apps, I think we need to be aware that Google's primary role is to produce leads for advertising. Google Apps — even Google Apps for Education — are there to create more IDs that can be sold to advertisers.

Adobe's online solution — while not as all encompassing as Google Apps — does at least have the advantage of being a 'paid for' service and as such should offer more privacy and control....

I really wanted GLOW learn to be the saviour of the whole sorry mess. But the training course, although very good, was gobledegook for most when I tried to work with colleagues. The whole concept of the VLE I think was always a flawed, though laudable one, but it's resulted in the UK spending vast amounts of dosh on a herd of white Elephants. Back in 2007, Martin Weller wrote a blog post entitled..The VlE is dead ( but it will probably take us 5 years to realise it) well, to my mind, we've beaten that by one year, and now we know. he predicted a losely conected network of third party applications, which is just what the cabinet secretary is calling for, to my understanding, anyway. Heres the link to the blog post Iver been talking about...
http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2007/11/the-vlelms-is-d.html

@Jaye - the comment you posted at 2.02pm on 19th Sept seems to have disappeared from the Wiki, but I'd like to respond to it anyway. " Just why do we need an expensive and cumbersome VLE exactly?". Well, you're right, we don't need an expensive and cumbersome VLE - we need a well-designed, powerful, easy to use, cheap one! Have you had a look at Edmodo for example? http://help.edmodo.com/. I'd argue there are things that a product like this can do that you simply can't do with a bog standard blog or wiki.

Also, the blog article you posted http://sclater.com/blog/?p=42, although it references Martin Weller anti-VLE piece, the blog post actually SUPPORTS the need for a VLE! As I said before, Glow Learn is a shockingly poor product and the lack of integration and consistency between the disparate tools of Glow is a weakness, but not reasons to throw the VLE baby out with the bathwater.

Saying all that, we're probably getting into an unnecessary disagreement here. It doesn't have to be an either/or situation does it? I'd say we should have a good VLE, AND a suite of open tools as well, then teachers can pick and choose what suits them best.

A better link would be top Weller's own blog, which I've posted somewhere else on this wiki, but here it is anyway http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2007/11/the-vlelms-is-d.html

Its interesting that in 2007 he said we'd take five years or so to realize this. I think we just about are !

OK - This is my strategy in a couple of paragraphs post! and one I have held on Glow and all national education services for a number of years. Bear with me please! There are a couple of "things" that I feel are quite important and some challenges that Glow has faced that perhaps we could avoid next time round. We can see from above posts, we could talk all day about what tech is used and "brand" passions exist throughout the eco-system in Education - there lies one of the challenges, as soon as a choice isn't one that someone likes - they switch off and rebel against it, at best they don't encourage it's use? Evidence of this exists in how each LA has treated Glow differently. Secondly, a digital identity like Glow provides has so much more value than just in Education for a small country like Scotland. Martha Lane-Fox recently calculated that if every service that could be delivered online to citizens, was delivered online, the national debt would be gone in a few years.

Establish a secure standards driven identity within Glow that is handed out to parents the day "Wee Ross" (in my case) turns up in school. This is Wee Ross's Digital Passport. Then we push or federate services to that identity for everything we need and, we give the LAs choice as to what service they want to consume. If a provider e.g. Microsoft in my case, Google, Apple, Scottish Govt. or anyone else wants their services to be a choice for LAs - then they do the technical legwork to get their service in shape for "consumption" as a Glow Service within a browser or an app dependant on your consumption device. Then an authority can choose which e-mail, which video,which VLE, which applications etc. they would like to use based on whatever decision criteria they use and importantly, with the right standards in place, Govt. can also use this identity to begin and continue a digital service relationship with "Wee Ross" as he becomes "Big Ross" and an enthusiastic taxpayer like the rest of us.

Someone mentioned here that we hadn't heard the views of pupils so I thought I would let the pupils in my class say what they thought! The pupils went to the library computer one at a time and answered the question-'What do you think of Glow and Eportfolios?' We did not discuss what they would say and I had no idea what was on the podcast till I was handed the finished mp3 by a pupil. Listen to it here. http://bit.ly/orT92T

Now for something really contentious. Personally, I would go the whole hog and replace all software, including operating systems, on publicly owned computers with free open source alternatives, in these economically restricted times that would make prudent financial sense. Sign up to Google Apps for Education as the new Glow 2, add Moodle as the VLE and then invest the savings made in improving the infrastructure and, if possible, supplying notebooks (open source of course) to as many students as need them.

One of the advantages of having a Google, Twitter or Facebook account is that I can use these credentials to log in to loads of other services. I suppose it is a type of single sign on. Would this still work with a Google Apps for Education account? If so it could lower the bar for entry for lots of third party apps - if users can authenticate using their Google apps credentials then as long as we can sort out firewall and filtering policies it should open up a huge variety of tools for schools.

Douglas,

Google Apps will provide a unique ID and single sign-on using OpenID for any of the domains currently used for Glow. OAuth can be used to verify applications and there is an existing framework which would allow developers to create tools for Glow. Many existing tools can be supported with this signon - plug-ins already exist for Wordpress and Moodle. Also the platform is already mobile device ready and in the cloud (therefore reducing our existing dependence on desktop office applications and the inherent costs of software licenses, data back-up, server infrastructure and so on in schools).

Microsoft have a similar Live@Edu offering (which is being changed to Office 365 for Education). This service is cost free to learners but is charged per teacher/other user and therefore perhaps less attractive.

Also, there isn't an overarching set of APIs which easily allow developers to produce solutions for the platform. There's an API for the Exchange part of Office 365. Lync also has an API. You can also manage Sharepoint sites via the Client Object Model, web services or WebDAV APIs for uploading and downloading files but I don't think there is anything for manipulating documents. It may come (I noticed this link recently http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17069) but it all feels a bit disjointed to me currently.

We really need a single system across Scottish Education/Local Authorities rather than the existing variety of firewalls, filters, email solutions, VLEs etc. Yes, if LAs want additional paid services to meet local needs then sure, use your Glow ID to access these, but we should agree that the core sign-on, email, document, sites, VLE, groups, blogs and wiki tools should be provided nationally. And I'd add video services, either via YouTube, or via a hosted solution to the list too.

The key is to move the data and tools online and to invest in and open up the networking infrastructure to do this.

Good post Charlie. How though do we get round the argument that is often presented against Google in terms of data security? ie where the data is stored (not in the EU) and can we rely on it being held safely? Last I heard, Google was a non-starter because of where the data is geographically stored.

I agree with a lot of what Charlie says above, and have been doing for some time now! Whilst I am happy to see the debate open on how we can use existing tools to improve Glow and the ICT experience in schools generally, I must confess that I have serious reservations about privacy, data ownership and all the similar concerns that surround the use of services provided under license, be it from Microsoft or Google or whoever. I don't think I know enough details to have an informed opinion as yet, but let's just say I would be nervous about signing up all our pupils, students and staff to such a service. I would be delighted to hear more from people with more knowledge of these things like Peter and even more especially David, who has already been involved in rolling these services out.

Thanks Peter/Steven. All interesting and useful stuff. My understanding is that the concern here was coming form our Information Security people. What would be really useful I think would be for the Scottish Government to take a lead here and make some judgements on issues such as this (and indeed a variety of online tools that seem to be up for debate in terms of info security) and save us all the trouble of fighting 32 different individual battles.

David, Steven & Peter -

Thanks for responding, and so quickly and in good detail. The links provided will be very useful too. As for the best way to contribute, just by being here and answering questions you have started to do that - as a teacher, my chances to get questions straight to someone at Microsoft or Google who knows the answers (and will answer me!) are limited, to say the least. I'm sure I'm not the only one with concerns in this area, or with questions to ask. Perhaps we could try and get a wee question & answer/discussion session going after the summit if any of you were about?

Peter / Stephen - I echo the words from David and Iain. Thank you both for your contributions so far. OB

Unless financial commitment is made to regularly upgrade our hardware we won't be able to use Glow 1, 2, Google Apps or anything else!!!

Is the issue surrounding any 'free' service holding our data simply this - that if they do lose our 'stuff' we have no recompense or recourse? Whereas if we hold data ourselves or pay for it we can at least hold someone to account.

For example if my company's Facebook page is wiped by Facebook... well, that's that. But if the site I pay a web hosting fee for is wiped I can expect them to work to resolve the issue and compensate me.

Is this an issue we face in exchange for the cost savings and greater usability?

Hi All

All the technical comments above are most enlightening - but isn't the key issue going to be of management, using all these free resources will be great. Scottish Education will get the best value from these platforms - because they are free. But how are they going to be managed - one of the true benefits of Glow (real or otherwise) was that everything was in one place and it was managed centrally.

Surely in order for everyone in Scottish Education to get benefit from this delivery - it should be a single homogeneous delivery with everything in one place and everyone connected together. If schools (teachers) and local authorities are left to stitch together their own solutions - many never will - and we will create a technology divide across Scotland with those with access and those without.

Key to any technology delivery will be a single centralised management platform that removes the need for any local administration or technology infrastructure.

View / comments / flames welcome as always

Not sure why so many 'paid for' service providers are popping up on a thread devoted to the use of free tools?

I agree with Stephen. We need to focus on what is good about glow such as central management, sharing between schools etc. Not every teacher is enthusiastic enough about IT to spend hours getting to know a new software / environment and setting up another set of class workspaces and pupil logins every time a new platform comes into fashion. Steven Jobs got it exactly right ! "One of the things I've always found is that you've got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology"

The single sign-on concept is great. Moving from a Glow controlled space to one controlled by Twitter, Google or Facebook, would, in my opinion, be retrograde. Already, many VLEs can work seamlessly with Glow, allowing an enhancement to the current offering. Schools are not aware of what can be done Nationally to allow Glow to move onwards. Content is King and whether free, paid for, licenced or created within the community, all are relevant but need to be at the forefront of the whole experience.

SCHOLAR has worked with all the Authorities to implement a Shibboleth solution to a single sign-on with Glow (but retaining a parallel route for secondary schools, Colleges and the independent sector). For those who do not know about SCHOLAR, the programme, run from Heriot-Watt University, provides over 30 web based highly interactive Intermediate, Higher and Advanced Higher SQA courses to over 400 Scottish schools and colleges and has been running for over 11 years. Happy to provide a report commissioned in 2011 by the Gates Foundation in the US, the only one from outside the US, on the large scale implementation of SCHOLAR e-learning courseware....to advise on the US $2Bn 'Race for the Top' inititiative.