A great post by Clark Quinn about Learning Management Systems. Food for thought for schools thinking of Moodle and others: When to LMS

This site seems really promising as a great resource for technology and education integration. Of interest to teaching staff might be the paid Twitter in 15 Minutes tutorials but the over-all free content and links look really impressive.

Greenpike Technology proprietor Scott Robertson has extensive experience in schools and has seen several expensive website and intranet “solutions” sold to schools. Often these so-called solutions turn out to be problems because they take months to develop and when finished are difficult to update and use.

We have developed a very straight forward solution that melds together a number of open source technologies into a system that is not only attractive but easy for staff, parents and students to use and update. Our focus is on creating online learning communities and not simply online postcards.

Demonstration

Actions speak louder than words and we encourage you to explore the website of our first school client, Iona Presentation Primary School. A copy of their previous website can still be seen here. The website itself was developed over one and a half weeks.

The $3200 All-Inclusive Solution

For only $3200 we can provide a fully hosted, personalised and easy to use school website solution. Your website will include:

- School History, Principal’s Welcome, Employment, Enrolment, and any other static information you wish to include. We also include the transferring of data from your previous website (up to 3 hours).
- A news system, events calendar, download system, forum, online contact form and photo gallery.
- A full user permission and registration system so you can decide who has access to what on the website.
- Creation of all staff user accounts.
- Your own .com domain (in addition to the .wa.edu.au domain you already own) for easy parent reference and one year of free hosting on our powerful and fast servers in Melbourne.
- A two hour onsite training session for your 2 – 4 staff who’ve been allocated as the main onsite website administrators.
- Free phone support for the first three weeks of site deployment (for the Principal and main onsite website administrators only).

Optional Extras
- Online Uniform Shop and School Fee Payment system: $650
- The Moodle Learning Management System: Ask
- Online Promotional Video: $300 (if all footage and/or photography provided)
- Site modification after initial deployment and approval: $90 p/h
- Phone support after the initial 2 weeks: $90 p/h (free if a technical problem on our end)
- Onsite training of staff: $200 for each 1.5 hour training session.

Technical Information
The reason we can keep our costs down is because we are using a combination of modified and customised open source web projects. These are just as robust as commercial applications and usually include the e107 CMS and various plugins but can include Joomla, WordPress or Moodle depending on the clients requirements. In terms of hosting, your site will be stored on a shared hosting server located in Melbourne and will include 50gb of bandwidth a month and 1gb of storage. This should be more than sufficient for most schools and can easily be increased if not.

We can offer schools a whole series of ITC professional development opportunities for their staff in areas and topics not normally offered to Western Australian teachers. Our experienced presenter, Scott Robertson, is a successful high school teacher who has a consistently used the internet and digital media technology within his classes. His sessions are always engaging and humorous; your staff will leave enthused, informed and armed with real world strategies to apply.

Note that all sessions are delivered at your school at any time convenient to your staff and they can be PC or Mac focused. We always tailor our presentations to your specific requirements via a preliminary and complimentary planning visit with your PD coordinator. As an extra bonus we can adapt presentations for your parent body or students – just ask!

With 1.5 hour sessions costing as little as $250, please email or call Scott Robertson on 0422 548 513 if you would like to discuss the options and arrange an appointment at your school.

Our Programs

- What Your Students Do Online & How To Harness It

This session can be delivered to a group or your entire staff and looks at what students at various stages of development really do online when at home or when unsupervised. It covers the good, the bad and the ugly; but don’t panic, it’s not all ugly! This is normally a 1 hour presentation followed by 30 minutes of questions as required.

- Social Networking, Facebook, Twitter & How Not To Get Into Trouble

This session can be delivered to a group or your entire staff and looks at what the social networking phenomenon is really all about. We explore the positive and negative implications for teachers and schools. We also examine policy on the matter from WACOT, school systems and the business sector. This is normally a 1 hour presentation followed by 30 minutes of questions as required.

- Cyberbullying

This session can be delivered to a group or your entire staff and looks at what the term “cyberbullying” means and how the term has been sensationalised by the media. We explore strategies for prevention and mediation for students and parents. We also examine school policy approaches. This is normally a 1 hour presentation followed by 30 minutes of questions as required.

- Podcasting & Digital Audio for Teachers (Beginners)

This session is practical and designed to be delivered to a pilot group of 3 – 8 teachers at a school. Teachers are introduced to the technology using Rode Podcaster microphones and the various software tools required to create and then publish digital audio / podcasts online. We cover everything from microphone technique to iTunes. We also examine already existing podcasts to develop our own school style and avoid reinventing great resources that already exist on the net. This is normally a 2 hour session that can be delivered at once or in two installments.

- Using a PA System for Teachers (Beginners)

This session is practical and designed to be delivered to a pilot group of 3 – 8 teachers at a school. Teachers are introduced to the technology using a Maskedbadger PA or your own school system. We look at setting up various types of microphones, amplifiers and speaker placement for your school requirements. This is normally a 1 hour session.

- Developing School ICT Policy for Administrators

This program is negotiated but is essentially a combination of all of the above programs created for the specific training requirements of your ICT Committee and/or leadership team. Scott will facilitate the auditing of your current ICT policies after all members have a good understanding of social networking, cyberbullying and other controversial digital issues. The ultimate aim is for your ICT committee to develop policy that is positive, informed, relevant, in accordance with your ethos and maximising the safe and educational use of all ICT resources in your school.