I am an ICT consultant in the UK, who has helped many schools pilot or develop the use of a Moodle VLE.
I dont know how aware of the issuses in the UK surrounding VLEs this site is so let me take a moment to explain.
The UK government has said that all students should have access to a learning plaform of some sort by 2008. This has led to a scramble by some very bug software developers to create VLEs, with a view to cashing in on the money being made available to schools.
I have for a couple of years now championed the use of moodle as a low cost, flexible and well supported VLE, with many plus points over the commercial products available in the UK. The recent BETT show was flooded with VLE providers.
Many of the schools and education authorities i am now advising are looking into the various VLEs, I BELIEVE MOODLE COULD BECOME A MAJOR PLAYER IN THE UK MARKET. To do this however Moodle must attempt to comply with the frameworks being put in place by BECTA,( the UK governments advisory agency for education amongst other things.). VLE providers try to get on the BECTA lists for VLE providers, this is a major plus point to get your VLE used by schools hwo often use only becta approved products and services. Is Moodle or a representative/ spokesperson for Moodle actively seeking information and positioning Moodle in the UK education Market. I am convinced Moodle is as good as if not better than most other VLEs ive seen and used, and wouldnt want Moodle to 'miss the boat' as it were.The schools i work with and are more than happy with Moodle, and word of mouth has meant i am helping more and more schools, however its the national picture i am more concerned with, and some of the noises coming from commercial VLE providers about limitations of Moodle in terms of support etc.
A further important point is whether moodle will work with the schools MIS systems, eg student data, to allow a simple transfer of data between the VLE(MOODLE) and the Schools data systems. This is a key issue for the future proofing of a VLE. Has anyone been working on this for Moodle? or know anything about plans to do so?
I really do not want commercial VLEs to get a hold in the UK.
Hope someone out there has some encouraging words.