In a grand shift of priorities at work we are now progressing, very quickly, with a Moodle Virtual Learning Environment.

When I first looked into platforms Moodle was quickly put to one side because it wasn't ticking many of the boxes being asked for. I'm now kicking myself because I didn't give it more of a go, I should have fought harder against requirements I knew were fanciful and unnecessary. Now I've waded through all the gumph and finally worked out what everybody's really after building the environment has suddenly become soooo much easier.

Moodle was dusted off again a week before half term and in the three weeks since I now have a working learning platform complete with students and teachers imported (although not fully yet - slight glitch I'm fixing today), classes created from the MIS and students and teachers assigned to them. I have begun themeing the site... which although easy in principle is made all the more difficult by the three people with stakes in the system having very different ideas on what they want it to look like. I have single sign-on set up and ldap integration sorted out. I have a reasonable idea of how I'm going to set parents up and I have begun formulating ideas for making the system appeal to the parties I want to use it (it's not so easy to get people away from what they know... and for good reasons too).

So all in all I'm feeling pretty chuffed with myself. Lets hope they don't move the goal-posts again!