The de Ferrers Academy – Frog Blog

Since the last blog post we have been busy working on some new sections of the VLE.

Recently we have been experimenting with the use of surveys within Frog to collate feedback from our VLE users. Using the built-in form components we have been able to create surveys that use a variety of radio buttons, tick boxes and text areas. After a successful trial with de Ferrers staff, the PE curriculum area have now launched a student survey which is open to years 7-11. The survey allows students to share their opinions of Physical Education at the college.

If you are a student in Years 7-11, you will find a button on your Frog Dashboard after you login which will take you directly to the survey.

I am sure you will see some more surveys appearing on Frog soon, we are also working on some new widgets, so watch this space!

You can now view this week’s poll on the Frog Box. To coincide with tomorrow’s Safer Internet Day, the Frog Box topic for this week is “How safe do you feel online?”. To cast your vote you will need to log on to the VLE and head to the Student Voice section where you can find the Frog Box.

Find out more about Safer Internet Day and the 2010 topic “Think B4 U post!” by visiting the website at http://www.saferinternet.org/web/guest/safer-internet-day.

The Sign Language Club & Choir website has now been launched on the VLE. You can access the website it through the “Subjects” area of the main menu. The website contains lots of information the club and the events that they put on, along with resources, a gallery and forums.

There is also a “Day of Silence” page which has been set up for the event which is taking place next week. Here you can find information about the Day of Silence and there is also a Sign Language Video Dictionary specifically designed for the Day of Silence.

You can now access all of our latest Frog blog content directly on your smartphone, without having to load the full website. This should the decrease the load time of the website if you are accessing it over mobile internet.

The “new look” mobile website is known to be available on the iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, Pre and Blackberry Storm, but it may also work on other devices. As we are currently testing this, we would appreciate any comments about the version of the website you are seeing if you are accessing it from a mobile device. If you prefer the normal version of the website, there is the option to switch back to it.

The image to the left shows how the Frog Blog should display on the iPhone and iPod Touch – just go to our normal url: http://www.deferrerstv.com/frogblog/

We have recently posted about a couple of new VLE sections, but there is more..!

Design & Technology now have their curriculum area website up and running. The website has resources, a gallery and forums. You can access this website through the “Subjects” area on the main menu.

In a recent post we mentioned the new IAG Portal. If you enter the IAG Portal and go to the Careers/Connexions section, there is a survey about the Careers Exhibition which took place last week on the 6th January. Please take a minute or two to complete the survey and give us feedback about this event.

Finally, the latest Frog Box vote is active within the Student Voice area. The topic this week is about the recent weather in the UK… head on over and get voting!

More updates soon…