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Are Learning Management Systems (LMS) dead?
No, it might even be argued that a unified learning platform is more necessary now than it has ever been. The fantastic range of tools and platforms available to schools has changed the shape of teaching and learning and schools now understand how online technology can improve standards and attainment.
It is when disparate systems are used to deliver a school’s online strategy, things can get messy. Senior Leaders lose visibility of what is happening across the school; parents have no holistic view of their child’s progress; and students find themselves having to navigate different platforms for different purposes.
The Frog “one stop shop” approach gives visibility of teaching and learning across the school, with teachers, students, parents and school leaders all visiting one place for everything they need.
O365, Teams and Google are free for schools
The global pandemic put remote teaching in the spotlight and schools had to move quickly to implement methods of teaching delivery. O365, Google and video conferencing such as Zoom, Teams and Hangouts – allowed teaching and learning to continue beyond the classroom walls.
These platforms offer quick, powerful ways to share documents and run “live classroom” sessions. Some schools even use them to set and take in work.
However, we all know that there is much more to teaching and learning than “chalk and talk” delivery and transactional workflows between the student and their teacher. Frog integrates with Google and O365 in order that the strengths of these platforms can be fully incorporated into your digital strategy. But Frog adds so much more. Online feedback between a teacher and student allows for personalised learning to happen remotely; progress tracking helps teachers, students and parents work together to get on every child track; self-marking quizzes with 250,000+ curriculum-mapped questions give teachers what they need to do class and student-level gap analyses; parent engagement tools let parents see what work has been set, their child’s progress and the qualitative aspects of their child’s learning journey; collaborative learning is supported, so that students can learn from and with each other, in the classroom and beyond. And so much more.
O365, Teams and Google offer so much but don’t constitute a school’s digital strategy, any more than a blackboard makes a classroom.
What is the best technology for teachers?
Teaching and learning platforms have exploded in number and popularity over recent years. With teachers becoming more tech-savvy and the availability of free, or low-cost applications on the rise a move toward teacher-led classroom tech was inevitable.
It is fantastic that teachers have embraced online technology so enthusiastically. Without a doubt, they are using it to improve outcomes. The learning experience is richer for students, while teachers can save time and be more efficient in helping all students to reach their potential. Unfortunately, there are drawbacks when a school takes this approach for its digital teaching and learning strategy. Security and safeguarding become a big issue, when so many unregulated platforms are being used. Who knows what student data is being shared; and with who? Students also need to log into different platforms for different purposes so their experience becomes increasingly confusing and there is no transparency into online teaching and learning across the school. The SLT is unable to oversee quality, standards and security. It’s not a good a picture.
Frog takes the tools teachers want to use in the classroom and brings them together in one place. Frog is easy and intuitive to use – so won’t be a huge burden on teachers to learn how to use the platform – and by delivering their online teaching through Frog, it keeps everything transparent, standards high and everybody safe.
Our MIS does all we need.
In our experience, a content rich learning platform and a data rich MIS are two sides of the same coin. Both are necessary to deliver a fully coherent teaching and learning strategy. An MIS is great for storing data on every child and for understanding the performance of classes and teachers. With so much sensitive data being handled, your MIS provider will have their hands full in keeping their platform user friendly and safe. While many MIS providers offer supplementary services – document sharing and parent engagement – these are value-added services, with limited application.
Frog complements your MIS. Feature rich, it supports the day-to-day classroom activity that happens across your school. Setting work, taking work in, personalised learning conversations, whole school communication, collaboration in and beyond the classroom, informative progress tracking, innovative pedagogical approaches and meaningful tools to save teacher time are all part of the package. Beyond this, Frog’s flexible platform gives you the means to engage parents and the wider school community, via web-based portals and interactive tools.
Your MIS and Frog work together to give you a holistic digital strategy that combines teaching and learning data with teaching and learning content. Whether you are using iSAMS, WCBS, Schoolbase, SIMS or any other MIS, our integration tools will help create a seamless user journey.
Learning platforms are expensive
Frog is not expensive. It is a small investment that will pay dividends. Fully branded to your school, Frog will make a statement about the importance you place on technology, on staff, on students, on parents and on standards. Under one licence, Frog provides a wide range of teaching and learning tools, a selection of innovative apps and your own web space to create as many online portals as you wish. A small investment will open up a world of benefits that will impact on teaching, learning, extra-curricular life, school administration, parental engagement, staff retention, community involvement and so much more.
Staff training is expensive and time consuming
The change management issues around implementing a whole-school platform are one of the main reasons schools often decide to stick with what they have got. While generally recognising that huge benefits would come with a whole-school platform, the thought of getting teachers trained, onboarded and using it properly can be a real barrier to moving forward. With new schools this isn’t such a problem. With established schools, it can be a hard pill to swallow.
At Frog we have twenty years of working with innovative Senior Leadership Teams to support change management and make their investment in Frog a success. Our experienced Implementation and Training team work with you to structure a tailored implementation plan.
We genuinely can make this easy for schools! Most importantly, Frog is easy and intuitive to use. Staff will pick it up quickly and once they know how to use it, they will be able to use its full power and entire suite of tools, in the classroom and beyond. And training is easy. We know that International Schools often have a high turnover of staff, and our Digital First platform will give a structured training environment for all new staff, that you can use as part of their induction.
