This week I had a breakthrough with a proposed Student Information System that I'm working on (that I've been asked to work on). We'll be adopting Moodle for our teacher pages this year. As I experiment with it to see how it will work for the teachers, I found much more uses for Moodle than just the teacher pages.
We could actually use it for a student information system (SIS). And it's open source - FREE!!
Moodle already has an attendance module but our district's Moodle doesn't have it so I provided a workaround. Using the database module, I was able to build a decent searchable attendance database. Our office could just pull up one page to get all the attendance information and can even edit it if an absent student turned up later.
With the success of the searchable attendance database, I considered how I might build a student database. Since Moodle is secure, this would be an ideal setup that could be accessed from anywhere there is an Internet connection. I was able to build a database that looked pretty good to me.
Here's my dilemma.
I'm totally psyched about Moodle and its capabilities. When I try to convey this excitement to some of my co-workers, they say they don't understand why I would put in the time and effort when there are commercial products available out there. I don't understand why they don't appreciate my efforts to save money for my schools. I am the Technology Coordinator, after all.
How do I react when I am proactive about improving technology for our school without spending a lot of money...but I get "shot down" with my efforts? And to top it off, these comments are from the very people who asked me to find an SIS for the schools!
Am I taking this too personal?
The beauty of Moodle is that it is open source. Propose a spec, invite comments, then get users who need this to help with the development.
ReplyDeleteI would collaborate on this.
Mark