[Offtopic] Ultranet

[victor rajewski]

On 5/23/07, Cameron Bell <bell.cameron.p at edumail.vic.gov.au> wrote:
> I didn't want to kick off the cynicism too early in the thread - you can
> pull a hammy if you get started too early without warming up.
> HOWEVER:
> If a statewide system is introduced:
> 1) It will make moving between schools very easy. No new system to learn.
> 2) Materials developed will be compatible across all schools. (Provided
> vendors don't impose their own file formats or systems on materials)

One would hope they use a standard for learning objects like SCORM. If
not, any possibility of me respecting this system will be lost.

> 3) Group expertise while be huge and common help facilities will be
> understood across all schools.
> 4) Auditing of materials against the current standards, (at the moment
> VELS, but who knows what they will be by the time the Ultranet is
> running) should be easy
>
> I don't want to kick a system before I know anything about it, but
> that's the problem, I don't. Does anyone know where the input is coming
> from? Whether they will mandate all schools use this thing?
> Where can you find out so that long term-planning can be taken into account?

It is a brilliant idea in theory, and something like this will
eventually happen. But from a perspective, anything the education
department has tried to do with IT has been a miserable failure. While
I wish that this isn't, I ain't holding my breath.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but someone told me there are something like
8 or 9 people working in the IT section of the department of ed (this
could be totally  mistaken). For this to be a success, it would
require a lot more resources than this.

vik