VLE | The School Portal

The School Portal, VLE (Virtual Learning Environment);

The portal is something that students at the Armthorpe academy use daily. The look of it seems unprofessional; very amateur. Bad colours, layout, images it all adds up to a horrific layout and make it hard to navigate around, and if you look at the age range that the vle is aimed at(11-16) you think that many of these people are going to struggle to navigate around it. The Armthorpe VLE has some good features however you have to dig deep into the website to find them and many students dont have the time of day to look deep into our vle, this means that many useful statistics, news, etc is wasted.

The school portal could become useful if it was nicely laid and out suitable to the target audience. This would mean maybe adding a navigation bar, less text, pictures etc and make the important 'stuff' stand out, this way it takes little time to look at it and makes the essential information actual visible and finally would be read by someone. Also the vle needs to be constantly updated, sometimes it is updated fast other times information is added to late so you never know if you can trust it. These set backs to the vle make student avoid it however it does have potential to be a very good service within the school.

 

 

Direct Gov

Directgov:

• Look at education and learning
• Job Searches
• Driving theories and tests
• There is a page for parents for schools and pre-schools
• Crime and justice page
• Page for young people e.g. money problems or work and careers
• Motoring e.g. tax
• Health

Information services:

Crime and Justice:

The police force e.g. vacancies different types of police and what they do.

http://goo.gl/YU0xi

Motoring:

Driver safety e.g. the highway code or an enhanced rider scheme for bikers.

http://goo.gl/rRM6A

Job searching:

There is useful information when it comes to looking for a job e.g. what your CV should look like or voluntary work advice.

http://goo.gl/oxqNI

Pensions and Retirement:

There is advice for older people e.g. planning for retirement or state pension.

http://goo.gl/W7t6e

Online reporting and advice:

Flooding advice:

There is advice for what to do if your house floods and information on areas that may be affected by the flood (flood warnings).

http://goo.gl/Q431Y

Disabled People:

There is plenty of advice for what disabled people can do for things such as job advice or travel holidays and breaks.

http://goo.gl/2dxsm

Health and wellbeing:

There is a whole NHS page for things like healthy living.

http://goo.gl/35G6R

Britons living abroad:

There is plenty of information regarding going abroad e.g. money or your safety from things such as conflict.

http://goo.gl/Q0CfB

Online Payments:

Driving licence:
Through the government website you can apply for a driving license of a provisional license.
http://goo.gl/vuKzi

Passports:
You can also apply for a passport through the website.
http://goo.gl/AqsoI

 

Overall, I think that this website is a very useful website as it has a lot of information on a lot of different topics. But this itself is a disadvantage because if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you can get sidetracked or not know what leads to what you need. Because this website has a lot of information, odds are you are going to find what you need, you just need to know where to look.

Downloadable Services

There are many downloadable services available to us. But why should we use them? One of the main reasons we should use the downloadable function is that it is much quicker than buying the physical product. It will save a lot of time and maybe some money too. You are able to do it from the comforts of your own home which is a big bonus as it saves a trip out especially if you have a busy schedule. Also some things are only exclusively available online, this will sometimes entice people to use these online services if they are interested in the service offered.

One big problem that may occur through downloading products is viruses. Viruses could be attached to the product and if so your computer will download the virus aswell creating a world of problems. However many professional services now ensure all of them to be virus free however it is still a possiblilty. There is also the possibilty of getting scammed through downloadable services, some of these you pay for and you may pay but not recieve the service or even worse they may steel your personal details. This will put a majority of people off and make them wary of what sites they use. So a new business coming into the downloadable service market may be avoided due to it been not trusted source.

It generally fulfils its purposes. Many downloadable services are very fast and efficient, they save a lot of time for people on a busy work schedule and thats a lot of people these days with busy schedules, so this does attract a lot of people. however there still are risks involved. Such as giving away your personal details to an untrustworthy source or even just not recieving the service youved paid for. There are also viruses kicking about in some of these services that will caused you time and problems that should happen.