Jan 14 2012
BETT 2012 – Thoughts on Fronter
Updates about Fronter for my benefit and for others…
1. Fronter won’t be disappearing soon…
Fronter just won contracts in Northern Ireland and Malta. Confident that they are around for the long term – helps that they are owned by Pearsons. If I’m investing so much time and effort then I want to know that it won’t be wasted. All the new modules are in new code so gradually the whole product id being updated. They are not doing a totally new startup.
New tools in my order of significance:
a. You-tube embedder – from Monday
Not new you say BUT it now does NOT include the comments – just the video itself. This has huge implications for use in our school and COULD mean that we unfilter youtube for teachers. Implication: Teachers could show pages with youtube at school; students maybe not – but would be able to use at home…
b. New email tool coming later this year.
Integrated contacts list and groups with drag and drop. Actually looks fit-for-purpose which current one is not.
c. Can upload internal link doc directly – from Monday
Previously you could only upload a file and THEN link to it… which meant gkhmc (according to Antony “God only knows how many clicks”).
d. New Page tools update this week: hide navigation bar / expand whole page / edit option has changed to a pencil
e. From this week will be able to edit Fronter using iPhones and Ipads (JavaScript has been changed). A new mobile app is in development.
f. From September onwards: multiple tabs / wiki tool from http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki (probably a cost associated with it – but I don’t see why as it is free open source??)