Bermuda Frog

Article in the Royal Gazette in Bermuda, thought you might be interested in having a read:

Virtual Learning has passed the first test at Warwick Academy.

The school’s virtual learning system, Frog, went “live” on Friday, and is in use by all teachers.

Now Warwick Academy wants to spread the idea, and has invited other schools to a February 10 presentation.

Frog is a UK-based system, which Warwick deputy principal David Horan called “the number one virtual learning environment in the UK”

The school selected it about a year ago, and implemented Frog last September.

To read the whole article, click http://www.royalgazette.com/article/20110131/NEWS05/701319977/-1/news

Frog Developer Platform

Things have moved on since my last post on the Frog Developer Platform (FDP) – The FDP is the part of Frog that allows you to extend the product yourself, any way you like.

So, what can I do with the FDP?

– you can program in Frog
– create databases
– code your own widgets
– access the Frog database from your own software solutions (web servers, reporting systems, whatever)
– and fully integrate your own web applications inside Frog

We now have a dedicated site, http://fdp.frogcommunity.com where you can find an API reference, tutorials, and a community where you can ask and answer questions, in effect a direct line into our development team.

This site hasn’t yet been publicly announced, but it already has more than 100 active users.  Even better, you guys are starting to help each other with your questions and work together on things (which is great because I was concerned that this might cause a significant drag on our own development team, so thank you very much)

We are also running FDP courses for those that are interested (contact kate.heal@frogtrade.com)

As well as schools we now have a growing bank of industry partners that have been using the FDP (and again, some of them helping out our customers with technical question, thank you !!)  The four partners with the most comprehensive integration so far are, Vivo, Oliver, Trust-e, and Google.

Frog schools have already built widgets for Single Sign On into Microsoft Outlook Web Access (well done !), CMIS E-Portal, and I’m told one school has almost got their Moodle system integrated.

It’s early days, but things are looking very exciting.  It was my hope that this would develop a momentum of it’s own and that schools wouldn’t be afraid to get stuck in and start doing some exciting things.  It’s through this that we can all benefit from significantly accelerated developments.  And it looks like it’s already starting to happen.

Well done folks !!

Frog Bett 2011 Stand Photos

A couple more photos of the stand before it got messed up…

Frog finalists at Bett Awards 2011

Well folks, I guess I had to tell you at some point.

Frog were nominated for not one, but two awards this year, “Leadership & Management Solutions” and “ICT Service & Support”.  Here’s Rebecca (affectionate known to most of us as “Red”) showing off our little plaque for the show:

And here’s a picture of some other tables at the awards ceremony (not sure why we don’t have any pictures of our own table…..)

Sadly, we didn’t win either award……again…….but, as ever, we spent a huge amount of money on the dinner and felt leaving deflated, disillusioned, and mostly drunk…….

So, same thing next year then, I guess……

More Frog at Bett 2011

Found some more pictures I thought I’d share.

The boys packing the lorry.  Well, one of the boys packing the lorry, the other posing for a catalogue photograph….

A couple of shots of the stand before it got raided by 6,000+ people:

Some better pictures of the pink hoodie brigade, and Bouwe showing the pulling power of the pink hoodie:

Sssshhhhh…..You wanna Pink Frog Hoodie ?

We’re not putting any of the Breakthrough Breast Cancer charity hoodies on our web site for sale, but for those that follow my twitter or blog, try contacting secrethoodies@frogtrade.com and they might send you one if you ask them nicely

Pink Hoodies (modelled here by Kate at Bett) are £25 and every penny of profit goes to Breakthrough Breast Cancer – they all come with an individually numbered certificate and we’ve only run 500

And the Blue hoodies (modelled here by Karl), are £20 each:

Other than this they won’t be available until our June conference (assuming there are any left, we only had 500 made and a good lump of those went at Bett)

Good luck !!

Frog at Bett 2011

Thought I’d post a few piccies from our visit to Bett this year.

I think it’s fairly safe to say that Frog was the busiest stand at the Bett show this year.  People collected more than 6,000 bags from us, they’d have taken more but we ran out !!

We had 14 pods running, and there was a demo running on every single one pretty much every minute of every day (except Saturday, which was typically quiet).  And on top of this we were having to buddy people up so we could demo to more than group at a time.

Frog Scotland made an appearance in traditional dress:

As did Frog Netherlands (the one in the Pink hoodie that’s very comfortable with his sexuality):

I met Sir Bob Geldof (sorry about the sticker on the back Bob, someone must have got carried away):

I even did a few demos myself – one of me here showing off the new mobile app and the new menu dock and desktop interface (background picture is of my kids playing guitars):

It was exhausting, day and night, but everyone’s face was as smiley as ever, well done everyone for your unshakeable energy and passion – thank you:

Although on occasion it clearly got too much for some people.  Spending all day talking to one person after another, after another, after another, eventually it all becomes a bit of a blur and you don’t always notice who you’re speaking to:

And some of the boys couldn’t help but “Frog” anything and everything in their wake (apologies if you were “Frogged” and took offence):

And even on the bus ride home you couldn’t get away from Frog – Frog bags were everywhere !

Pink Frog Hoodies

UPDATE: If you want a pink Frog Hoodie, click here

We will be taking 500 pink hoodies down to Bett this year, all with an individually numbered certificate of authenticity.  They cost £25 each and all £8 of profit (they cost us £17 each) will go to Breakthrough Breast Cancer.  We will be selling them straight from stand M50, cash only.  There will also be the much sought after blue hoodies available at £20, with £2 of profit going to Breakthrough Breast Cancer as well.

The pink ones have a little diamante Frog on the front, and a big diamante Frog on the back, and the girlies love them – we’re taking orders already, in fact people in the office are wanting to buy more than one each !!

Pink Frog Hoodie modelled by my good self (and yes, I know it doesn’t suit me):

And here it is shown by some much better looking models, Claire and Kate:

Actually, on reflection, I think it suits me better…..

Frog lands in the Netherlands

Frog has arrived in the Netherlands, serving Holland and the Benelux countries.  A big welcome to Bouwe Koopal, our partner in the land of the tulips.

Here’s a piccy of the brochure, for those of you that can read Dutch: