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Goodbye MYLO

Minor rant alert.

What an awful shame! I see from the MYLO site that RM will no longer be hosting the site and that is is closing down at the end of July. I presume some government money has run out. Does anyone know?

I have heard that it cost £5 million to set up MYLO, which seems an awful lot of money, but at least that investment produced a quality product which has been widely used and is still fresh and very useful.

It is unusual to find a free to use languages site which combines listening, reading and writing so effectively. I have previously written about it with enthusiasm  here and here.

Is there nobody who can pick up the hosting and maintenance fees for the site? The site is all written, has a good shelf life, works effectively and benefits lots of learners. To throw it away now seems such a terrible waste.

It's not the only useful resource to have got the chop in the last five years. I would also mention the Teacher Resource Exchange, CILT and Teachers' TV. Keeping these resources demands relatively trifling sums of money in the great scheme of things.

I know how I will be voting tomorrow.

Comments

  1. Unknown7 May 2015 at 12:32

    I am responding on behalf of RM Education to your Blog post, to give some context around the closure of the Mylo site.

    The funding for the Mylo site ended 5 years ago when the Government strategy changed. RM Education agreed with the government to continue hosting the website for free and has done so for the last 5 years without funding. The equipment that is hosting the Mylo site is now very old and as you can imagine there is a cost to replacement of the equipment and the running of the site. The decision to close the site was not taken lightly as you have said in your Blog the resources have stood the test of time.

    What we can do is delay the closure until the end of the term to the 31st of July to allow teachers to use the resources until the end of the school year.

    I hope that explains the history behind the site and why we have decided to close it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Steve Smith7 May 2015 at 12:57

    Thank you for that explanation. I would imagine that the costs of running the site are relatively low per year (low thousands?) and all that is required is either an injection of money from the DfE or another organisation to take it over. I'm sure you agree it's such a shame that an already existing, high quality resource should be allowed to disappear. Have you approached the DfE again?

    ReplyDelete

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