It comes as no surprise to me that, despite the Becta framework agreement fiasco, a report commissioned by the British Educational Suppliers Association reveals Moodle as the most popular VLE in their sample of secondary schools, and third most popular in the primary sector. Merlin John has more details (qv), and the report is, I believe, available to BESA members, or, for £250 a copy, to school teachers.

Amusingly, BESA's director comments

Besa's members are responding to the government's agenda with innovative and market-leading learning platforms

When, in fact, the market leading, and probably most innovative, learning platform is being produced by a community which would not be allowed to join BESA.

Although the report does identify one of the challenges for schools as

an understanding by teachers and pupils of the changes which are required of them and pupils’ responsibilities in their progress and achievement,

It's not clear whether such changes encompass the development of a culture of collaboration, social learning and creativity. There does seem some discrepancy between the primary and secondary sectors, with secondaries forging ahead: perhaps not too great a surprise given that the way "learning platforms" have been promoted by BECTA has focused on content delivery rather than a more social approach that would fit better with primary practice: indeed the report identifies key components as

1. "content management,
2. curriculum mapping and planning,
3. learner engagement and administration and
4. tools and services" (in that order).

The 'key attributes of personalisation' that the National Education Research Panel (who conducted the research for BESA) identify seem to have little to do with the choice and voice dimensions of learner autonomy that I would look for, but then these get little mention in the Gilbert Report either.