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Schoology
What Is Schoology?
Schoology seamlessly connects learning management with assessments so that school districts can improve student performance, foster collaboration throughout their community, and personalize learning for every student. Every day millions of students, parents, faculty and administrators from nearly 2,000 K-12 school districts leverage Schoology to advance what is possible in education.
Who Uses Schoology?
Millions of people from over 60,000 K-12 schools and universities around the world use Schoology to transform how they teach and learn.
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Reviews of Schoology
Facebook for Schools
Comments: Overall I had a great experience with Schoology.
Pros:
The newsfeed and the ability to integrate other tools into classes is hugely beneficial.
Cons:
Sometimes the grading didn't work quite right and could be difficult to set up correctly.
Alternatives Considered:
Schoology - Powerful, but User Friendly LMS
Comments: Schoology has been a game changer for us. As a district that previously used an open source alternative, we really took a risk by rolling out a new product that was not free. Teachers have really embraced the platform, which is allowing us to move toward a model where learning is individualized and focused on the needs of the learner.
Pros:
Schoology feels like a social media platform. It's easy to use and makes sense when you're using it. It has a tremendous ability to be extended with integrations with Google, Microsoft, etc. and connects well with other learning platforms that are important in K-12 settings.
Cons:
At the enterprise level, sometimes support the can be lackluster when dealing with things such as the synchronization between Schoology and PowerSchool. On the positive side, we anticipate with PowerSchool's purchase of Schoology that this might improve over time.
Schoology for Practice Quizzes
Comments: When the platform was free for my intended use, I was able to share the banks of questions with other teachers at my school.
Pros:
Could create quizzes that drew from a created bank of questions, which helped with quiz security and gave a more accurate of what the student knew and understood.
Cons:
When you switched from free to a priced platform.
The gradebook makes everything take longer than it should for teachers.
Comments: I have no choice; my school district makes me use it. Yes, it allows us to post and accept work online, but many more improvements to the gradebook should have been made in the six years that this has been used by the second-largest school district in the USA. It may be better than other LMSes in certain aspects, but the gradebook sucks, as detailed above.
Pros:
It's better than nothing. I have never used another complete LMS, but there HAS to be a better one when based on the gradebook, which is what teachers use the most. I also work with teachers who say they've used Canvas and it's much better. Previous to this, I used EasyGradePro and Illuminate, both of which had gradebooks that were far more customizable. I am literally writing this right now because, in my 5.5 years of being forced by my district to use this LMS, not ONCE am I aware of any teachers being asked for product feedback--and only a couple times have any noticeable improvements been made. I find this intensely frustrating, as I have a long list of improvements that should be made and nowhere to share them. I arrived here, not at the product's website, after Googling "Schoology+feedback" And so I will post them here in their entirety in hopes that Schoology designers might actually care one day.
Cons:
--NO SEATING CHART--should allow teachers to save pre-set comments in Resources to save time--teacher should be able to set a default to show comments to student instead of having to click the box every time they want the student to see the comment--comments should be dated--system should be able to mark empty cells missing automatically once due date has passed (regardless of grading status)--when student submits an assignment, missing mark should disappear--missing mark value should be customizable (not always zero)--”Mark empty cells missing” should be accompanied should be accompanied by the option of “except ones with submissions”--submissions should be time stamped--should have the ability to sort assignments in order of date of late submission--score for quiz needs to update automatically if student takes it late--should be able to sort students by who has most ungraded submissions--Bulk Edit should allow you to change the lock date--I should be able to type in a LAST name to send a message--Teacher should be able to merge rosters so that students on different rosters (i.e. SpEd) can respond to same discussion topic instead of having separate boards--Copy Rubrics should not make endless duplicates; should notify when they are duplicates --read receipts for messages--in Mastery tab, should be able to display assignments by alpha order, number order, etc.
Alternatives Considered:
Schoology - good functionality, but GUI is dated and needs additional admin functions
Comments: It has worked pretty well.
Pros:
Excellent sync with our self-hosted powerschool server, once all was setup. Uptime is excellent. Communication when there IS downtime is also excellent. Ability to implement additional features via plugins/other services [such as NoRedInk] is good.Teachers are using the product pretty well [ granted, it is a requirement on our campus, but they are going beyond the bare minimum.]Support is excellent.
Cons:
Schoology's GUI is dated - it hearkens back to the 90's and MSFT Access.The admin team SORELY misses the ability to "masquerade" as a teacher - we used to be able to login as a teach admin, masquerade as a teacher, and quickly fix implementation and setup errors that the teacher had made. Under Schoology we have to get their login credentials from the teacher - not exactly an easy process.Perhaps one day that feature will be available.
