Schoology
For me, Schoology is one of the best Learning Management System that I have used so far. Of course, the best one still hold by Moodle. I started use Schoology Basic since July 2014 regularly everyday in my classes.
I was very excited when my school planned to develop Schoology from Basic version into Enterprise. But then, not long from that, with some reasons, they decided not to apply Enterprise version for the next academic year. I am not sure why they postponed, but seems like I must wait for the next great opportunity 🙁 . As a teacher in class, Schoology Basic is good enough. However, if we want to see the bigger picture as a school, Schoology Basic can not be controlled by school admin. When school enforce teachers and students to use this, it would be better if there is Admin who can control and check everything that has been done in Schoology.
I want to share my experience with Schoology Basic. Together, me and students, we build up a new environment about learning experience.
Things that I like from Schoology and the benefits for me and my students in learning are:
I can write mathematics equation very easy in Assignment, Tests / Quizzes, use equation or even LaTex, in “Insert Content”. When I use LaTex in my post, I open website equation editor like codecogs, then I can just do copy and paste into my LaTex post. Yes, I did Copy and Paste, but I also can learn how to write mathematical notation and mathematical expressions using LaTex. I also encourage my students to do this when submit assignment. It takes time to type mathematical expression, of course, but look at the good side, we save papers and apply “go green” in our daily activities.
When I installed Schoology apps in my Iphone, and turned on the notification, I can be easily contacted by my students anytime, anywhere. Once I sent the message or uploaded news, some of them send me back their responses. Same in opposite way, when they need to ask questions for homework or tasks, they send me an email, I receive it and even respons with answers to them in the same time. Our students live in social media era. I try to bring their school life too through Schoology as one of their medias.
Schoology is a friendly apps. I use my “Penultimate” as my white board in class, and the white board can be easily sent to Schoology as a picture in png format, or of course as a link from Evernote. I also arrange my flip classroom video in “Explain Everything” , and once exported to camera roll, I can upload the video in Media Album in my Schoology. And students can study individually based on their own pace at home.
I can have my own report card to all students and it does not need to be printed. It is updated anytime when we finish one assessment. They really can see their progress.
