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.

Pros

Ease of use. Student portal works cleanly. Ease to move from one class to another. Lots of choices for adding different types of questions to assessments. Easy to organize.

Cons

It would be nice to have more options for displaying content. We have found some work-arounds in adding a few variations to the straightforward listing style, but it isn’t easy. It would be nice to be able to add some flair.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Schoology

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Schoology

Pros

I like the way quizzes and test can be created.

Cons

It is difficult to create new quizzes and assign them to multiple classes

Pros

It had a free version that offered alot of features

Cons

It was very american based and didnt cater well to the NZ system of education (levels etc)

Pros

Schoology has made my teaching life so much easier. I have used many different grade book apps/websites for over 15 years. Schoology is by far the best I've ever used. It's very easy to learn the ins and outs. I like that I can easily contact my students/parents if a problem arises. I have found it beneficial that students can view their current grades and see if they have any missing assignments. One of Schoology's best features is that you can import assignments through Blackbook. It will then grade students' responses automatically. It gives you the ability to create your assignments, edit previous assignments, and has a section where you can save every assignment over the years. Its made my life much easier since our county integrated Schoology.

Cons

I can't think of any cons except if you click through different pages too quickly it will give you an error. But this does not affect the overall quality of Schoology.

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.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Schoology

Reasons for Switching to Schoology

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.

Pros

It's a streamlined system that's not clunky.

Cons

It needs some more features. I thought the way tests were administered could be improved.

Pros

Schoology makes it easy to create different types of quizzes and tests, and makes grading even easier.

Cons

The automatic grading would mark answers wrong if there was any spacing or punctuation differences, requiring me to edit the incorrect answers.

Pros

I liked how easy it was to set up multiple classes. It was a great platform for students, they could easily figure out how to find and submit assignments.

Cons

I found it hard to communicate with students in that they didn't seem to get alerts. Also, there wasn't much in the way of customizing your site.

Pros

Once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy to create quizzes using Google Forms and upload them into Schoology as an assignment. You can also directly create an assignment in Schoology itself which is pretty easy to do. I frequently create math tests on here, because it is so easy and has different options like multiple choice, sequencing, etc.

Cons

I had to take an initial training course to understand this software better. There are a few confusing buttons when creating an assignment - but after a few tries, you get used to it. (I would recommend watching some YouTube videos about how to use Schoology if you're interested in buying this software for your school. They have some very helpful ones on there.)

Pros

What I liked most about Schoology is the grade book. The reason why I like the grade book is because its very easy to se if my child is doing well and if they are struggling I'm able to help them with their work.

Cons

What I didn't like about Schoology was the extra courses that weren't needed and I'm having trouble removing them.

Pros

Comprehensive SIS system which functions and integrates perfectly with the rest of the Schoology eco-system.

Cons

Adding additional components can become pricey

Alternatives Considered

Pros

Easy to use platform for virtual learning platforms.

Cons

No disadvantages noticed at this time while using schoology.

Pros

It was nice to have class assignments available right at home and to be able to see how many times the assignment had been tried.

Cons

Teachers never notice if they have emails from the students, it's a little hard to navigate.

Pros

Our district uses Schoology as a district-wide Learning Management System (LMS). We switched to Schoology last year and I use Schoology for almost all of my course work. I teach using the flipped classroom model and Schoology's platform allows me to share my lecture videos, conduct assessments of student knowledge and understanding, give assignments, and to provide communication with students and parents. All of my content is available to my students through Schoology 24/7, I can make it available in a variety of ways, and I can make updates in real-time.

Schoology's introduction of the Google Assignment App has me excited about our switch to Chromebooks. This app allows you to attach a Google Doc (say a study guide) as part of an assignment. When students open the assignment the document is copied, renamed, and added to their Google Drive. No more students opening or copying a new version of the document each time they go back to the assignment instead of to the copy they made but didn't actually rename as the directions stated. The document is 'tied' to the assignment and updates no matter where they work on it from (inside the assignment or through their Google Drive.) I also use the platform’s completion rules to give students autonomy while also keeping them on track.

Another great option is the ability to add images to pages, updates, announcements, and folders to give visual information, help guide students, and give them access options. I also am able to hyperlink

Cons

While they've done a great job updating the product, however, I wish the pace of that was faster. For example, they introduced a new "Assessments" feature that was to eventually replace the "Test/Quiz" feature once it had all of the same options. While the question types in Assessments are nicer, it is two years later and it is still missing features of Test/Quiz including the ability to comment on individual student questions, auto-correction and rescoring if you made a mistake in setting up the correct answer in a question, and importantly, they still have not added a question test bank option for Assessments. Without the option to randomly pull questions from question banks I still use Test/Quiz for later end of unit assessments and semester exams.

Pros

What I like most about Schoology is its ability to allow the instructor to compile all necessary course information into one easy-to-use online portal. Via this portal, I am able to create and post assignments, mark down due dates, grade the aforementioned assignments, among a plethora of other essential tasks, such as attendance tracking, progress report generation, and managing regrade requests. I am also able to communicate with students directly through the portal, which is great just in case the students want to keep their personal email addresses private. Lastly, customer service is very friendly, convenient, and helpful any time I need them, (which is infrequent, as the platform lives up to its expectations on a regular basis without any mishaps, which is fantastic, especially for efficiency's sake).

Cons

There is honestly very little that I dislike about Schoology, as it really does help me manage my classroom in an efficient manner, eliminating all of the hassle I was occasionally confronted with prior to my implementation of the platform, (the same applies to the students' perspectives on the matter, according to a mini-survey I provided them with). With all that being said, however, if I were to choose one aspect which could be further improved upon, it would be the performance of the app on both Apple and Android devices. I occasionally receive complaints from students pertaining to random crashes of the app, assignments not being able to be submitted, and various other technical issues. I must add that these issues are rare, but it would be nice if they could be eliminated in their entirety. Other than that, there is really not much else I can report as being a negative.

Pros

There is an instant comfort to using Schoology for students and teachers. Most things are very easy to find and within a couple uses, teachers begin to develop confidence with the program. As a teacher, I was easily able to teach myself (with some online guidance) how to accomplish what I needed. The range of options available for free is outstanding and the paid version just adds the icing to the cake!

Cons

There are times where it seems like I have to click a lot of buttons to execute something. There are some quirks (as there are with many programs) that don't seem 100% logical to me. With that said, Schoology is always willing to listen, things may not be fixed immediately but it is nice to know they are aware.

Pros

The ability to have real time data on your child's progress at school is amazing if there are any problems that need to be addressed or fixed you will know without delay.

Cons

There's not much to change about this software it works great for my families needs but an option for SMS messages would be great.

Pros

-Ease of use
-Groups provide online PLNs
-Supportive client services
-Excellent BlendEd Platform
-Can align with CC or state standards
-Allows for competency-based grading (Mastery via Enterprise)
-Parent log in options (one log in for all of their kids)
-App works well on Mac and Android devices

Cons

-Can't create reoccurring events or assignments (yet)
-PowerSchool Pro and Schoology integration in beta only (Enterprise)

Pros

I found the folders setup to be very helpful so all content, assignments, and resources could be placed in the same folder. Sub-folders could also be added. Mimicking a computer storage system was helpful to many students. Next, the album feature was also very beneficial to display student work in a virtual environment. Also, badges can be given to students for positive reinforcement motivation. Finally, it was helpful to integrate tools such as Microsoft or Google products.

Cons

Due to having many folders, there is a lot of clicking for students to get to an assignment. Late assignments are marked missing and the teacher must manually make the correction. It would be helpful to see a list of missing work.

Pros

What I like most about Schoology is the ability to integrate multiple external tools within a Schoology course--you can embed videos, apps, and other tools directly within Schoology, which allows students a single point of access for all of the learning tools they'll need for a given lesson. For example, you can easily embed a FlipGrid, Padlet, or EdPuzzle directly into Schoology--this has been a great benefit to teachers and students.

Cons

There are a few small issues that we have a Schoology users--the most notable is the inability to force-submit quizzes and tests on behalf of students who forget to submit their assessments. This makes it impossible for the teacher to grade a students work without having the student go in an press the submit button. Additionally, the inability of teachers to rotate pages in document submissions (i.e. the student uploads a document horizontally, but it needs to be read vertically) adds additional difficulties for teachers as they grade. Finally, the fact that when a student uploads multiple pages to an assignment, Schoology displays them in size order instead of in the order they are uploaded increases difficulty for teachers when it comes to grading because often an assignment is not in the correct order.

Pros

- Syncs straight to your Google Drive.
- Nearpod and EdPuzzle syncs right into Schoology courses.
- Syncs with District Gradebook for easy grading.
- Individualized folders and assignments is great for personalizing learning.
- Student completion tool to keep student's accountable for their work.
- Allows for embedding teacher videos so student's don't have to navigate away from Schoology.
- Add personal touches like course pictures, profile pictures, color folders, Bitmoji interactive classroom announcements, interactive buttons, etc.
- Great calendar feature to put in meetings and share with other students or educators.
- Great for all ages!

Cons

There are a lot of districts across the world now adopting Schoology so sometimes the software could be slower than usual. I would also like to be able to change the colors of the folders to my own options.

Pros

Having come from Google Classroom, Schoology is a more robust learning management system. Teachers can create assignments, discussions, assessments. There is more than just a stream of posts. Folders are necessary to organize content. There is a free version of it that still has decent features but the enterprise version has ALL the tools that you need to manage student learning, grades, feedback, and communication. The online grade-book has the ability to create assessments and rubrics and keep track of student performance. I love that students can use the app, in addition to the Chromebook.

Cons

The learning curve can be steep; the user interface can be overwhelming. I wish that I could link sections of courses so that the I didn't have to re-post the same items in another section. For example, I teach two 7th grade sections. I find myself manually copying and posting in each separately - this takes extra time. Right now this doesn't have grade-book integration for our district, they are working on it. Grade-book integration is truly a requirement. Students and parents also cite issues with things being reported as late/over due that actually are not. Parents may need a streamlined interface or some free training. In terms of communication, it would be helpful to see stats on the message (how many read out of how many).

Pros

It was easy to manage my son's schooling.

Cons

It's clunky you have to go in and out to see different grades instead of being under one easy tab. Don't even think of forgetting your password. There is no reset function available and when you ask for help you get a super snarky email. I will copy and paste

Hi Cmac0521,

We are no longer accepting ticket submissions from Basic users. Helpdesk ticketing support is a feature of our Enterprise subscription. You can see what’s included in Enterprise here.

To support our millions of free (Basic) users, we have invested in providing you easy access to better support resources, like the newly launched Schoology Guide Center. We also recommend visiting the Schoology Help Center where you can access a wealth of information about Schoology as well as engage with our member Community.

Not sure if you’re a ‘Basic’ account holder? Instructors: if you see the word “Upgrade” in the upper left corner of your Schoology account of your account - that means you’re Basic! Parents and Students: check with your instructor!

Sincerely,
Schoology Support

Basically "you didn't pay we don't want to help you, go annoy the school. You're Basic LOL" - Schoology "customer service"