LMS- Schoology -noun 1.) the study of making school accessible

So I just want to start this post by saying two things; if this decision that I am faced with was based solely on what I want out of an LMS, this application would win hands down, and as far as my administration goes, I think there are a few features that may just help to sell this one over as well, but I will explain in just a minute.

So in terms of sign up and start, Schoology has a quick and direct process.  Much like Edmodo, when you initially sign-up to use Schoology you are then prompted to create a profile and have the access to the basic layout of the appllication.  You are able to add a photograph of yourself and adjust your privacy settings.  In terms of security and privacy I am quite impressed with their commitment to the issues.  When you set up your account you are then asked what district you work for and in order to verify your account, Schoology sends an email to your school email address, which you then have to respond to.  In order for your students to join your courses, similar to Edmodo, you as the teacher need to provide them with an access code.  

Although these features are wonderful for the end result of using this tool in the classroom, it did make it a bit difficult for me to full experiment and review this tool as I do not yet have access to my district email.  Other features however that I do truly like about Schoology is that they provide the ability for the teacher and student to create and keep current separate calendars for the school, course, group and individual.  For me this is important, as my goal is to promote independence and acquisition of self-help and self-assessment in terms of organization and study skills. 

So once I am verified I will be able to create courses, invite students, upload files and links.  Another major benefit of this tool over others is the blog space.  As I intend to encourage my students to use blogging to express their ideas, concerns, confusions, thoughts and such about the subjects we will be exploring, with the other application I was going to have to link in to another application to allow this.  Here I am able to do this right on the spot. 

 

All in all, although I was a bit frustrated with the security issue, I do appreciate it and think that my administration will as well.  I also like that Schoology has already thought of a way to allow parents access to their children’s course work and that they go beyond just the simple grading feature which I discussed in my last post.  After you have graded students’ work, Schoology provides analytic breakdown of the data.  Again this is another feature that I think administration will come to truly appreciate.  

I have found in the past that whenever you can support your work with visual representations, the work becomes that much more meaningful.  So as much as I would like to say 100% that this is the app. I am going with, without full access I can dive in wholeheartedly.  I feel like this will be best for my students, myself, administration and parents.  But I am still up in the air.  So please weigh in, if you have experience, thoughts or feedback, now would be the time to throw in your two cents!

LMS- To Edmodo or not to Edmodo.... that is the question

So in considering Edmodo as an LMS in my 9^th grade Special education classroom, I immediately signed up for an account.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I tend to jump into something and get a feel for it in order to learn about it.  I am not the person who reads the “about” page or looks up all the critiques and reviews.  I like to see how easy something is to use, how does it feel, what does it look like, how does it react if I do X, Y and Z.  

And so my initial reaction to signing up is that it was extremely easy.  You create your account and then are given this checklist in order to completely set up your “classroom”. Your first step after setting up your personal profile is to register your school.  My district was not currently using Edmodo and so in 3 or 4 easy steps I typed in my districts info and so now any other teachers that choose to use Edmodo will just choose us from a drop-down list

Following the guiding checklist, I then went to the notifications checklist.  And I have to tell you this feature right here is what drew me in and had me initially hooked.  You can get notifications about alerts, notes, links, files, etc.  Okay okay big deal right?  You AND THE STUDENTS can get these alerts via email, text messages to their phones, or tweets on their desktop.  How cool is that?!?!?!?!  I know I am a dork, but I found this feature so exciting.  I can keep up and they can keep up with assignments group work, questions, dates, the calendar everything easily.  I have to be honest, we were asked to sign up for twitter this past month through my grad program, and I did.  But up until now, I did not really see a need or purpose for it.  Even though Clay Shirkey discussed the idea that we Americans often see the entertainment benefits before any other, on this one I have to say I did not follow the norm.  I did not see any real value to it, but being able to get instant up to date notifications of activity in the LMS would be an amazing feature.  I can even keep the notifications via twitter while I am at my desk and then change it to text message when I am on the road.  Simply brilliant.  

So the next step in the process of setting up your room is to add groups.  A colleague of mine, KEVIN has a great tutorial for doing this on his blog page, but it is very simple and you can color code your classes and each feature would then work for the individual group to help keep things organized.

You can then upload content to your "library".  Allowing students to access your materials for readings, reference, and assignments.  And like any meaningful web 2.0 tool there is ways to connect with other teachers to share and collaborate to the extent and degree to which you wish.  On the students end they are able to access and submit classwork and assignments.  I plan on providing students with links where they will be able to view the video taped lessons and classwork, as I have found that one of the main problems with students is that either attendance is low and they miss the work, their behavior problems in other areas of the school day require that the deans are calling them out of core classes and they are missing materials that way, or they simply need to experience the lesson more than once to gain a better understanding of the material.  Once the students submit work you as a teacher can access and grade it, where they will then be able to receive a grade immediately.  This cuts down on drag time between the actual assignment and final grade.  In the past and depending on the schedule, no matter how effective a teacher you are, a week can go by between handing in and getting back of work.  This tool eliminates that lag.  

Overall this tool offers so much and in such an appealing and simple yet sophisticated way, that it looks like a ringer!