Schoology

Pros

Schoology is academia's answer for engaging with today's social media obsessed generation of students.

Cons

I can virtually ALWAYS come up with something that I didn't like, Schoology however is one of those few exceptions. For the sake of entering a "con" however, I will say the one lacking feature I did wish users had would be an option to switch from the blaring white to a dark mode type theme. Helpful for battery life when using mobile devices and also more conducive for night-time study and eye health. After all, many students are working while studying, leaving night time as their only option to get their classwork done.

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.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Schoology

Switched From

Pros

Nothing. Don't know why the administration purchased it. It was not worth the money. Most parents we know can't find anything in there and need multiple trainings.

Cons

Too many features, too many folders, trying to find anything on there is like looking for a needle in a haystack. iI is not intuitive at all - this company needs some apple developers on their staff. Fails to facilitate the most common uses for parents and students, with a focus on easy grade reporting and ease of accessing current assignments and the instructions from the teacher. I can't find anything in here. No parents I know like this software.

Pros

I like Schoology because it's very easy to use, it's a great software for managing courses, it's also very good because you don't need to download the app, you can access your account through online and it's really helpful for users, especially those who don't have large storage like me. It's also very good in terms of making assessment.

Cons

So far this software is really good, however I think it's missing something and that is a meeting classroom for online learning, the management should try to look into this and take consideration to make improvements.

Pros

I have been using Schoology for approximately five years now and I find it to be the easiest LMS with the most features of all the other ones I’ve tried. It is so easy to organize in whatever way is most convenient for you and your course. It supports video uploads from multiple different kinds of sources whether be YouTube or Loom or Edpuzzle. Students love the use of badges where teachers can send “gold star” encouragement to students like “most improved” or other distinctions. Students can easily email their teachers through Schoology. Course updates allow for whole class communication. The pro list goes on and on.

Cons

The biggest con I have experienced occasionally rears its head when I try to sync Schoology to PowerSchool. I find that some assignments will not sync. Even after I go through all of the usual troubleshooting details such as having a due date or the assignment title being too long, nothing will get it to sync. This is not a huge problem maybe one assignment and 50. What is frustrating, is that when you go into the sync page the error listed doesn’t tell you what to look for us just simply says “failed the sync.

Another frustration I have is when I want to unpublished material to students In Schoology that unpublished material is then unpublished in PowerSchool. Just because I want to on publish it in Schoology does it mean I want their grades in assignments to be unseen in PowerSchool.