What is Reddit's opinion of Schoology?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

[retired educator here] Both parenting and teaching have the same overriding goal of preparing kids to function without them, to be increasingly more independent. Without homework, there isn't enough time for students to practice (on their own) what they've learned in the classroom, or, if in a "flipped classroom" prepare ahead for the next lesson.

Imagine the imbalance of classroom time vs. the amount of information to learn -- teachers cannot just open kids' heads and pour in the facts. Learning is a complex mental task. In order to learn, students need to hear, see, experience, and process the new information, make connections to previously-mastered information, then take further steps advancing to the next level by interacting with the new knowledge with guidance first, and finally, independently. This takes time as well as effort on everyone's part.

Good teachers do their best to foster as many of these steps in the learning process as possible in 60- to 90-minute lessons. They present the new information, help make connections to previously-learned lessons, and provide an activity in which the students can put the new material into practice with the teacher present to guide them -- but processing the lesson fully requires each student to practice independent work without the teacher beside them. This is where their deepest learning is experienced. Also, this a true assessment of how well they've learned it.

Homework shouldn't be "busy work" but should be practice and application of new skills & knowledge, or it should be undistracted time to be introduced to a new topic as preparation for the next in-class lesson.

> Next week, we'll cover coping with companies completely ignoring your feedback...

They claim the read all the feedback they get, but I have to question how closely they read it. Any popular feedback or feature requests they get usually take them ages to implement, and then any solution they offer usually ends up being either half-assed or a jank workaround. From the launch of Google Classroom people were asking for a better way to rearrange posts, like a drag and drop method. With this update (4 years later) I see posts now have move up and move down options. So great, their solution is 4 years late and still somewhat slow and inconvenient if you have a lot of posts to organize. On top of that, as you and u/anndee123 said this update has also removed useful features.

I'll just take this opportunity to plug Schoology. It's free and has a lot of the features CG is missing.

Schoology and eduCanon are amazing if you have or want to have a flipped/blended classroom. I love them both - they are invaluable to me and have made lesson planning and grading so much more efficient for me. I strongly encourage everyone to check them out.

> prelecture videos or assignments and then lectures as review

This was an established technique for in-person classes, BUT lectures weren't so much "review" as "where you did the practice activities to cement the material" or what would traditionally have been homework. It's called a Flipped Classroom model and it's actually pretty popular at smaller schools (though the article I linked goes into some of the pitfalls that happen in practice).

I plan to keep using some of the short videos I made over the past year and a half as optional supplements to the actual in-person lecture, and I'll be livestreaming and posting videos of the in-person lectures because I don't want people feeling like they have to choose between missing content and getting everyone else sick. We're also keeping some of our "this seemed to work well" ideas from the virtual version, like quick weekly check-in quizzes where half of them get dropped, so you don't have to wait until midterms are returned to figure out if you're understanding the material.

But yeah. It'll be interesting to see how we go forward from the other side of the lecture podium, too. Unfortunately y'all are getting to be double lab rats: once as we all dropped into the virtual space without wanting to, and now once again as we all come crawling back out.

I just learned about this today! I have a friend who teaches & I was helping her get setup with her online stuff today & actually participated in a portion of the class using this idea. She taught me about the "Wait Time" principle, which is especially important for Zoom-based hybrid & online learning classes:

• https://www.schoology.com/blog/importance-wait-time-technology-based-classroom

The basic concept is:

1. Ask a question
2. Wait at least 3 seconds

This is done primarily for 2 reasons:

1. People need time to think about & process the information & come up with a response (i.e. "mental incubation" time)
2. People have anxiety, so by creating silence, it generates internal pressure in them to close the void, fill the gap, and verbalize an answer

The trick is practicing it to the point where you are comfortable & familiar with it so that you don't feel awkward doing it, because it feels SUPER awkward at first! Practice is also importance because it's so easy to just spew information in an online class where you don't have that physical in-person energy dynamic available to prompt you into creating a back & forth conversation.

I really like this idea & will be trying it out in the future!

I use Schoology. It has a good interface which is teacher and student friendly, imo. It can used free by yourself and students. I use it to post notes, assignments, general information, and we also take our assessments on the site.

A nerdy fact about learning... Nothing worth learning can be taught. Also, consider the differences between pedagogy, andragogy, and heutagogy.

The apps from the Google Play Store are for devices that runs Android like a smart phone or a Chromebook. A Chromebook uses Chrome OS which is basically like a browser.

The HP Stream 11 is a basic Windows 10 laptop so you cannot simply go to the Google Play Store to install Schoology since Windows does not run Android apps. Schoology can be used on the PC at the following link.

https://www.schoology.com/prepare

From there you can click on Sign Up and I suppose you can click on the "parent" option. From there you need to enter the access code provided by your son's teacher. I suppose from there just follow the instructions.

I enjoy using Quizlet Live for vocabulary practice and group collaboration. BreakoutEDU is another great way to incorporate content, critical thinking and collaboration. At a more systems-level, I like Schoology because you can give students 'badges' for completing certain assignments or activities. Good luck!

Schoology is less a "website" and more a learning management system (LMS). It's exactly like Facebook format, with added ability to host files and enter grades.

You can have as many classes as you want, each has a separate unique code for access that students use to join. No 2 classes will see the same exact content...unless you want them to. Schoology allows for you to build folders/resources/etc that you can then save as templates and then import into other classes. There's an app for every platform so that students and parents can sign in from their smart devices. I'm only just beginning to dabble in Schoology but so far have found it easier to manage than Edmodo and Moodle, and definitely an improvement over website-only services like Google Sites. Having been a Google Sites gal for 8 years I'm excited for all the additional features I have with Schoology.

I'd recommend checking out what they have to offer: https://www.schoology.com/learning-management-system.php

I'm not sure if you're asking for advice on how to code it or if you're looking for a platform that already does something similar to this. For something already built you can try Blackboard which is what many schools use or something like Schoology which is a start up that does something similar to blackboard.

I use Schoology (https://www.schoology.com/) . I just set-up the video within a quiz. You can embed flash or upload videos to it. You can do any type of quiz question, plus add text blocks or page breaks between them.

They can even do audio replies or upload images as replies.

Plus it would keep them all nice and organized for you so students could do make-ups very easily.

I'm 100% with you on https://www.schoology.com/home.php - it's just a great combination of the social tools that students are used to and the course management tools that make managing courses online useful.