Though virtual education has been around for quite some time, it became much more prominent during the covid pandemic. Fortunately for my school, we were already virtual and had already set up quite a successful system for virtual education through Schoology, a learning management system that is designed primarily for K-12 schools.
While Schoology offers a number of great features designed to streamline the educational process, it’s important to know going into it that there’s a bit of a learning curve involved with this school management software. But don’t worry, just like mastering any new skill, with a bit of patience and the right guidance, you can unlock the full potential of this platform.
Over time, I’ve discovered a number of nifty tips and tricks that have made my Schoology experience smoother and more efficient. Included in this article are just a few tips and tricks we have used to make Schoology an easy program to manage our online education program with.
3 Tips to Get More from Schoology
1. Always create folders for each week and include the dates
Using folders in Schoology is a good way to keep things organized, and I highly recommend creating folders for each week. We often also include each day inside of the weekly folder for easy navigation.
When the work is not organized by the week or even the day, it gets very cluttered and it is hard for both parents and students to navigate. When you use the folder system, it makes it much easier for the students to stay organized and be sure their work is turned in and to know what is due on a daily basis.
2. Find ways you can implement Google assignments
Google Assignments are work that you can distribute through your Google Drive when you create an assignment in Schoology. When using Google Assignments, you are easily able to grade the assignments within Schoology and give feedback in the program rather than your students having to upload assignments that they have written out.
You can also see the progress of your students in the assignments, and can see if the student has opened the assignment, or is attempting to complete it.
Here are some of the capabilities of integrating Google Assignments in Schoology:
- Direct Integration with Google Tools: Instructors can assign Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings directly within Schoology.
- Personalized Student Copies: Enables students to automatically generate their own copy of the assignment to work on and submit.
- Comprehensive Feedback Tools: Instructors can provide feedback and grade assignments directly within the platform.
- Originality Checker: Built-in feature to check for plagiarism and ensure original content in student submissions.
- Rubric Integration: Allows for the use of rubrics created within the app for grading consistency.
- Enhanced Content Selector: Simplifies the process of selecting files from Google Drive for assignments.
3. Use the publish/unpublish feature
Another helpful tool Schoology offers is the ability to publish and unpublish folders. Oftentimes, we as educators need to use every spare moment to plan ahead. However, if parents or students see what we are planning ahead, it may cause a firestorm of problems including panic of the workload, or overzealous students completing assignments before you have even gone over the content.
For this reason, I really like the publish/unpublish feature. Additionally, you can set the date for a folder to publish, and also a date for the folder to close if you only want your class to have access to the folder for a certain period of time.
Final Thoughts
There are many other LMS’s out there with similar features to Schoology, however this platform is the one my virtual school chooses to use. It has a lot of great features, yet is simple for the students and teachers to use. With these features, along with the live gradebook, our parents and teachers have found it definitely meets our virtual learning needs.
Have any of your own Schoology tips to add to this list? Share them with us by commenting below.