Monday, August 27, 2012

Schoology as another option vs. Edmodo

I have an Edmodo page but have not used it extensively. I get that it's like Facebook and think it could be used for discussions and such but I just don't see the LMS (Learning Management System) anywhere on the website. I can set up an actual class on Moodle; I view Edmodo as a communication platform. My dad (also teacher) has been on this Edmodo kick so I figured I would give it a look again and as I was googling I came across Schoology.  It looks to combine the LMS of Moodle with the platform and communication of Edmodo. I will be playing around with it as I start this school year and report back.  Below is a great chart that compares the advantages of Schoology over other LMS programs.  If anyone has any experience, suggestions, or comments about Schoology please let me know below.



My Moodle Page

I am by no means an expert but I have made it quite known that I love Moodle and truly believe in this day and age every teacher should be getting ready for blended learning by making sure they have their own Moodle site for their classes. (Having an Edmodo site would be fine as well). Unless you are at a school where every student comes to school everyday, nobody ever loses a paper, and all students pay attention during the entire class you seriously need to consider getting a LMS (Learning Management System). Not only do these help students immensely but they can be huge time  savers for teachers. Ever heard these questions? "Where is that handout", "what is our homework", "what did we do Monday". The answer to all of these could be "It's on Moodle!!!". Yes, there is a little more up front work that goes into getting them off the ground but after that maintaining them is quite easy.  I am by no means  to the point of running my class daily on Moodle but I feel I have a good start. I am going into my 7th year of teaching and have yet to teach the same content year to year. Assuming things stay as they are in my current position I will get to "reteach" the same content in 3 years from now yet I still consider having a LMS for all my classes to be necessary.  If you are a general education teacher who gets to basically teach the same material year to year then this should be a no brainer.  I am linking to my moodle page with the hopes that someone will find it useful or at least help them generate some ideas, when it prompts you to log in just "Log in as a guest". I have some good links and have collected some educational YouTube videos in one place so you don't have to search through all the garbage.   My US History Moodle site and my Algebra 1 Moodle (as you can see I didn't get much done on my Algebra Moodle, FYI the content is suited more for gen ed MS than HS.)