"A Tale of Two Systems"
This week was focused on getting to know a new learning management system: Schoology. Being a long-time user of Edmodo, I never thought twice about finding a different site. Over the past 5 years I have grown to become a master of using Edmodo in my classroom. It has helped me, my students, and my professional peers tremendously. Edmodo has been my "go-to" for assessment, polls, providing access to classroom resources, and small-group discussions. My students have been very receptive of using this system in my classroom.
As you know, I am working on adding more tools to my teaching toolbox. My Connected Educator course had me exploring Schoology and Edmodo this week. I was tasked with evaluating both LMS'.
The question became: Edmodo or Schoology? Immediately, my response was to remain with Edmodo. After further examining, I was really attracted to all that Schoology has to offer. Here are some thoughts I had about both learning management systems:
Pros - Edmodo has an extremely user-friendly interface. The website is easy to navigate from chats, groups, small-groups, assessments, grades, etc. As an educator, it is very simple to post messages with links or assignments and send the message to more than one group. There are a lot of resources that can be accessed from the Spotlight section. It is very simple to access the different courses that I teach and professional groups that I belong to. Making quizzes/tests are simple. The ability to moderate posts is also a great way to make sure that students are posting academically relevant content.
Cons - Although this LMS has been fully adopted by the school district, there are a few drawbacks. Edmodo has a great tool called "Snapshot", which allows educators to connect assignments/content with Common Core standards. This seems great, but unfortunately Edmodo does not have any connections to science or social studies standards. Another con about Edmodo is that I have run into many issues with students trying to complete the quizzes or tests. Oftentimes I will have a student say that the quiz will "freeze" or it won't record any of the questions as being answered. This can be very frustrating and worrisome for my students. This isn't an isolated issue - I've had these same issues occur on multiple occasions. At this point, you would think that these kinks would have been reported and fixed.
Pros - All-in-all, Edmodo and Schoology have a lot of similarities. They offer many of the same features such as assessments, media, links, resources, etc. One of the BIGGEST pros about Schoology (this is what actually made me second guess using Edmodo) was the fact that I have the ability to connect assignments and assessments to Next Generation Science Standards! Edmodo ONLY has ELA and math correlations. I think this was a fantastic advantage that Schoology has and it would be the main reason I would switch from Edmodo.
Cons - After looking through this LMS for a while, I found that the homepage wasn't quite as user-friendly as Edmodo. There are a lot of different icons to represent the different types of media/resources. It would definitely take some getting used to! I also ran into some loading errors -- also known as the swirling ring of death. In an effort to try and start a discussion, I clicked "done" and Schoology had one of the "loading circles" just twirl and twirl and twirl and twirl...you get the picture. I had to restart my browser a few times before it would appear on my classroom's homepage. One of the biggest drawbacks is the fact that this website is not adopted by my district. The Blue Valley School District is well established with Edmodo and it wouldn't be easy to switch to Schoology. Parents and students are very familiar with the ins-and-outs of Edmodo and I think it would be a bit frustrating for all if I suddenly abandoned Edmodo for Schoology.
After a lot of thought and reflection I will remain with Edmodo. If my district ever makes the switch to Schoology, I will most definitely join in! This week was a great learning experience for me. For now, I think that it is a draw between Edmodo and Schoology.
Like always - keep checking in with me as I continue on my journey to become a Connected Educator!
-Mrs. Adkins
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