By Alexandra Martinez

All Unit 4 schools including Centennial will make a change for next year. Unit 4 identified the need for a more comprehensive learning management system, so next year all classes will switch from Google Classroom to Schoology. Schoology is an app that combines assignments with grades, so people won’t have to go to Home Acess to see grades. The Schoology app works for grades from K to 12. What does Schoology offer us? Do the teachers like this new update of this new app? Will Schoology be better than Google Classroom?

Schoology has features that show the data of a student’s performance which would help the teachers personalize student learning. The teachers would have everything they need in one app, they would have the grades, assessments, and assignments of the students to keep track of their learning. Families would also be able to access their children’s courses, content, and grades. The visual design may be very different from Google Classroom but it has many features that teachers and students can access much more easily. It also has a mobile app for students who want to keep track of their grades and assignments on their phone. 

Students say the switch to Schoology is unnecessary. One Centennial student said, “Using Google Classroom was already fine and it worked pretty well. It’s not necessary to switch. Since the Google Classroom is already good at doing its job.” Teacher opinions about the switch are mixed.. One of the teachers said, “ It feels unnecessary to switch to Schoology because it is not as easy to use as Google Classroom and Schoology is not as user-friendly as Google Classroom.” Most of the teachers said that they are not as thrilled about the switch since they are already used to using Google Classroom. They believe next year we will have difficulties getting used to Schoology. One of the teachers noted that “the change will better connect student work done online with work posted on HAC. Right now teachers must manually transfer grades from Google Classroom to HAC, which leaves the possibility of errors and a delay until the transfer can be made. The transfer will happen automatically with Schoology. It is also better connected to other systems in the district, so again, being able to keep everything connected”. With Schoology the students get their grades faster and the teachers don’t have to manually put the grades in two different apps. 

Another teacher said that while Schoology has some nice features, they don’t like the change. They don’t know if Schoology would be a help to them as teachers but, they would be able to sync the grade scores. However, in their opinion for a student, they don’t think Schoology would be as effective as Google Classroom. They think that with the number of changes that we have experienced over the last few years, it would be a struggle to add more to the change. 

Both students and teachers have argued that this is an unnecessary change for the district to make since they don’t feel that Google Classroom needs to be replaced. However, some have noted that it would be a great help if the grade scores were synced instead of moving in between two apps for turning grades and seeing scores. There’s still not much information on how Schoology could be better. So students and teachers staying in District Unit 4 would have to see next year if this switch is actually worth it or a decision that shouldn’t have been made from the beginning.