17 years helping Canadian businesses
choose better software
Schoology
What Is Schoology?
Schoology seamlessly connects learning management with assessments so that school districts can improve student performance, foster collaboration throughout their community, and personalize learning for every student. Every day millions of students, parents, faculty and administrators from nearly 2,000 K-12 school districts leverage Schoology to advance what is possible in education.
Who Uses Schoology?
Millions of people from over 60,000 K-12 schools and universities around the world use Schoology to transform how they teach and learn.
Not sure about Schoology?
Compare with a popular alternative
Schoology
Other great alternatives to Schoology
Reviews of Schoology
Number 1 LMS on the Market
Comments: Overall, I can't imagine my experience both teaching using Schoology and leading professional development for teachers without Schoology. It has afforded me an opportunity to totally revamp my district's PD to something more teacher centered, self paced, and differentiated, by putting together an online database of modules tailored to our specific district needs.
Pros:
This is hands-down my go-to LMS for education. Having used a variety of LMS programs out there, and having come from some such as Google Classroom, and 3DGameLab, Schoology is top notch. Constantly being updated, Schoology helps transition the focus from the teacher to the student. The best features are Schoology's ability to integrate with other tools, as teachers can embed edtech tools such as Padlet, Polleverywhere, Thinglink, etc into a Schoology assignment using their LTI integration. As they continue to partner with other edtech companies, some of these then become options within their platform. I have used their integrated Conferences, Lock Down Browser, and more. The ability to transition ownership to the students, monitor their work while letting them work at their own pace is truly remarkable and a game-changer in education.
Cons:
There are some things I wish were available such as the ability to share an entire folder of contents with an individual student, or to set separate completion rules/dates for assignments within a folder. Not sure why these aren't options. I also think a way to automatically award badges upon completion would really help teachers cut down on time awarding them.
Virtual Learning Made Easy
Comments: Overall, it's an inexpensive program that our district has adopted to use for virtual learning options. When the pandemic hit, students had to access their work through Schoology, and teachers had to use it to upload assignments. As a program, it is fairly simple to use. It takes a few tries at first, and then you get used to it. It has a wide range of options for uploading content including: documents, videos, YouTube and HTML links, and quizzes/tests.
Pros:
Once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy to create quizzes using Google Forms and upload them into Schoology as an assignment. You can also directly create an assignment in Schoology itself which is pretty easy to do. I frequently create math tests on here, because it is so easy and has different options like multiple choice, sequencing, etc.
Cons:
I had to take an initial training course to understand this software better. There are a few confusing buttons when creating an assignment - but after a few tries, you get used to it. (I would recommend watching some YouTube videos about how to use Schoology if you're interested in buying this software for your school. They have some very helpful ones on there.)
Overly complicated, not intuitive, fails to account for what parent and student users need most
Comments:
I hated Schoology at St. Isidore and then when my kids went to high school and they purchased this product, I was dumbfounded as to why the administration wanted it. All the parents are confused.
When the App shows me it has new messages/alerts, I open the app, and nothing in the app tells me what is the alert - no "unread" messages, I have NO Idea where to go, so I have to go fishing for it. I don't know what else the product does, but it fails miserably at meeting the key needs of my two children and my needs to oversee how they are doing. My children also do not like this product. They have even been using it for 3+ years. They are in high school now.
Pros:
Nothing. Don't know why the administration purchased it. It was not worth the money. Most parents we know can't find anything in there and need multiple trainings.
Cons:
Too many features, too many folders, trying to find anything on there is like looking for a needle in a haystack. iI is not intuitive at all - this company needs some apple developers on their staff. Fails to facilitate the most common uses for parents and students, with a focus on easy grade reporting and ease of accessing current assignments and the instructions from the teacher. I can't find anything in here. No parents I know like this software.
Excellent LMS with a variety of features
Comments: I love Schoology. The few times I needed support, the individuals I spoke with were amazing. The features and ease of Schoology outshines other Learning Management Systems on the market. Other than the couple of quirks I mentioned above, this is a product good for a wide range of ages and courses.
Pros:
I have been using Schoology for approximately five years now and I find it to be the easiest LMS with the most features of all the other ones I’ve tried. It is so easy to organize in whatever way is most convenient for you and your course. It supports video uploads from multiple different kinds of sources whether be YouTube or Loom or Edpuzzle. Students love the use of badges where teachers can send “gold star” encouragement to students like “most improved” or other distinctions. Students can easily email their teachers through Schoology. Course updates allow for whole class communication. The pro list goes on and on.
Cons:
The biggest con I have experienced occasionally rears its head when I try to sync Schoology to PowerSchool. I find that some assignments will not sync. Even after I go through all of the usual troubleshooting details such as having a due date or the assignment title being too long, nothing will get it to sync. This is not a huge problem maybe one assignment and 50. What is frustrating, is that when you go into the sync page the error listed doesn’t tell you what to look for us just simply says “failed the sync. Another frustration I have is when I want to unpublished material to students In Schoology that unpublished material is then unpublished in PowerSchool. Just because I want to on publish it in Schoology does it mean I want their grades in assignments to be unseen in PowerSchool.
All Systems in One Place
Comments: Schoology has been extremally useful to me as a teacher both during the pandemic and after. I appreciate the Schoology teams constant innovation and dedication to teachers and students. I look forward to using it again next year. Students and parents both find it easy to use and I have had positive results using the platform.
Pros:
I love that I can login once and be able to access a variety of programs and software. The one user login is awesome! I like that I can send out messages to students either through the messenger feature or by placing an announcement in each class. I also like being able to go directly from one website (for example Newsela) to another (for example Nearpod) with in the platform itself. Set up classes is a breeze, and I appreciate how seamless Schoology has made it for teachers. The training I received from Schoology staff is also very good.
Cons:
As with any LMS, there is a learning curve, but it ranks as one of the better LMSs in terms of easy of use. I would like to see Zoom integrated directly into each class, as an additional option.
