Schoology Transition Benefits Teachers and Students

by Jadyn Noonan

“The advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don’t really notice it, so it’s part of everyday life” - Bill Gates. Technology has been changing the way we do things every day. Every morning we get up and look at our phone to check the news or send an email. Technology has made things easier in some ways, but in others, it has made things a little harder.

Nowadays every kid has a phone and it is glued to their hand every minute of the day, Tweeting, Snapchatting or looking at Instagram, but recently technology has been used for their schooling. Every student at Potosi High School has a Chromebook that they use for school to write papers, make presentations, and now to take tests and turn in homework through something called Schoology. I was able to talk to some teachers at Potosi about what they think about the switch to Schoology and the use of that tool.

Mr. Lynn uses Schoology every day; he has his students do assignments on Schoology, as well as take tests and quizzes. Mr. Lynn also puts all of the notes in Schoology for the students so they can look at them at any time. Mr. Lynn commented on the fact that it makes things more organized; things are easier to grade, and it saves time and paper. I asked Mr. Lynn how hard it was to switch over to using Schoology. He said that it wasn’t that hard for him since he was already using something like it before. Mr. Lynn still has some kids that like to do their work on paper, and he prints things out for them to do that.

Mr. Bockenhauer uses Schoology for weekly check-ins with his students. He also uses it for grading assignments, and to send out blueprints. Bock thinks that the change has helped and hurt; he thinks that with all the technology, we have gotten away from the basics of some skills that we used to have to think through that now a computer can do. He thought that Schoology was a little difficult to learn how to use effectively, but it has saved him time. Bock still has some kids that request to have their weekly check-ins on paper.

As a student, I have appreciated having things online because it was more convenient for me, and I thought it was nice that all my class materials were on my Chromebook. I think that moving to Schoology has helped lots of other students as well.