A Learning Management System with

A Student-friendly Facebook Appeal

A Learning Management Platform

• As a learning management system, Schoology offers the traditional administrative programs for attendance, grading, academic calendars and homework posting.

www.schoology.com

However,• Realizing the enormous potential of

the Internet to positively transform the field of education,

• developers decided to design a LMS that does more than administrative duties.

• They have have applied the highly-popular interactive formats of social networks like Facebook and the Ning

–to create a new social networking version of a LMS

• that provides increased opportunities to communicate and collaborate on assignments and projects on the LMS• And so facilitates the educational

objective of students to be creative and think critically.

Important Features

• Communicative tools• Collaborative tools• Ease of use, visual appeal and tech

support

Versatile forms of Communication

Ability to post messages toa whole community, a group, an individual

Versatile collaboration in Groups

The ability to create groupsthat are open to everyone, … or closed to all but a select group

Versatile Collaboration in Groups

Book Groups

Open Group

Versatile collaboration in Groups

Closed group

Collaboration on Profile Pages Each student has their own profile page where they can post their updates, or create a blog.Students can comment on their friends pages inthreaded conversations, listed chronologically.

Collaboration on Profile Page

Course Collaboration on Discussion Page

Students who view the

Facebook Wall, will also like

this Home Page

Visual Appeal: The Home Page

• online discussions set-up by course, • all comments and uploaded links,• all updates • reminders from their teachers

The Home Page, like the Facebook Wall shows all activity:

• “Schoology’s user interface mirrors familiar social networking and participatory information sharing platforms. The user‐centered design and elegant look and feel encourages students, faculty, and administrators to engage in a collaborative learning environment.”

https://www.schoology.com/techspecs.php

Ease of Use: The Home Page

FEATURES OF THE HOME PAGE-Easy to use with links to studentpages

• "An LMS can serve as a useful tool for teacher-student communication. The problem? Students don’t like using them... Schoology aims to replace more traditional systems with one that is more appealing to users. It didn’t look far – its layout is nearly identical to Facebook’s. The clear advantage of this is that it makes it easy to use for students and most teachers."

• eLearning News Update

Additional Features• Dropboxes• Ability to set privileges for

student roles• Ability to search for students

in discussion threads

Additional Features• Able to track student usage and

course analytics• iPhone App• Able to sign in using a user name, not

an email, for students under 13 yrs.• Safe, closed site with parent access

Additional Features• Linked with Google Apps for

education for quick access to Google Docs

• Able to import/export grades and student lists

• Tech Support available through help

links and email• Unlike Blackboard, Moodle,

and the Ning, this Learning Management System is free.

References• www.schoolgy.com• www.smatoos.com Schoology: A new

LMs for the facebook generation, December 12. 2011