Meet Schoology!

(pronounced /skoo-luh-jee/)

@LisaBerghoff/@Joe_EdTech

Are you hearing all about the new LMS? Are you still wondering what an LMS is and why we need one? Here's a 2 minute video explaining learning management systems: 

This year, our district is adopting Schoology as our LMS. What does that mean for our students? Well, it means that our learners will have one place to log in to access everything they need for all of their classes. They won't need to log in and out of sites like Quizlet, and Khan Academy, and they won't need to go to several different digital places to find their assignments and information for their classes. What does that mean for our staff? It means we all will need to learn how to access and utilize the many features Schoology has to offer. 

While I know many of you are anxious to see where to click and how to post, I want to take a moment to point out the bigger picture of what an LMS can mean for all of us in our 1:1 environment. While knowing where to click and how to post is important, let's first think about what it is that we want our students to know, understand, and do. I recently saw an article from the Washington Post that said: "The seven top characteristics of success at Google are soft skills: being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being supportive of one's colleagues; being a good critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections across complex ideas." 

We know that it can be challenging to be connected in a real way when we are so often tucked away in our own spaces. One of Schoology's main features is "the ability to connect people, content, and systems." As we embark on this new journey, let's be mindful of ways that we can use this technology to connect, share, and grow together in ways we haven't been able to before. Our students need to learn how to navigate a world where soft skills and technology intersect and we can help model that for them.

Ok, now to the clicking and posting!

1. To get to our new LMS, go to http://lms.dist113.org and log on using your school email and password.
2. Make sure you bookmark this link by clicking on the star. You can drag it directly to your bookmark bar for easy access in the future.
3. In the menu bar, click on "courses" you will see all of your classes there!

Schoology has a self-paced guided tour that is a fantastic first step to learning about how to get started. To get the course, click "courses" and then click "join".

Enter the code: 8C2DG-TV9VN

You will see the course: "Extend Your Classroom To The Cloud: 6 Tips" in your courses menu. Go ahead and navigate to that course. You can see what it is like to be a student in an online course through Schoology. The course is broken into small videos and pieces of information. It also has links to step-by-step instructions to help get you started.

Feel free to jump in and give it a try! Even if you're not ready to be an early adopter, it can't hurt to jump in the course and start learning.

Initial sessions are being offered this week but that is only the beginning. There will be many opportunities for learning, sharing, and collaborating as we roll out Schoology.