Schoology: Course Names, Course Codes, Section Names, and Section Codes

Setting up your courses for the beginning of the school year

Whether you are setting up courses in Schoology for the very first time or you are copying last year's courses into the new school year to begin fresh, it is best to set up your courses properly from the start. While most of the fields within "Create New Course" seem self-explanatory, there are some that can be confusing.

The "Create Course" window in Schoology

It is highly recommended that you edit your previous year's courses

before copying them into this school year.

You can find your old courses in the archives of your My Courses section.

Course Name

Using a standard format for the name of your courses will help keep your classes organized, and it helps improve your students' view of their entire class schedule. The best way to name your course in Schoology is to use the overall course name that is listed in the electronic gradebook.

Example Course Name: M328 Algebra 2

Course Code

Each course has a unique code that allows others to search for your courses if necessary. The code also keeps track of your courses year-after-year by placing every section in every year under the same course.

Example Course Code: M328

Section Code

Every course technically has a single, unique number to identify itself. This number can only be used once across the entire school district. The only way to upload a large number of students into a course is if that course has a section code. For example, our entire freshmen class of 680 students are enrolled in a course called Class of 2020 where they receive information and advice from their counselors during their four years of high school. The only way to enroll them quikcly is to assign the course a unique Section Code. You do not need to enter anything into this field unless you want the tech department to upload a large roster of students into your course.

Do not simply make up a random number for the section code. Every class has a section code that can be found in the electronic gradebook. In Infinite Campus' gradebook it is called the Section ID.

Section Name

One course, such as Algebra 2, can be taught multiple times per day and by several different teachers. A section is one class of students sitting in front of you (or online). There might be 20 different classes, or sections, of the same subject. Enter a different Section Code for each class, and use a name that makes sense to you. Some examples are:

• Period One; Period Two; Period Three
• P1; P2; P3
• 2016-2017 P1; 2016-2017 P2; 2016-2017 P3

Some sections are co-taught by multiple teachers, or simply shared by all the teachers who are assigned to the course. If three teachers all teach Algebra, and they share those sections with each other, then their section naming convention might include their last name. For example:

• Goettsche P1; Goettsche P2; Goettsche P3
• Mantra P4; Mantra P5
• Johnson P6

Course Description

In the syllabus of a course there is often an overall description of the course followed by the topics that will be taught during the year. At the high school level, most if not all courses have some type of official description.

In our school district we can view all course descriptions from within the gradebook. Instead of searching for the Course or Section one will search for Course Master. All general information related to that course, which is taught by multiple teachers in five different high schools, can be viewed by clicking on the master course.

Adding a course description to your Schoology course provides students and parents with additional information about the class. The description of M328 below comes from our gradebook. A teacher can cut-and-paste the information into their Schoology course information by opening the class then going to Course Options -> Edit Info -> Details.

Course description for M328 found within the electronic gradebook

Why should parents sign up for Schoology?

Schoology is used by teachers to post their classroom materials online, provide a safe forum for students to discuss their ideas and collaborate on projects, and to pass out and collect homework electronically. It helps students stay organized and it keeps the class connected.

An overlooked feature of Schoology is the ability for parents to create their own accounts which gives them access to their child's grades, their upcoming assignments, and classroom messages posted by the teacher. Parents can view any assignment submitted by their child, so not only do parents see the grade that was earned on the assignment but they can actually see the assignment that was turned in. Schoology helps parents to become more involved in their child's learning.

The one thing a parent will need to get started is the PARENT ACCESS CODE which can be given to them by the classroom teacher or emailed to them by a technology staff member. Contact your child's teacher first to get started!

Here are some helpful links to help you get started using Schoology.

1. Create a new parent account using a Parent Access Code provided by your child's teacher
2. Add multiple children to your Schoology account so you can access all of your children's information from one location
3. Compare your parent account to your child's account to get an understanding of how Schoology works for you and for your child
4. The Parents' Guide To Schoology provides a detailed explanation of how to use multiple features within Schoology

November 13 PD: Schoology, Mastery Manager, and Subtext

We offered a variety of professional development sessions each period for all eight periods on Thursday, November 13, 2014. The four 30-minute sessions I taught were:

• Schoology - Self Paced Lessons
• Schoology - Grading Rubrics
• Mastery Manager - Grading Rubrics
• Subtext

Schoology is gaining a great deal of interest due to the ability to tag all assessments and assignments with learning standards, create grading rubrics that are aligned to those standards, and then use a standards-based grading system. Teachers will schedule sessions to learn more about this through the Tech Boot Camp, Tech Buddies, and Tech Captains professional development sessions.

Mastery Manager is the software used for benchmark assessments that are aligned to curricular standards. It can capture a great deal of data regarding student and class performance and track those results over time. However, users say that it is cumbersome to use and that the online testing app is still buggy.

Subtext is software that allows students to read and annotate PDFs of books, textbooks and lecture notes. They can also digitally "raise their hand" to ask their peers for anonymous help. It is a great resource. A change to their pricing scheme slated to take effect July 2015 is keeping many teachers from pursuing the use of Subtext any further.

Schoology improved their integration with Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, and Khan Academy

Schoology made another huge improvement to their LMS today by upgrading their integration with Google Drive and by adding integration with Dropbox, Evernote, and Khan Academy. You now have even better access to the cloud-based files you use in class each day, and it opens up the possibility of allowing your students to create, store, and submit their homework using their preferred storage site.

Click on Resources then Apps on the top menu bar to get to your Resource connections. You will have the option of installing four Resources: Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, and Khan Academy. If you have already installed one of these then it will not appear on your list. Click the Resources you want and then click on Install.

Once you have the Resources installed you will be asked for the username and password for each one. Enter them and you will have access to all of your files from within Schoology.

Coming Soon: Schoology will integrate with Dropbox and Evernote (in addition to Google Drive)

This is an exciting message that came directly from Schoology!! They will be expanding your ability to connect to your own personal Ed Tech resources by letting you connect your Schoology account with your Dropbox and Evernote accounts. This is in addition to your Google Drive account which is probably already connected. Khan Academy will also integrate with Schoology as well. 

Read on to get the full message. This has not been posted publicly yet, which is why I added it to my blog. Otherwise I would have just posted a link to this.

ORIGINAL MESSAGE FROM SCHOOLOGY:

We are always looking for new ways to improve your Schoology experience, and this upcoming feature release will be a huge step in the right direction.

Resource Apps are applications that will enable you and your staff to access and use content from third-party vendors and external file repositories directly from the Resource Center. This way all your resources, third-party or not, are always right at your fingertips.

These integrated resources will behave in the same way as other Schoology resources—you can copy them to courses, distribute them to faculty, align them to standards, and more. In this initial release, you will have access to these four resource apps:

• Khan Academy
• Dropbox
• Google Drive
• Evernote

Our SkyDrive app (Office 365) will be available in a later release soon afterwards. 

Renaming the Assignment Dropbox

We will be renaming the Assignment Dropbox to “Assignment Submissions.” It will be located in the same place and perform the same function, but its new name will make it distinct from our Dropbox Resource App.

We will publish an overview on the Schoology Blog and a step-by-step help article in our Help Center upon the release of these features. And don’t hesitate to email our dedicated Support Team at help@schoology.com if you have any questions or concerns. Thank you!

Sincerely,

The Schoology Team

OERs vs. online content

Online content is crucial to teachers.  It does not matter if you have just one computer in the back of your classroom or if every student has an iPad 24 hours a day - online content will enhance the teaching and learning in your classroom.

+Edudemic  "How to Find Open Educational Resources"

There are several types of content.  The most common is, put simply, educational content which includes anything you would give to your students to read, watch or listen to.  This will include books/ textbooks, videos, audio recordings, maps, graphs, photographs and historical documents. This group could also include courseware which is typically an all-encompassing, pre-packaged set of instructional materials created by textbook companies like Pearson.  If Apple's iBooks ever hit their stride they will probably the best example of courseware where one iBook focused on a particular topic will include all the text, photos, videos and interactive animations in one tidy location.

(related article: Edudemic: The 100 Best Web 2.0 Classroom Tools)

Teaching isn't just about providing educational resources to read and watch - good teachers design activities that go along with the resources.  This is why teachers should never feel threatened by technology.  Technology will not take away teaching jobs; it will help good teachers become even better teachers.  Some online resources that will help teachers design their lessons include teaching guides that have been written and tested by other teachers or professors.  Google has a lesson plan search that is still a little sparse but it is growing rapidly.  You can also find practice work which are the activities that your students will complete once after they have viewed the educational content.  You'll have to search a little deeper to find practice work that goes beyond typical review questions and worksheets, but it is out there.

Of course, teachers need a way to distribute the educational resources to their students in a logical and searchable format.  Using a Learning Management System is the best way to gather and present your materials, and LMSs also provide calendars, discussion boards, grade books and online assessments on top of it.  There are many free LMSs you can try, and I recommend you start by trying out +Schoology which is the best overall LMS package available - and it's free.

Curating your material by placing them in folders (by chapters or topics) in an LMS is effective, but it isn't very eye-catching.  Combine other methods of curation with your LMS to keep your students' interest.  A playlist on YouTube, a photo collection on Flickr, or a magazine-like collection on Flipboard are all ways to curate a collection of materials that look great - and hopefully they inspire your students to do the same on a future project.

What is the difference between OERs and online content?

Online content covers all the materials you pull from the Internet to use with your class.  You can use the material yourself and you can link to it so that your students can use it.  However, you do not automatically have the right to copy that material, make changes to it, or distribute it to others without permission of the person who created it.  YouTube is the best example of online content.  It has millions of videos you can watch or ask your students to watch, but most of those videos expressly prohibit you from copying them, editing them, or using them in any other manner.  Of course, there are even some videos that have been posted illegally and as a classroom teacher you are not permitted to use materials that break copyright laws.

Open Educational Resources, or OERs, are materials that are written by educators (or educational non-profits) for the specific purpose of using them in the classroom, and the materials are often aligned to Common Core standards.  Most OER providers have a mission of providing high-quality resources for free so that all students in all cities and nations can improve their education. You see the same desire to improve education for all people in places like Harvard, Stanford, and Penn State. Professors in those universities are offering all of the course materials for free. (Check out a list of 700 free courses listed on OpenCulture.)

This is the mission statement of +CK-12 Foundation, a company that provides OER textbooks:

"CK-12 Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing access to high quality educational materials for K-12 students all over the world. We offer free high-quality, standards-aligned, open content in the STEM subjects. By providing these free resources, CK-12 is working toward educational equity for all."

I've listed about some OERs on my Delicious social bookmarking page.  Do you like my not-so-subtle use of a curation site to list the resources? It looks much nicer than a bulleted list inside this blog.

Using Schoology and Khan Academy for individualized instruction

Education is shifting towards individualized, personalized learning for every student.  Students currently in a special education program have their own Individual Education Plan (IEP) or Individual Learning Plan (ILP).  What educators realize is that every student is different and every student would benefit from their own learning plan.  Technology is going to play a major role in creating these individual plans and also in helping our students meet their goals.

Our students - all students - are different from each other.  They have different attitudes, different motivation, different abilities, and different learning styles.  Educators are finding that all students would benefit from lessons and materials that most closely match these differences.

Technology is going to help educators provide an individualized learning environment in two ways.  First, it will provide the backbone for delivering the content and lessons.  Second, it will provide the educational resources needed to meet our students' needs.

Schoology is the delivery system for individualized learning to your students.  It is the backbone of your school.  Schoology is a Learning Management System (LMS) that allows teachers to provide videos, articles, texts, websites, online quizzes, discussion boards , flipped lessons, and review materials to their students in an organized manner.  Schoology also allows teachers, students, and parents to communicate electronically about their teaching and learning.  Schoology provides teachers with the ability to provide differentiated learning materials that meet a variety of learning styles and learning abilities to all students, and it can even let students work at their own pace by opening new sections once a student completes the previous section. Harlem Academy in New York chose Schoology as their LMS, their web site, and their intranet all in one.  It truly is the hub of the school where everything a student needs can easily be found.

Once the backbone is in place, teachers need to provide high-quality resources that are aimed at different age groups, that meet different learning levels, and meet different learning styles.  Open Educational Resources (OERs) are free resources "documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, education, assessment and research purposes." There are many individuals and organizations who believe that everyone deserves a high-quality education at little to no cost, and OERs are a way for the whole world to benefit from well-written educational materials.  OER Commons states, "equitable access to high-quality education is a global imperative."

One OER that is making big headlines is Khan Academy.  Salman Kahn began creating video lessons and practice problems on a variety of subjects.  His mission is "to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere."  A pilot program was announced last week for 47 schools in Idaho that will receive a total of $1.5 million to provide teachers with the two days of proper training in using Khan Academy with their students as well as a study to measure the effect it has on student achievement.  This study on the blended learning environment - direct instruction from a teacher coupled with self-guided video instruction from Khan Academy - is being funded by the J.A. and Katheryn Albertson Foundation.

In some instances the teacher will try to "fill the gaps" in a student's learning, but often it will be the student himself who recognizes what he knows and what he does not know and then utilizes the resources provided by the teacher to fill the gaps himself.  Whether a student is trying to catch up, trying to fill in holes, or trying to get ahead, a student will often take that initiative on his own - but the teacher needs to provide the appropriate materials to make that happen.

What is more important, the content used to learn or the way that it is delivered?  That's a subject for an entirely different article.

Get your class online with these six steps

Teachers want to build an online environment for their classroom but they don't know where to begin.  It's an overwhelming task considering how much technology has changed in the last two or three years.  But you have to start somewhere, and you need to start NOW.  Here are six steps for you to begin moving forward.

First, choose a Learning Management System (LMS).  Blackboard is what you probably think of when you hear "LMS", but there are many other choices that have many of the same features, are easier to use, and are also free.  Schoology is my personal favorite because it has some of the best communication features like wall posts (similar to Facebook), text messages, and a classroom calendar.   It also contains offers a well-organized classroom environment to place your assignments, videos, discussion boards, and presentations.  Schoology also integrates with Google Docs and Khan Academy.  Other very good LMS choices include Edmodo, CourseSites, OpenClass, and Haiku.

Second, get all of your current classroom materials online. For most people, this will mean scanning all of their documents into PDF format and posting them on their LMS, which is fine for your first year of going towards a digital environment.  The PDF format is great for viewing a document because you can view it on a PC, Mac, tablet, iPad, or cell phone.  The drawback is that most users will not be able to type or write on it without some form of conversion or software.  At some point you are going to have to answer a very serious question - are you ready to convert all your documents to something else like Google Docs?  Until you are ready to ask that question of yourself, just get your things online so your students can access them.

Third, find the best resources to supplement and expand your instruction.  The fact is, everything you teach is being taught by someone else, and they can probably say it or explain it better than you. Find videos, lessons, activities and games created by others that support what you teach.  Khan Academy has thousands of videos but they focus mainly on math and science.  YouTube has excellent videos if you can sort through the clutter of baby videos, pet videos, rambling video blogs, and 10,000 renditions of Gotye's Someone That I Used To Know.  A new site to consider is Sophia which has instructional modules for students and also for teachers' professional development.

Fourth, decide if you are going to use a textbook as the main source of information, as a supplemental resource, or not at all.  Once you make that decision you will be able to decide how much of your students' reading will be online.  Start by contacting the textbook company and see if they are willing to provide you with an electronic version of your current book.  Some of them will do so for free.  If you are looking for a new textbook, consider sources such as CK12 which creates actual classroom textbooks for free in a digital format. Another option is browsing the iTunes U catalog to see if another teacher has created a book or a course that your students could use.

Fifth, choose sites, materials, and software that are free, Internet-based, and work on multiple devices.  Evernote is an example of this. It is a powerful online notebook that can be used with your computer, tablet, or cell phone.  Free materials and apps allows your classroom to become a model for other teachers, and choosing resources that can be used on most devices allows all students regardless of location or income to access your lessons.  What is the importance of being accessible on multiple devices?  Well, look at what you currently own.  I use a computer at work, a tablet on the couch, and a cell phone on the go.  We own different devices, and nothing is more frustrating than having access to data on one device but not another.  Also, you have no control over what your students will bring to school.  Students will bring every device ever made, and you have a responsibility to make sure your materials and assignments are available to the widest audience possible.

Sixth, expect to tear your site apart and start over next year.  For every assignment posted on your site, you need to ask yourself, "Is this really what I want my students to do with their time?"  The answer is usually, "no."  You will slowly get away from worksheets and readings and move more towards discussions, videos, and collaborative assignments where students create new bodies of information and share it with the world.  You might even move towards a flipped classroom model (search flipped classroom, Jon Bergmann, or Ramsay Musallam).  A traditional classroom involves a teacher providing instruction during class time, and then students practice their work at home without the benefit of a teacher to guide them.  A flipped classroom involves providing as much instruction as possible online through videos and other means which allows you to use classroom time for guided practice.

Your students are going to love your new classroom, but it takes time.  A lot of time.  Today is the day you should get started.