As a techie and proud member of the Net Generation, I feel the need to keep up with the times, and even encourage my friends, family, and colleagues to do the same.  I admit that I exhibit some of the qualities that we worry about in this younger generation.  For example, I can’t go an hour without checking my phone.  I’d prefer texting, IM, and email over talking on the phone.  And as my husband says, before I even roll out of bed in the morning I’ve checked email, Facebook, Twitter, and maybe even played a word on Words with Friends.

While I can’t imagine going back to life without all of these tools, I’m also careful not to jump on the latest bandwagon.   A colleague recently placed an article in my mailbox titled “Forget the Fads – The Old Way Works Best“.  It was published in Newsweek in 2002 and includes a quote by Theodore Sizer, Director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform.  He was asked if he could name a single reform in the past 15 years that has been successful.  To which he replied “I don’t think there is one.”…

Five years ago when I began teaching, I was given a gradebook in my new faculty folder. It was quite exciting as a new teacher – I was now holding the same spiral bound book with a brown cover that I had seen my teachers carry around with them like it was gold. It felt like a rite of passage, and just like those before me, I kept it close to me and carried it with pride. For me, its main function was to act as a storage place where I could record my grades, and then I would enter them into a program to calculate averages. First Excel at the beginning of my career, and then I eventually moved to GradeQuick. Like all teachers, I felt better having a back up copy of my grades – a hard copy in the gradebook, and a digital copy saved on my computer.

Additionally, when my school introduced a course management system, I posted grades there for students to see because I liked them to know where they stood (this replaced handling out printed copies every so often! )

While I was paranoid about the possibility of losing…

Now, two months in to our school-wide Schoology implementation, I wanted to share some of the ways our teachers have found to use it effectively for their classes. When we trained our teachers on Schoology in August, they were introduced to the essential items – how to add a file, post a calendar item, and add students to their courses.

Teachers have used these features to give students access to course content and important dates.  While some teachers have chosen to post major calendar events such as quiz/test dates and project due dates, others post more frequently.  Some members of each department quickly realized that posting daily assignments would be most beneficial for their students.  One advantage of doing this is that if a student is absent they know they can find their homework on Schoology.

Other teachers have taken advantage of Schoology to deliver course materials to students.  Our Biology and AP Chemistry teachers have been posting their PowerPoint presentations as documents on Schoology.  Files are stored in the Documents area and organized into folders by topic or chapter.  Students are able to review them to prepare for tests, and in some cases even access them ahead of…

Those few days before school starts always feel like a whirlwind of getting classrooms ready, preparing lessons, and attending opening faculty meetings. This year, during our opening faculty meetings, lower and upper school teachers received an houe training session on Schoology. This training focused on how to enroll students in courses, and add a calendar item (“Event”) to the course (assignment, quiz test, etc.). Click here to see the quick reference guide given to teachers.  We did have some login issues because we chose to use Remote Authentication with our Active Directory, and didn’t quite understand how it worked it. But by the end of the everyone was logged in, and at least added some students to their courses.

With all teachers on the system, they were encouraged to find ways to make it work for their classes, with the goal being to provide and/or organize course content for the student’s benefit.  If they create a monthly syllabus and stick to it, they can just post that document.  If they use PowerPoints in class to present course material, they can post those for students to access before or after class.  Another option is to post major…

It’s official The Linsley School in Wheeling, West Virginia has implemented Schoology school-wide! Director of Learning and Instruction at The Linsley School and our proud Schoology Guest Blogger, Melissa Tredenick, shares with us how the progress is going.

One year ago we were preparing for what we didn’t know would be a period of testing when it came to online course management systems. There seemed to be more of a need for teachers to want to post content online and connect with students outside of the classroom, and there also seemed to be many promising options to choose from. The testing period lasted a year, and had interested teachers using a variety of sites.

When Schoology announced it’s free service to schools, we were excited to pilot it in a few classrooms. Each teacher had a different idea of how to use it – from just posting homework assignments on the calander, to weekly blogs, to book discussions and test review forums. Often compared by students and faculty as a cross between Facebook, and another well known CMS- it was obvious that Schoology was a hit.

I’m excited to report that a year later, as we move into…

With a background in technology, my passion has been working with faculty to integrate technology into the classroom.  A focus of this has been using online course management systems to extend the classroom walls beyond the traditional classroom.

Currently, I am Director of Learning and Instruction at The Linsly School.  In this role, I have shifted my primary focus to curriculum, and still know that technology is an important tool for learning.  I am excited to report that we will be implementing Schoology school-wide beginning this August, and you can expect some blog posts from me that detail our experience integrating this system, and some ways that our teachers and students are finding it useful.

I look forward to guest blogging and participating in the #Web20Chat on Twitter.

Follow Melissa on Schoology

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