Skill: 3.1.3 – Tools within the LMS Quest

Reflect for a moment on the LMS used for the quests in this skill. Then, list each tool available within the LMS in your blog. Which tools would be most valuable in the online classroom? Which would be of least value?

After looking through the free LMS I choose to do a trial for Schoology. It was very easy to register and ended up being user friendly. Schoology offers lots of different possibilities to use within the classroom.

There is:

Email	Schoology has a simple messaging system where you can send attachments and links.
Notification System:	Schoology will send a notice to instructors when a discussion has been posted or an assignment has been turned in. This would be very valuable to keep track of student progress!
Discussion	These are embedded and are easy to grade. Discussions are useful because it helps bring in the social aspect to online learning.
Quizzing/ Testing:	Tin Schoology the instructor can create and set up quizzes. These are a great tool to give students  formative and summative assessments.
Social Profile	Schoology is not very social but it does allow users to create a profile of interests, learning styles, and a pictures. I like the fact that it does not integrate with Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc – as these can often be a distraction
Alert System	Schoology will send me an alert when assignments are turned in. This would help me manage my time and I could determine would I would log in to grade things base don the number of things to grade.
Calendar:	There is a calendar where events and assignments can be added. This helps everyone know what is coming up on the agenda in the classroom.
Dropbox	In this area assignments can be attached or dropped in. It is a great organizing system that keeps track of who has turned in what. It is also linked to the gradebook.
Gradebook:	The grade book can be set for numeric or on a letter grade. You can also set up the gradebook into categories that you want. The gradebook is also linked to discussions, dropbox, and quizzes for ease.
User Progress	Schoology has an analytic tool that will provide login in information, data, and when and how students are using the content. This is helpful in developing course work and remediation.
Grading	Grading can be numeric or letter. You can integrate rubrics into assessments. Rubrics make it easier to grade assignments.
Comments/Feedback	The gradebook provide open-ended feedback for student assessment at the assessment, but I did not like that the comments from assignments do not populate directly into the gradebook.

 I think some of the most important tools are feedback, analytics, and the ability to tie dropbox/discussions/tests directly to the gradebook. For students I think the ability to give feedback to students enhances the online learning experience. For teachers  I think the analytics can help decide what actions a student might need to take in order to achieve success in the class. To save time the linking of graded assignments directly to the gradebook gives everyone a real time sense of what a student’s grade is.