New website serves as enhanced organization tool for classes

This semester, several teachers are beginning to use “Schoology,” a website that organizes all their class’s information into one place for free. 

Schoology is a type of educational online media with social networking feature. The system also boasts an organizational system: Teachers can upload files, calendars and class agendas. Students also have the option to share files and assignments with peers in their class and their teacher. 

English teacher Ken Nguyen is one of the teachers at the school to test it out.

“I attended a meeting last semester with a few other teachers from the district and we decided to pilot different Learning Management System’s to see which provided the most features,” Nguyen said. “It’s an online presence for what I would typically conduct in a normal classroom setting.”

Schoology has an organized Facebook-like website that makes it very accessible to students.

“It’s much easier to navigate because with Schoology, everything is in one place,” sophomore Summer Smith said, who has used it in Nguyen’s English 10 class for the past month. “There is no need to go to several different websites for different things.”  

Schoology, while serving primarily as a tool for course organization, also acts as a communication tool between students and teachers.

“The messaging feature in Schoology is more efficient than messaging with social media because it’s much quicker to communicate with your peers and even your teachers right on the spot,” sophomore Neel Jain said, who is also in Nguyen’s English 10 class. 

The school’s speech and debate team began to use the website as of last fall for planning events and keeping in touch with the coaches.

“The most distinguishing feature of this website is that unlike Facebook, you can tell who’s serious about the team and who’s not,” sophomore Aakash Thumaty said. “Facebook groups and events are for usually for anyone interested, whereas the events and groups on Schoology are for those really committed to the team.”

Schoology is a rising website that could be of much use for student, teachers and administrators everywhere, according to Smith.

“Once schools start using it, it will be much more beneficial in the organization of school life,” Smith said.