Schoology-paperless artroom here we come!

I found a great online site for secure student group management  www.schoology.com . I looked at it over the summer, but have not had a chance to set up classes and groups till recently.  As I've mentioned before our district uses Moodle. I'm not overly impressed with the user friendliness and overall appearance of Moodle.  Apparently others feel the same way, because as a district we are starting to look at other options that might be out there...yeh!  The www.schoology.com site is far more user friendly and is set up similar to facebook so the students have no trouble navigating through it. You can link it to your Moodle site too if you want.  As a district with student email account difficulties the, to say the least, an invite code rather than email option is wonderful.  I can just give them a preset code and they can log in to their course or group.  There are separate codes for each section/group and you can change them as needed and/or remove students that you don't want in that group or section.  If you do have reliable student email accounts they can register with them as well. www.schoology.com has a gallery(albums) you can set up for students, which I love for online critiques!.  Also included are discussions, attendance, tests, links, apps, calendar of events, and the list goes on.  Oh, and did I mention it's FREE! I think I found a good fit for my students and I. I'll let you know how things go.

Give it a try if you haven't and let me know how it goes.  If you are using it or have in the past let me know what you think too.    www.schoology.com