Learning Management Systems

This week, I used and evaluated two learning management systems, Edmodo and Schoology.  Both of these systems emulate the social media website, Facebook. As you can see below, they have a very close appearance to each other.

This allows students and teachers to adapt easily to these two programs.  Now, what do these programs have that my beloved Google Classroom doesn't?  Well, both of them have some extra bells and whistles, but Schoology has a few more options and abilities.  If you are looking to house all of your data in one place Schoology has the ability to take attendance and keep a gradebook.  Edmodo also has a gradebook, but it is not as inclusive as the one offered by Schoology.  Here are some other great features offered by these two learning management systems:

• Folders to store files, links, and assignments.
• Quizzes that can grade themselves and post to the gradebook.
• Polls to measure the opinions to other students.
• Tools to share resources with other teachers and students.
• The ability to control the sharing that students can participate in.
• Storing assignments and other resources so that you can use them at a later date.

If you think I am abandoning this blog to start a Edmodo or Schoology blog, worry not.  Google Classroom still edges them out in the ease of sharing and the ability to see assignments as student work.  Plus, I think we will see some of these features come from Google very soon.  Give these learning management systems a try and maybe you will see some added benefits, of course, to use in conjunction with Google Classroom.