FTT - Schoology Assessments

Schoology Assessments

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

I've been just a tad unwilling to write about online Schoology assessments because of some of the difficulties of online test security, extended time, technical logistics, and the cost/benefit analysis of online vs. pen and paper, but more and more teachers have been intrigued about the benefits of Schoology's Assessment capabilities, and honestly Schoology's program is quite good. So here we go: Online testing!

Fluid compatibility

Right off the start you'll see one of the major benefits of using Schoology assessments is how easily questions can be graded and transferred to your gradebook. Initially building an assessment will ask you to assign point values and categories for the transfer of information between your assessment and the gradebook. 

Now Schoology can instantly grade student responses and enter values into your gradebook, but that'll depend on the types of questions you are adding. Multiple choice questions are easily graded and transferred, but short answer/essay questions will need to wait for your input. Either way, student answers and teacher feedback is organized and locked into Schoology. 

Building test parameters

Schoology allows teachers some granular control over what the online assessment will look like:

• Instructions to be displayed to students before the start
• Time limits for taking the assessment
• Randomly order questions
• Show possible points for each question during an attempt
• Can students use calculator, and if so is it basic or scientific?
• Same question for rulers, and protractors
• Can student eliminate choices for multiple choice?
• Can students view results immediately after completion?
• How many attempts can students submit?

And so on...most of your assessment queries can be answered in the Setup tab. 

Question Types

Question type - the menu of options is quite robust:

And each question type can be further fine-tuned and dialed in. Look for example the parameters for a multiple choice question:

Writing the question itself is simple and self-explanatory. You have direct control over how many options there are, the order, and full access to the text editor.

You can also shuffle answer choices, allow multiple responses, or even give partial credit to an alternate answer.

Grading 

You can grade by question, or by student, and doing so gives you a wealth of information such as:

• The number of student attempts
• Completion status
• Last modified
• Students' elapsed time for completion

Like we mentioned above, certain types of questions can be auto-graded by Schoology, and uploaded to your gradebook. Questions that require a direct look from the teacher will wait for teacher input before the grade is transferred over.

Miscellaneous

Once created you can do a number of things with your assessment for increased utility:

• You can publish or unpublish your assessment
• Copy the assessment to another course
• Save to resources to share with another teacher
• Print a physical copy

Test Security

This is the big one - how to ask students to take an assessment on their Chromebooks or laptops, but keep them from straying to another site, taking a screenshot, or printing the questions? 

Schoology has partnered with LockDown Browser to cover these concerns. By enabling LockDown Browser you can:

To activate lockdown browser, you must create the assessment first. Then on the left-hand side of your Schoology page, click on "LockDown Browser" to access the conditions above. 

Even with these safeguards, teachers are a bit hesitant to fully embrace online testing as a replacement for the traditional paper and pen. And that's OK. You really only want to adopt a tech option, only if it is a realistic improvement over traditional methods. Some teachers love the assessment option as a formative review, as opposed to a summative assessment. Do you use Schoology's assessment function? Let us know your thoughts below!

FTT - Edpuzzle and Schoology

EdPuzzle And Schoology

Almost Like Peanut Butter and Jelly

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

I was such a weird kid. I did not like peanut butter and jelly. Instead, I took tuna fish sandwiches to school every day. Now that I'm an adult and have a much more refined palate, I can recognize the brilliance of these two flavors together. They definitely bring out the best in each other.

Two other things that work well together are Schoology and EdPuzzle. Never heard of EdPuzzle? I like it so much there are two previous  blog posts about it. You can find them by searching the Giant EdTech blog.

Here's Edpuzzle in a nutshell:

As more and more classrooms are employing the use of video, EdPuzzle allows teachers to use the video as an actual lesson. EdPuzzle is the perfect tool for allowing students to watch and engage with videos while the teacher gathers data throughout the lesson. Teachers can embed questions within a video and get great formative data on the students' understanding of what was taught in the video. In the dashboard, you can see how long a student spent on the video, you can see their responses, it will even grade for you if the question is multiple choice. You can also turn on the closed captioning and you can click a tab so students won't be able to skip ahead.

Interested?

But wait, now you can embed your EdPuzzle lesson right into your Schoology page.

Step1: When you are in Schoology, click on the App Center (4 squares). Scroll to EdPuzzle and click to install. You can decide which classes you want to use it with. I went ahead and added it to all, even if I don't use it right away, at least it's there.

Step 2: When you are in your Schoology class you will see EdPuzzle listed on the left under LockDown Browser. If you click that you can sign in and connect your EdPuzzle account to Schoology. You only need to do this once.

Step 3: From the materials page, click Add Materials and you will see EdPuzzle on the right. If you already have video lessons created in EdPuzzle, you can click right there and you will see your lessons.

Step 4: Don't have any lessons created in EdPuzzle yet? No problem! Just go over to EdPuzzle.com and select your videos and create your lessons. You will need to click "assign" for it to show up in Schoology. 

 



And now for the big question, is EdPuzzle free? Take a quick look at the EdPuzzle website and they are very clear that EdPuzzle is free for teachers and students, to a point. The basic/free account will allow you to store up to 20 videos. They have a referral system where you can refer friends and colleagues and when they create their free accounts, you both will get more storage. Otherwise, there is a pro account for purchase.

I can't wait to hear how the great EdPuzzle/Schoology combo works in your classes! Feel free to reach out with questions or if you want to work on your first lesson together. 

FTT - Gmail Filters and Labels

Gmail Filters and Labels

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

I think I have a threshold of about 5 or 6 unread emails before I get a little twitchy. I know I probably shouldn't, but I've got my work Gmail attached to my personal cellphone, and I am constantly checking it at home. So I am a little amazed when I see teachers sitting on 10 thousand unread emails. But I am not surprised; teachers can get an absurd amount of emails on a daily basis, and it's about time we clean up our inboxes. 

Filters: You're the boss - make some rules

Filters are essentially rules you make and Gmail will apply theses rules to any email that comes your way. So for example, I was receiving a large number of concussion related emails last year, and while it was eye-opening for me to see the pure volume of students in concussion protocol, those emails were not specifically pertinent to me. So I created a filter - all concussion related emails from our school nurse were tagged with a "concussion" label and filtered from my main inbox, to a side folder. That way I don't necessarily see them in my main inbox, but I can access them anytime I need to. 

1.  First click the down arrow in Gmail's search box

2. This will open up Gmail's advance search settings. Here you can create the parameters to structure your Filter rules. So here's an example:

• Emails from Dtiveron@dist113.org
• Has the words: "Makerspace" or "3D printing"
• Mark as Important and Never Send it to Spam

Now Gmail knows that anytime an email from Derrick Tiveron mentions Makerspace, or 3D printing, it'll follow the rules. Notice there are many different rules we could apply. You can also apply these filter rules to past emails that already live in your inbox!

Gmail Labels - organize your "folders"

Creating Gmail Labels is essentially creating folders to organize your emails - I know many people enjoyed Microsoft Outlook's capacity for storage and organization of emails. So by creating a label, and attaching that label to an email, you're basically tagging that email and organizing it into a folder. So for example, as a wrestling coach, I will often tag my wrestling related emails under the, wait for it, "Wrestling" label, and viola - those emails can all be easily accessed by clicking on the Wrestling label. Here's how:

1. Create labels - on the left hand side of your Gmail page, under "inbox" you will see "More." Click on that, and then you will see "Manage Labels," and "Create Labels." 

2. Once created, to tag an email with a particular Label - just click on the checkbox and then click on the label button to assign.

Do you have a successful or useful filter or label combo? Comment below!