General Schoology
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Set Default Landing Page for a Schoology Course
Keywords: Default page, updates, materials, change default landing Aliases: Schoology What is the Default landing page? By default, teachers and students land on the course Materials page when accessing a course. The Materials page displays course folders and the Materials Index for easy access to course content. Teachers may change the default landing page to the Updates area to focus students' attention to Updates in the course. Click Course Options in the left menu Select Edit Privacy/Course Settings. In the Default Landing Page menu, select Updates. Click Save Changes to update your settings.
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How Students and Staff Update their Schoology Password for Mobile App Usage
Keywords: change password, update before using app, Schoology mobile app Aliases: Schoology, Schoology app, Schoology mobile app Watch video below to learn how to change your Schoology password before using the mobile app. This is for Staff and Students only. <span class="fr-mk" style="display: none;"> </span><span class="fr-mk" style="display: none;"> </span> Video Transcription: The video "How Students and Staff Update their Schoology Password for Mobile App Usage updated March 2022" by Angela May, uploaded on March 16, 2022, provides a tutorial for updating Schoology passwords in the Peninsula School District. This is particularly important for students and staff who want to use the Schoology mobile app. The video is 227 seconds long and outlines the following steps: Logging into the Portal: Students and staff must first log into the Peninsula School District portal. This step does not apply to parents. Accessing Schoology: Once logged in, navigate to 'Core Tools' and select Schoology. Profile Verification: Verify that the correct user is logged in, especially if the device is shared. Updating the Password: Go to the profile area, then 'Settings', and scroll down to 'Account Password'. Despite the terminology, users aren't changing their password but rather informing Schoology of their existing Peninsula School District password for app use. Entering Password Details: Users may need to enter their district password twice and submit it. This process syncs the password with the mobile app. Mobile App Installation: After updating the password, users can install the Schoology app on their mobile devices (iPhone, Android, iPad, etc.) and should be able to log in successfully. Notification Settings: Users can check the 'Notifications' section in Schoology to see if their mobile devices are connected. The video is designed to help users in the Peninsula School District smoothly transition to using the Schoology mobile app by updating their passwords appropriately.
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Start of Term/Year Instructor Schoology Checklist
Keywords:prepare your courses. adding materials and grading, elementary schoology grade set up, gradebook options, course templates, course section linking, syncing schoology grades with PowerTeacher Pro, final grade settings, course templates, set up courses, creating courses Aliases: Schoology, PowerSchool Please open and use this document to guide you through set up each new term Start of Term/Year Instructor Checklist
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Schoology Basics Checklist
Keywords: Schoology, Schoology 101, Schoology basics, schoology support, Aliases: Schoology The Schoology Basics Checklist will guide you through steps for setting up and using Schoology. Schoology Basics Checklist
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End-of-Term/Year Schoology Considerations
Keywords: Archived Courses, End of year, gradebook sync. Aliases: Schoology, not syncing, out of sync, final grades. End of the Year/Term Schoology Considerations Information to know Finalizing Feedback, Grading, and Reports Review Your Courses and Prepare for Next Term/Year Access to Groups and Support Materials Additional Supports and Resources News and Updates Information to know Corresponding PowerSchool Courses are archived, not deleted, a few days after the end of the term or school year. Course tiles for the ending term will no longer appear in the drop down menu and will be moved from the My Courses > Current list to the Archived list. See Archived Courses for more information. You do not need to do anything special at the end of the term/year to keep your courses or materials. You will always be able to access previous courses in the Archived listing. Finalizing Feedback, Grading, and Reports Finalize feedback to assignments and grades as needed. See Adding Feedback & Grade Comment for more information. Use Bulk Edit to review and/or update publishing, category, points, due dates, and grading period. See Bulk Edit for more information. Review and decide which assignments may need to have submissions disabled or locked. See Disable Submissions VS Locking Submissions for more information. Check to make sure all grades are published and up to date. You may have set some of your materials to Unpublished throughout the school year to prevent students from accessing those items. Unpublishing an item also removes the item from students' final grade report that is visible to them in Schoology. If you have unpublished an item to prevent students from accessing it, but you want the received grades for that item to factor into the student's calculated overall grade, you must re-publish the material(s). See Final Grades and Unpublishing Material on Schoology/PowerSchool for more information. Careful: If you used the “Copy Settings” button to transfer the settings from a similar course, final grade settings are not copied with the Copy Settings option. The Final Grade settings must be configured individually for each course section. See Final Grades for more information. Add grades for items not completed in Schoology. See Add Grade Column or Disable Submissions on Assignments for more information. Secondary teachers, check to ensure grade data for assignments and final grades have correctly synced from Schoology to PowerTeacher Pro. See Syncing Schoology Grades with PowerTeacher Pro for more information and/or request support from a Digital Learning Coach through a Service Central ticket. Exporting the Gradebook as a backup and/or to share with next term teachers is an option at the end of the term/year. See Final Grades for more information. Grades added to Archived Courses after the term ends, will not be reflected in or synced to PowerTeacher Pro. Teachers would need to modify their data in PowerTeacher Pro. Print Student Grade Reports as needed. Optional Student Grade Reports can be printed on paper or saved and shared as a PDF as necessary. See Print Grade Reports for more information. Review Your Courses and Prepare for Next Term/Year At the end of the term/year, you may wish to save your course and its contents to Resources to allow easy access from a new course. See Save Courses to Resources for more information. *Note tips for saving Google Drive Assignment Button items in Save Courses to Resources Consider the following scenarios for steps on how to save and reuse your course materials: I’m teaching the same course at the same school again next year. How do I save and reuse my materials? I’m leaving my current school/organization/department. How do I share my materials with the instructor who is taking my place? I am leaving my current school/organization/department. How do I take my materials with me? Recording illustrating process Cleaning up your My Courses list: NEVER delete a course from the My Courses list. Deleting the course deletes it for ALL members. Instead, unenroll yourself from the course. Schoology courses will be created and populated through PowerSchool in August. Students will appear in the Schoology course members list within 24 hours of being enrolled in PowerSchool. You will be able to add or import content to courses from Resources or Archived Course once you see courses in the Schoology Courses dropdown or My Courses listing. You can update and organize your material templates directly in Resources at any time. *Note items in Resources are static, changes made to items in Resources are NOT transferred to that item located out in a course. If you make a change to a material template in Resources, you will need to re-Add to Course to see the update in the course. You can copy grade settings from Archived Courses for consistency and to save time. Save Rubrics for use in other courses Archiving Staff Created Courses - The ability to create, edit grading period, and delete staff created courses is only enabled for short periods of time at the beginning of a term. You can archive a course by editing course info to a past grading period during the open time or submit a Service Central ticket. Access to Groups and Support Materials Grade Level/Department Groups in Schoology are a great source for standards, frameworks information and support materials. See Access Groups in Schoology for more information on how to join and leave a group. If you no longer need to be a member of a Group, you can Leave this Group yourself, no need to ask someone! Additional Supports and Resources Start of Term/Year Instructor Checklist Schoology Basics Checklist Service Central Schoology Solutions Grade Sync Troubleshooting Checklist DLI Professional Learning and Support News and Updates As Schoology is always working to improve the function and capabilities of the platform, there are often updates to the way tools work and even new tools and functions that are released periodically. The following are recent updates we want to highlight: Elementary Experience Microsoft Immersive Reader Integration Student Annotations Materials Button Please open/share this Google Doc version of this article if needed: End of Term/Year Schoology Considerations
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Schoology - Changing Section Name
Keywords: Schoology, Course, Section Names, Course Names, PowerSchool Sync Aliases: Schoology, LMS, SIS, PowerSchool, Changing Names, Unique Course Name, Unique Section Name See attached for help doc on how to make courses in Schoology unique to your. class. This makes it very helpful to know which specific course (and which grading period course) you are working in. * PSD Courses for students are created through PowerSchool. You should NOT change the "Course Name". Doing so will cause confusion in how the Course Name is displayed for others that are instructors and members of that overarching Course, and will also mess up the future PowerSchool sync. Example; There are 4 teachers that teach Kindergarten in a particular building. ATTENDANCE KINDERGARTEN is the main overarching course with 4 sections (one for each teacher). If one teacher changes the Course Name to Mr. John Doe's K Kids, it will show as "Mr. John Doe's K Kids" for ALL the kindergarten courses at that school. Instead, change the section name of the course. This allows you to create a unique ID for your course while not affecting other teachers. Please see Graphics below for further clarification:
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Add Zoom Link to Event Calendar in Schoology
Keywords: Zoom, Meetings, Event Calendar Aliases: You can add a Zoom link to a specific day and time in the Event Calendar. Currently there is no way to create a recurring event and each event (date & time) would need to be added. Schoology is currently working to update this feature. But this is still a great way to have meetings listed in the Event Calendar of Schoology. Video Transcription: Donna Squires' video "Adding Zoom Meetings to Schoology Calendar" provides a helpful guide for educators on how to organize Zoom meeting invites within the Schoology platform. She demonstrates how to post Zoom meeting links in the Schoology calendar, making them easily accessible to middle and high school students who might be overwhelmed by multiple invites. The key steps include: Creating an Event: Adding an event in the Schoology calendar and including details like date and time. Adding a Live Zoom Link: Ensuring the Zoom link is clickable by placing the cursor at the end of the URL and pressing Enter. Centralized Access: By adding Zoom meetings to the Schoology calendar, students can view all their upcoming Zoom sessions from different classes in one centralized location, aiding in better organization. The video aims to simplify the process for students to access their Zoom meetings, reducing the frustration of managing multiple links and passwords. Donna concludes by inviting feedback and offering additional assistance.
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Schoology Grade Set Up
Keywords: Schoology, Grades, Setup Aliases: Grade Setup is an important step in organizing and preparing your course. It will enable you to use the gradebook to manage and communicate the progress of learning with students and families if you choose to. Please see the different information for Elementary and Secondary. General Information The following is general information about the settings and functions of the Grade Setup tab. While you will want to be familiar with this section, please the specific information fro Elementary and Secondary at the end. Use the Grade Setup area to adjust grade settings for your course. In this area, you can manage your Grading Categories, create scales and rubrics, adjust the weights of your grading periods, and enable Final Grade Settings for your student reports. To access Grade Setup, click Grade Setup on the left side of your course. Note: As a Schoology Enterprise district, you may not have edit access to all areas of this page based on the permissions in place at your organization. Please reach out to DLI Instructional Team with any questions. Grading Categories Grading Categories enable you to organize graded items in the course. At least one grading category is required in order for you to use the Gradebook. Common examples of categories include Classwork, Homework, or Quizzes. There is no limit to the number of categories you can create, and you can weight each according to your own definition. To add a new category: Click Add in the Categories area. Enter a Name. Select either Percent or Total Points as the category calculation method. Click here to learn about the difference between Percent and Total Points as calculation methods. Use Drop lowest to automatically drop the lowest n grades within that category from each student's overall score in the course. Click Create to complete. Note: If you are syncing grades to PowerTeacher Pro, you will need to leave Calculate by as Total Points for each category for both weighted and non-weighted categories. Tip: Click the star icon to the right of one of your categories to mark it as your default category for newly-created materials. To delete a category: Hover over the category you'd like to delete and click x that appears to the right of the category. If there are any course materials attached to the grading category, you will be prompted to assign another category to those materials before you can proceed to delete: Once the materials are attached to another grading category or there are no materials attached to the category, click Delete to complete. Weight Grading Categories After you have created at least one category, you can choose to weight the categories for your course by checking Weight Categories. Enabling weighted categories displays a new Weight field next to each Category name. Enter proportional values into these fields to adjust the weight for each category. Important Notes: Grading Categories cannot be changed throughout the course without impacting all grading periods of the course. For example, changing the grading category weights for the 2nd Quarter will also change the calculated grades in Quarter 1. Weights are relative to each other. You can view the Category's actual percentage value of the next to the Weight field. For example, if Weight Categories is checked, and I have four categories with a weight of 100, the percentage of each category within the overall grade is 25%. If one weighted category has no graded materials associated with it, then the category's weight is evenly distributed across the other categories. Note: If you are syncing grades to PowerTeacher Pro, you will need to leave Calculate by as Total Points for each category. In order for syncing to work correctly between Schoology and PowerTeacher Pro, you will need to make sure Traditional Grade Calculations in PowerTeacher Pro have been set to Category Weighting. See this Guide to Schoology/PowerTeacher Pro Grade Set Up for more information on grade set up: Edit Categories To make changes to an existing category, click the category name. In the popup window that displays, you may adjust: The Category Name. The Calculation Method. The number of low scores you'd like to drop from the overall calculation. The weight of the category. Grading Periods & Final Weights The Grading Periods & Final Weights area enables you to view all of the grading periods associated with your course, as well as the weighted percentages of each grading period. Depending on the settings in place at your school, you may be able to add or remove grading periods to your course. To add or remove a Grading Period, follow these steps: Click Edit to the right of the Grading Periods & Final Weights. Select from existing Grading Periods. If there aren't any grading periods listed in your school, you can add a new one to the course by entering a title (SP2018 or 2018-2019 Semester 1, for example) and a start and end date. If you don't see the ability to add grading periods to your course, contact a Digital Learning Coach for support. Click Save to complete. Note: Assignments, assessments, test/quizzes, or graded discussions designated as midterm/final appear in this area. These items can be given a weight, calculated as part of the student's overall grade, and can be viewed in the Final/Midterm Material Grades filter in the Grading Period drop-down menu in the Gradebook. Final Grade Settings Use Final Grade Settings to customize how final grades calculate and display to students. To adjust these settings: Select the Scale under Final Grade Settings: Numeric — displays the final grade as a percentage. A+/- — displays the final grade as a letter (A, B, C, D, F, +/-) You can also select a custom grading Scale in this area (see below for details). Check Round Period/Final Grades to round grading period grades and final grades. Click Save Changes to complete. The Final Grade Settings area also includes the Control Grading Columns in Gradebook and Visibility Settings sections. Learn more about these settings in Grade Setup: Final Grade Settings. Grading Scales & Rubrics Create custom Grading Scales and Rubrics to grade your materials or apply them to your Final Grade Settings. Grading Scales map an alphanumeric value of your choice to a percentage grade (0-100), and rubrics enable you to score an an assignment, graded discussion, or test/quiz question based on several criteria. Scales In the screenshot above, a System Admin created the scales with the lock icons at the system-level in an Enterprise organization. Instructors cannot edit these scales. Tip: Click the star icon to the right of a scale to mark it as your default scale for newly-created materials. For the Peninsula School District, the Letter Grade Scales have been set up and locked to match the PowerSchool Settings. You will not have the ability to edit Percentage-based scales. Note: The Numeric and A +/- scales are pre-populated for all Schoology instructors; you cannot remove these from the Scales list. Rubrics To add a rubric: Click the Add button in the upper right in the Grading Scales section. Select the Rubricoption and fill out the form: Enter a name for the rubric. Create titles and descriptions for each criteria. To add additional rows of criteria, click on the +Criteria button or +Learning Objective button. To add additional columns to the scale, hover over the cell and click on the + icon that appears to the left and right of each cell. To remove a row or column, hover over the cell and click on the x icon that appears in the upper right. To reorder the rows, click on the double bars to the left and drag it to the appropriate location. Use the menu items on the upper left to close or hide the rubric. The Total Pts for the rubric automatically adjust as you add rows and columns. To create a rubric using learning objectives or standards, click the Alignments link next to Criteria. Click Create to complete. Click here to learn more about using rubrics. Copy Settings You can copy these settings to other courses you administer using the Copy Settings button. Click Copy Settings in the upper right corner. Choose to copy Categories, Grading Scales, Rubrics, or all three. Grading Periods and Final Grade Settings cannot be copied. Select the course(s) to which you'd like to copy the grade settings. You can only copy to courses for which you are a Course Admin. Click Copy to complete. Elementary Grade Setup Options Click on the link for more information: Elementary Schoology Grade Set up and Gradebook Options Secondary Grade Setup Options Please click here for the self-guided flowdeck to walk you through setting up your Schoology gradebook with the option to sync to PowerSchool. Guided Schoology & PowerTeacher Pro Gradebook Setup for Secondary
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Copy Grade Settings from One Course to Another in Schoology
Keywords: Schoology, Grades, Copy, Course Aliases: Copy Settings You can copy these settings to other courses you administer using the Copy Settings button. Click Copy Settings in the upper right corner. Choose to copy Categories, Grading Scales, Rubrics, or all three. Grading Periods and Final Grade Settings cannot be copied. Select the course(s) to which you'd like to copy the grade settings. You can only copy to courses for which you are a Course Admin. Click Copy to complete.
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Make an Update into an Announcement in a Schoology Course
Keywords: Schoology, Update Announcements Aliases: Make an update into an announcement To make a course Update into an Announcement, check the bell icon next to the Post button. This must be done at the time the update is created. You cannot change an Update into an Announcement after it is posted. This promotes the update to the top of the Updates page and to the top of the Course page until you remove the announcement from the top.