Now that I have your attention, let’s talk about students being assessed through Schoology while giving everyone a fair chance.
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Catching a student cheating on an assessment is never fun to deal with. From confronting the student, to reporting the student to the administration. As teachers, we use different methods to try and curve this behavior, putting up a partition, printing out different versions of a test, and even moving desks around.

There is no doubt we want to provide our students a fair chance to do their best while making the testing environment as equatable as possible.

I use Schoology for assessments for a few reasons, you can see the reasons at the end of this blog, but I would like to have an online environment for assessments that maintains the integrity of my assessments. This way I do not have to worry if a student is opening other tabs on their device.

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There is a plug-in for Schoology called Respondus. What this program does is it provides an independent browser, when used, locks a students laptop or iPad. The student cannot take a screen shot nor can the assessment be exited until the student submits their work. Also, the browser cannot be accessed by any other browser. By having this in place the teacher can use the test time more efficiently either by grading other work, or catching up on emails. If you want to check out the functions of Respondus click HERE.

These are the steps I have taken to test this browser:

1. Working with Joan to talk to the rep. from Respondus about setting up a test run of the program.
2. Talked with Josh in IT about having them also be part of the test so they can see how the program runs on both laptop and iPad, while trying to test (hack) the system.

My reasoning for using Schoology is threefold, efficiency, organization, and assessments. In regards to efficiency, you are able to change settings so the order of the questions will be different from person to person. If you are doing a multiple choice test, it can go even deeper and randomize the order of the answers of the question from person to person. Also, if you are doing a multiple choice test, you can have Schoology release their score as soon as the student is done with the test. That makes it easier for grading!!!

My second reason is because of organization. When giving a paper test you are keeping track of the work turned in and the test questions to make sure they do not walk out the door. In Schoology, all of the testing material stays in one place, you do not need to lug a bunch of papers around, and you can see who has not taken the test (easy way of taking attendance). Less clutter can always be helpful. Also, if you are giving a short response or essay question you can do all of your reading and grading in one screen. The comment box is there as well to share ideas with your students.

Lastly, Schoology provides multiple ways of assessing students. From true/false to ordering, and from short-answer/essay questions to fill in the blank. Having this range of assessments can help provide different ways to assess the students.

Enough of the swooning over Schoology. Thank you for reading.