With school rolling in again, teachers and students alike are adjusting to our new assignment tracking system: Schoology. As with all new things, there has been some confusion. Some teachers are opting to stick with our old friend, Google Classroom, and others are embracing the new. Among the uncertainty, we’ve decided to take a deeper dive into the two platforms, both from a technical perspective and from a student perspective.

Google Classroom was released to the public in 2014 by Google. Its main purpose is to facilitate a convenient, paperless educational experience for students, which is exactly what it’s been doing for the Milton Public Schools for years. 

The platform is compatible with other Google products, such as Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Chromebooks, allowing most digital resources that are necessary to a classroom to be closely tied and always readily available. Due to its ease of use, feedback for Google Classroom is positive overall: It’s ranked #6 in education apps on the App Store, a favorite of educators everywhere. It’s entirely free for both students and teachers to use, making it an excellent option for student education.

Based on the Powerschool website, Schoology was originally a project created by college students Jeremy Friedman, Timothy Trinidad, Ryan Hwang, and Bill Kindler. Schoology was created in 2009 and was acquired by PowerSchool, a Major Digital Education brand, in 2019. This digital educational experience functions as a gateway for grades and assignments, profiting from many multi-faceted features on the teacher and student ends. 

It uses Google Assignments to allow students to submit work using Google applications; however, it doesn’t benefit from the inherent compatibility that Google Classroom has with Google products. This year, with the Milton Public Schools replacing PlusPortals with PowerSchool as a universal grade-tracking system, Schoology has begun to replace Google Classroom in many teachers’ classes. However, is this what the students want?

We took it upon ourselves to answer this pressing query. Two days ago, we sent out a Google Fo-rm to the students of Milton High School to find out what the student body thinks about this issue. Over the course of two days, 154 students sent in responses. Let’s take a look at those responses now, question by question. 

The first question asked which platform students preferred from a visual perspective. A 98.1% majority told us that they favored Google Classroom, with only three students claiming they preferred Schoology’s design. These statistics held true, with the same data in response to our question about platform navigation. 

So far, Google Classroom has a large lead against Schoology, but can Schoology make it up when it comes to technical difficulties? In short, 61.7% of students reported only ever having issues with Schoology, and, interestingly enough, 29.2% of students reported never having issues with either platform. The remaining 9% of students were split evenly between just having issues with Google Classroom and having issues with both. 

Based on these responses, it comes to nobody’s surprise that 97.4% of participating students reported liking Google Classroom better overall, but what is interesting is why. Josalyn Scanlan voiced several of their issues with the navigation system of Schoology, and commented that, “You don’t have the option to submit an assignment with no attachment,” a key issue for students considering the presence of the convenient “Mark as Done” option on Google Classroom.

Of course, the visual side of Schoology was critiqued as well, and as junior Winston Cathcart put it, “Google Classroom looks nice and it is easy to use. Schoology fails at this, for some reason. Even if Schoology can do so much more, why look at something ugly?”

Some students expressed a dislike for the platform overall, like Jacob Dally, who wrote, “Schoology feels like a step backwards. Luckily, I won’t have to be in the school when they inevitably switch since I am a senior. Hallelujah!”

While the student body’s response was largely anti-Schoology, we decided to get a staff perspective to compare opinions. Many teachers chose not to use Schoology at the beginning of the year, but the few who did were able to express their thoughts on it.

“Any piece of technology, when we’re learning, can be difficult to learn,” said Mrs. Bettencourt, a member of the Schoology committee. “I think there’s some really great aspects to it, and I think there’s a lot for me to figure out. I empathize with students having to use two different learning platforms.”

She also believes that a portion of Schoology’s value lies in its novelty, stating that, “I think that it’s important for us to learn new technology, since we are in this time where technology is taking the world by storm.”

Additionally, we collected feedback from Mr. Larsson, a social studies teacher. “I think [Schoology] is easy to organize when you get used to it. I think it is very similar to what a lot of students might experience in college and grad school in the way it’s formatted,” he shared.

As a newcomer to Milton, he decided to try out Schoology to gain experience with a new platform. “I think it’s a really cool program with a lot of capabilities, and I think it will be really helpful when it’s adapted by more teachers.”

For the time being, regardless of student objection, we’re stuck with Schoology. In the coming months, many students will build experience with the platform, exploring all of its diverse functions. Who knows–by the end of the year, student opinions may be drastically different.