Moodle vs. Schoology Learning

Moodle is a Learning Management System and is best suited for just that. We didn't like the assessment piece of our full scale Learning Management System (nor did we want to purchase the entire assessment module) so we chose to use Moodle for this, and it works well. Installing this application with the intention of only using a portion of its capabilities can be successful in environments where you have technical skills and a broad understanding of integration between your systems. For institutions that lack these, you're better suited to using a full scale of an LMS with assessment inside that same application.

Incentivized

Schoology does the job well enough, but there are enough areas of contention that make advanced use of the system unwieldy. District staff does not have easy reporting ability to determine adoption and use of the platform without having to export to another program for analysis. The reliability of the system is a huge pain point as we need to deliver the curriculum but cannot count on it being available when we need to use it.

Incentivized

• Moodle's grade book works well. Assignments are integrated so the grades are recorded automatically.
• Moodle is customizable by administrators, so our version only gives us the options we need. NO Clutter.
• The discussion board offers several options for instructors that help with grading. I use "sum of points", but there are other options as well.

Incentivized

• Customer Service is amazing. If there is something that doesn't see to work, the customer service department is there to help! The help and support page is comprehensive.
• It is easy to embed various programs, web site and apps into this one LMS platform. This makes if very easy to customize.
• Improvements and modifications are constantly being made. The company stays ahead of current trends.
• Organization of courses and groups is easy, with many an endless amount of possibilities available for creation.

• Rubric Management. This may have been addressed in a plugin module.
• Better tools for examining outcomes from exams and rubrics across a class, course, or organization. This may have been addressed in a plugin module.
• Improved content management within the default installation. While there are modules that support products such as Drupal, building into the default product would ease adoption.

Incentivized

• The test banks in the personal resources need to be more functional. The ability to be able to create folders for a course and insert multiple test banks within that folder for different units of the same course would be more efficient. Being able to add colors to different folders would also make it easier to identify which course teachers were looking for and separate test and quizzes from the unit and final exams. It would be nice if the tracking of the test banks could be turned on and off so that graphs, charts, political cartoons, and other images could be changed without the need to necessarily change the question. For example, using red for US History, blue for World History, green for Economics, black for Government then within each folder quizzes could be orange, unit exams could be yellow, and finals exams could be purple under each course, or whatever color made sense to the teacher.
• The graphing capabilities in assessments need to be more functional outside of math. It would be nice if geography students could create population graphs that would include inverted x and y-axis charts to the left of a regular x and y-axis chart with the ability to add age ranges in between them and then have bar graphs going both directions. Economic students need to be able to create dot line charts that curve to demonstrate supply, demand, and equilibrium charts. These also need both the x and y-axis so that price and quantity can be included. Bar graphs need to be able to have multiple bars in groupings so that students can compare the different measurements of GDP across multiple countries. Graphing isn't only for math.

We use it because it is what have committed to back in 2011. Perhaps Moodle will evolve and advance in a positive way that will alleviate most of our user-based gripes? Perhaps it will not appear to be as cost effective given the need for a certain level of engineering and support staff to maintain it at a future level of sustainability? It's hard to say. As an enterprise scale critical application, we like it, but don't love it. Our instructors don't particularly like it at all.

While we have taken time to re-evaluate our selected 1:1 devices, Schoology's impact on student learning is unquestioned. Students are able to connect with other learners, create and share products of their learning, and develop their digital fluency through their use of Schoology.

I've been able to figure out Moodle through my own experimentation and some help from the Moodle support pages. It's not always obvious where to make certain some changes and It can be a little confusing in determining which pages blocks will appear. If this is your first time using Moodle as an admin/course designer you should expect to spend a some time experimenting because knowing where to make certain changes isn't always intuitive. Additionally, plan to explore the course as a student vs. as admin because the UI is different based upon your settings

Incentivized

It's very easy to use Schoology. As with any LMS, it helps to learn some tips and tricks prior to getting started. But, each item is clearly indicated within the platform. If I want to add materials, it is right at the top of my screen. If I want to view the calendar, it is indicated to the right of my screen. Navigating a course and the platform is quite straightforward. Additionally, the benefit of Schoology's help center and user community makes asking and answering questions quick and easy.

I have worked in Moodle for over 10 years in two different organizations, and I have never experienced an outage. We have about 600 courses in our current account and the only outage we have had is FlashChat add-in we use for live chats, within Moodle, hence the reason for the nine (9). If you all know of Moodle vendors willing to help us upgrade from 1.9, Please wend me their info.

Incentivized

Generally good, but issue self-reporting has become a problem. When there are issues, it can be 20 minutes to an hour before it gets noted on the status page

Moodle is an excellent LMS in relationship to any other one that I have seen or used. The pages load quickly and the reports complete in a reasonable time frame. Moodle has taken on Respondus, StudyMate, BigBlueButton, Turning Tech, Turnitin2, Certificates, Attendance, Tegrity, Questionnaire, Virtual Programming Lab, and Badges. All of these programs work right in with Moodle and do not cause any issues. Instructors may also use Camtasia and Snagit software as well as using webcams, downloading videos from the Internet, adding into books, or any of the many other areas within Moodle. Our instructors use the grade books without many problems and really don't ask questions much anymore. We upgrade Moodle every semester and are currently on 2.9+. Our instructors have basically learned to use most of the resources and activities.

Incentivized

Course saves or transfers can take several minutes and up to an hour

I can consider Moodle as one of the pioneer in providing online learning. Before the introduction of other Learning Management Software, Moodle has been in place already in the field of education and so I believe that Moodle is definitely one of a kind software that all teachers should try and utilize in making sure that the online learning is a good experience.

Incentivized

We have county-level support and district-level support, but their HELP page offers everything that is needed to answer questions and to find "how-to" information for staff. This includes video and written directions for every available feature. Schoology has also worked with our district to improve their product.

Too surface level with no follow-up. A

I have used a few sites and they were adequate but my best learning experience was face to face and hands on.

Incentivized

Sit and get with very little hands-on time. 5 minutes to try out a feature/question type, etc. is not enough time. Once your training is done, there is no option for new employees to get that training without having to rebook and pay for the training again. If you pay for basic training, that should be available to a district to use in the future.

Find a partner who will work with you during the implementation process. Be sure to provide ample training for veteran users on the changes and for newbies on the overall product.

Incentivized

Moodle, being open source, is the foundation a lot of other tools like it are based on. It provides almost all of the same functionality and feature set as Google Classtoom, Canvas, etc., although those products are a bit more polished. All can do content delivery, progress tracking, attendance, reporting, etc. with ease, but Moodle also does this as a completely open source product that can be code-reviewed, audited, modified, extended, etc. at will, provided the expertise is present.

As mentioned before, Schoology has a lot more capabilities than Google Classroom. Granted that Schoology is an actual LMS and Google Classroom is not. Assessments are better; guardian views and information; communication with our Student Information System; Better organization of files and assignments. I find Canvas & Blackboard difficult to navigate and understand

Incentivized

Well, I administer Moodle for a dozen of our divisions and there is a wide range of flexibility between offerings. I have course instructors who use every module i their course, chock full of videos, pictures, links to web tools for synchronous sessions within the asynchronous course. I also have others who are content with a syllabus, a few pdfs, links to podcast lectures and a few simple assignments. No matter if your organization is big or small, or if your requirements are strict for credentialing or non-existent (for internal know-how), Moodle can accommodate you.

Incentivized

We use it 5-12 so scalability is not an issue but sharing materials between departments including common assessments is difficult without paying for add-on features

• Moodle has allowed the business to track all training initiatives. Since, November 2014 we have loaded 54 courses, 339 users, 889 resources, issued 719 badges, and created over 100 course modules.
• Our company just got a new applicant tracking system for the recruiters to use. In order to get all of the employees up to speed we created trainings that we loaded into Moodle. The participants and participation was tracked and we were able to find correlations between users engaged in training and their activity in the new applicant tracking system. This is a significant win for the training department, our learners, our company, and especially Moodle.
• Moodle also provides great customer service for our internal employees. They now have one place to go to find all their resources, all their training, and all the help they need for any training questions. Instead of scattering information on the intranet. Training is more official when it has its own domain.

Incentivized

• Schoology has had a positive impact on my classroom because it allows me to easily organize content as well as assign content based on the specific needs/wants of my students.
• Schoology has had a positive impact on my classroom management because it allows me to easily embed everything my students need with no reason for them to leave the LMS and venture out on the wider internet.

Incentivized