BP2_Schoology

I chose Schoology. I started out by reading some blogs that other people had written about schoology. This one teacher was stressed out because she was using it with seventh graders. They were being ugly and inappropriate. This thing works like facebook, in that you can send messages to the board or to each other.

She was trying to check all their posts, and it became a real time consumer. 

I've uploaded some art works and some photographs. I will ask the students to log on and to make one objective comment and one subjective comment for each picture. I will award them with 30 units of captain's cash (the art room currency). I plan on ordering a BUTTON MAKER and charging 100 units of captains cash per button. I believe the students will get a kick out of making buttons.

One problem I have run into is that my first idea was to use schoology to teach music, and now I can not figure out how to edit some of the fields. I clicked on every thing twice...at least twice, but I can't figure out how to change it. Another problem I am working on is locating the secret code for my students to use when they log in. If I can't find it, I will have to increase the amount of captains cash considerably. That last bit was a joke.
Really, I am liking this blog. I believe it would work more efficiently for my purpose. Schoology makes money when a school system buys their full featured version. This free version may have some undiscovered perks to it, but it seems to be a marketing tool.
Because my school system already has an electronic grade book, the grade book feature is not feasible.

Here is an awesome painting I bought from Neil Kalmanson. It is the second picture in the collection I will have my students comment on. I have made some comments on this picture, so that my students have an example.

 

Although I am not sure what the access code is, or if I am actually going to use this site with actual students, this is the URL.