Success stories with schoolwide grading

Success stories with schoolwide grading

by Lee Trampleasure -
Number of replies: 7

My school is contemplating moving from Moodle (after about six years) to Schology. I'd like to make one last push for keeping Moodle by arguing for moving our grading from PowerSchool (Pearson product) to Moodle. Does anyone have success stories of a school that has moved to complete grading/report cards via Moodle? Please share your successes and/or difficulties, include your school and/or message me if I and/or my administration can contact your school for confirmation of the success.

I'm particularly interested in how gradebooking with Moodle helps students use it more. My students all know how to log in to PowerSchool to get their grades, but even at the end of the first semester many are still resistant to assignments and study resources I have on Moodle. It seems to me that if grades were all on Moodle, our students would be more inclined to get familiar with it.

I'm also thinking that we may still need to use PowerSchool or some similar program for creating the master schedule, exporting transcripts to universities--I'm not sure how easy it is to do this with Moodle.

Thanks for any tips!

Lee Trampleasure

Carondelet High School

Concord, CA

In reply to Lee Trampleasure

Schoology Forums v Moodle Forums: Features Comparison

by Clay Burell -

Can't help with gradebook, but I did this comparison chart of Moodle Forums v. Schoology forums yesterday to show how Schoology fails on that front. The data is based on Moodle 2.8.1 and Schoology's recent upgrade as of 12 Dec. 2014.

I'll be doing a few more about what's lost in teaching when schools focus on gradebooks instead of learning when choosing an LMS. Want me to share them?

hth

In reply to Clay Burell

Re: Schoology Forums v Moodle Forums: Features Comparison

by Lee Trampleasure -
Clay, thanks for your great comparison document.

It does seem that Schoology has some sort of TurnItIn integration now: https://www.schoology.com/apps/profile/15417285
In reply to Lee Trampleasure

Re: Schoology Forums v Moodle Forums: Features Comparison

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

It does seem that Schoology has some sort of TurnItIn integration now: https://www.schoology.com/apps/profile/154172857777

Is that a good thing? 

In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Schoology Forums v Moodle Forums: Features Comparison

by Lee Trampleasure -

Marcus, I mentioned that because Clay's comparison sheet shows little or no support for TurnItIn in Schoology. I prefer Moodle, but just want to be clear about the resources each platform offers.

In reply to Lee Trampleasure

Re: Success stories with schoolwide grading

by Lee Trampleasure -

I appreciate the responses, but I'm still looking for anyone who has used Moodle for school-wide grading.

In reply to Lee Trampleasure

Re: Success stories with schoolwide grading

by Emma Richardson -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

There are several things to consider here.

1.  Powerschool is not just a gradebook and it is not an LMS.  While it offers grading and that is a part of it, Powerschool also handles demographics, reporting, state reporting, discipline etc.  Powerschool is designed as an SIS, which Moodle is not.  So, bear in mind that Moodle and Powerschool, while they cross over in areas, handle different things for the most part.

2.  If you are thinking of just switching the gradebook over to Moodle, while I love Moodle and all that it offers, I can tell you that you will have a lot of very unhappy teachers.  Moodle's gradebook has undergone a huge rewrite and has improved hugely from its meager beginnings, but Powerschool is far superior in its grading interface.  Also, I will presume that attendance will have to stay in Powerschool and teachers are not going to want to keep jumping between the two.

Having said all that, I originally started with Moodle for its grading capability and use it exclusively for our Distance Learning classes.  Students have to log into Moodle because their assignments are posted there but they also see their grades for those classes.  If you were able to set it up so that their grades were posted in Moodle initially and imported to Powerschool later, that might prompt them to get into Moodle for early grade access.

You have my two favorite systems there.  If you want to hang on to Moodle, I would talk about the pains of learning a whole new system.  If students are not accessing Moodle, it is because they don't have to and that is because the teachers are not using it.  The same will most likely happen with whatever LMS you use.