Due to the current situation right now, students have been moved to online learning. I’m sure it has negatively or positively affected many students. This article will focus on the different platforms BASIS Independent McLean has used, opinions on Wednesday classes, what more students want from our current school platform, and some alternatives. I interviewed Anika K., a student and fellow editor of this paper, to get her opinion on this topic.
What do you think Schoology (BIM server) can do better?
“I don’t like the stability of the server. It’s already shut down three times in this whole year and it does become inconvenient when you’re trying to turn in assignments. I would also prefer if teachers had separate folders to organize the material and work they give us. Some of our assignments don’t show up on the calendar due to the teachers’ concern of students not viewing their material. It tends to throw me off a lot.”
If you could change anything about our Wednesday schedules, would you do so?
“I would have the classes start earlier and end earlier. Extracurriculars and things I need to do after school in general clash with my 8th period timings. Most teachers also manage to take advantage over the 10 minutes we have to do anything we need to do. This gives us less time to get supplies, use the bathroom, get water, and fix any technology problems.”
What does Microsoft Teams have that Schoology doesn’t?
“Microsoft Teams was made by a bigger company, so it worked better as a whole. There weren’t many errors with the servers and it was easier to locate our work. Schoology on the other hand has had about two or three errors with the server this year.
What do you think schoology can do better?
I think Schoology could do a better job on maintaining the servers but otherwise, it isn’t too bad.”
A way to fix the calendar issues without teachers having to worry if students aren’t checking their classes would be attendance checks. Attendance checks could be polls that we take every at-home day so teachers know we’re checking our work for that day. For Wednesday schedules, class times could be earlier so we can end earlier. Overall, Schoology isn’t too bad of a tool to use. I personally like it but if teachers could take note of our requests, it could make the server much better.
