In San Juan Unified School District, over 22,000 teachers, parents and students have been using the Schoology Learning Management System. With many District users and educational applications already in place, San Juan USD made the decision to invest in the enterprise version of Schoology—which provides additional analytics, integration with the District’s student information system, and administrative features--to deploy throughout the District.
Schoology is a learning management system that helps schools collaborate, communicate and share resources. Educators can build media-rich learning communities within Schoology where students share, collaborate and learn together.
San Juan USD's vision for deploying Schoology districtwide includes the work teachers have already started, creating and curating Common Core aligned curriculum, to be stored and accessed from within Schoology. They are also using Schoology as a repository for digital learning resources (also called OER, or Open Education Resources like Khan Academy and CK-12.org) that will be aligned and tagged for districtwide use.
“Quite a few San Juan teachers have already found Schoology to be an easy to use, yet powerful teaching tool so we will build on those experiences as we deploy Schoology throughout the district,” said Carl Fahle, senior director of technology for SJUSD. “Schoology’s features fit well with San Juan’s goal in helping students acquire 21st Century skills such as effective communication in any medium, collaboration, critical thinking, and the appropriate application of technology.”
Schoology is being used in San Juan classrooms for everything from enrichment to teaching students coding. Leslie Wriston, a teacher on special assignment, ran an online book study for GATE (gifted and talented education) students located at various sites without a GATE program at their own schools. Location wasn't a problem for students who communicated with their teacher and their peers using Schoology. In another application during the summer, a group of students took a coding class that used Schoology as a “Digital Hub” for all their lessons and resources.
“Schoology doesn’t just benefit students. It allows us to provide online and blended PD for teachers while giving them a private community to build their professional skills,” said Kalei Eskridge, a teacher on special assignment who has used Schoology for professional development. “Our teachers see Schoology’s potential for a variety of situations like self-paced instruction, face-to-face teaching, blended learning, and 1:1 instruction using devices like iPads, Chromebooks or almost any other computing device.”
