“I hate Schoology!” said seemingly half of Beaver Area High School students sometime in the first few days of school after learning that all teachers now would be using the online content management and teaching tool.

But believe it or not Schoology can help students learn.

Although there are some downsides to Schoology, there are also a fair share of upsides for students and teachers alike. When 50 Beaver Area students were surveyed, 28 people said they liked Schoology while 22 were against it. Since we all are using Schoology this year, it’s different from using iTunesU or Showbie because it’s all there for us in Schoology—reading assignments, due-date calendars, assignment uploads, etc.

What brought this change? It’s so students can have all their assignments in one spot and have a calendar to know when everything is due regardless of the teacher or class. Plus, it’s not just for high school students; Schoology is being utilized (in some form) at the elementary and middle schools as well.

Many students and teachers complain about organization throughout the year. No more complaints are needed! Schoology organizes all the information needed for the year by taking your classes from PowerSchool and uploading the classes to the Schoology dashboard.

Now while Schoology may keep teachers and students organized, a downside is that all of the classes are there in the dashboard together which makes the course tabs look a little crowded, and since all students’ classes are listed in the app (even study halls), it makes the tab more difficult for students to navigate.

Besides the organizational benefits, there is no more using a bunch of different applications like iTunesU for one class or Google Classroom for another. All teachers must use Schoology because it is linked up to PowerSchool.

However, one disadvantage for some users is that Schoology uses our BASD email for log-in which means that everyone needs to have one and know it. When new people come into the school, some of them might not yet know their BASD email so they weren’t able to access Schoology right away. Plus, few students actually use a BASD email address for their primary email (let alone use email) instead preferring a Gmail or iCloud email address.

Unfortunately, another minor complaint with Schoology is that to some the calendar is in a strange format. Allowing students to see what is coming up is a good thing, but completed assignments aren’t removed making the calendar appear to be a perpetual to-do list.

Although Schoology has its downfalls, Schoology has and will prove useful to students and teachers. We’re all be better off embracing its advantages and working around its quirks.