Schoology Tips and Tricks

Schoology has issued an update to inform us of system maintenance which will occur on Saturday, September 19th from 7 AM - 9 AM Eastern. During this time, you will not be able to access Schoology.

Schoology has built in features for uploading pictures and videos. But, there may be times when your teacher needs you to take a picture and then upload it as a file.

Here are some tips:

1. If your teacher is asking you to upload a picture, use the Schoology APP. It is the easiest way to do this. Go to your phone or other device and download the Schoology APP. You will need to enter your school, username, and password. Once you are done with the initial set up, find the course, find the assignment submission, and then take a picture. You will need to give the APP access to your camera.

2. If this is not an option, we need to do this the old fashioned way. Use a device. Ideally you want to have the Google Drive app loaded and signed into your school account. Take a picture or video. Go to that picture or video on your photo roll and then choose to upload to Google Drive. You can then go to Google Drive, find what you need and download this as the file type you need. Remember what folder you download it to.

3. Screencasting for videos. If you need to record a video of yourself, and again the teacher has not built it out for Schoology to take the VIDEO or PHOTO right from the screen, you can always create a screencasting account, just like teachers. Screencast-o-matic is what staff are using. The free account access would be fine for students struggling to record. Then you can download the file or save it as a link.

Many students have reached out with this concern.

"I completed everything in the folder, but the my folder is not marked as complete."

This can be frustrating because you have gone though and checked everything.

In the event that this happens there can be a few things happening.

1. Have you actually looked at every page? Use your NEXT and PREV buttons all the time. This ensures you have not accidentally skipped over VIEWING a page. Remember, the completion rules are set so that you sequentially go through every item. If you skip around, then it will not be marked as "complete".

2. Was there a Schoology assessment built into your work for the day? If so, was there a question that would have required a teacher to read and manually score (any typed information would fall into this category). If so, that must be scored before the folder is "complete".

3. If you think you did everything and are still seeing this, reach out to the teacher of your course.

This could be happening for a few reasons.

1. Are you logged into Chrome? Through some troubleshooting we have found that some of the embedded YouTube videos will not play unless you are logged into Chrome. LOGIN TO CHROME

2. Are you getting the error code with a sad face in a gray box? Look to the top right of that box. You will see an icon that will allow you to bump out of Schoology to play in another browser. Give that a try.

3. Lastly, the video may not be playing because of the way it was uploaded and embedded into the course. Contact your teacher. They can look to see if there is another way to share the video. Sometimes a basic URL link works best.

Almost all of the errors you will see in Google are related to the following issues.

1. Your device is trying to authenticate using another email account saved to your computer. There is an authentication process that must occur EACH TIME you login into your device. This means, if you logged out of school work in the afternoon, but then went back on your laptop to use emails or login to other accounts, your laptop may be saving those passwords. The next time you login into Clever and Schoology, it may be picking up on a saved account that is not your @k12.smcps.org account.

As we use this new platform we will all be experts in CLEARING CACHE. In fact, staff have to do this as often as the students. Information on clearing cache can be found on this website.

2. You do not have the correct Google Account linked to your Schoology Account. Relink your Google Account. Sometimes you may even have to LOG out of your Google account and then log back in. See video. And, of course, if you ever log out or change your password, then you have to clear the cache again.

3. Have you recently changed your school email address password? If so, this would definitely be the cause. Try to log out of you Google Account in Schoology. DIRECTIONS HERE. Then clear that cache again. You will be an expert in clearing cache by the end of this school year.

4. If your document still will not load or give you the ability to edit, please email your teacher. Always remember, teachers are still finding ways to embed assignments into this new platform, so they may need to make some minor adjustments to the assignments:)

If teachers are putting due dates on assignments or creating events in the calendar, you will want to organize that in your calendar. The best tip: COLOR CODE the calendar events.

See this VIDEO

By default, the Schoology courses do not show up in order. You need to reorder them. Directions on how to recorder courses can be FOUND HERE.

1. APP downloads

In order for our younger students to access material in Schoology, the iPads must have the necessary apps downloaded. The first app we need is Chrome. This is an important step in order for anything else to work effectively, as much of what is being shared comes from chrome browsers. Also, if the school system needs to add APPS remotely that are missing, your SMCPS iPad must have at least a 50% charge or be plugged in if not.

Elementary Apps

2. If students are unable to access information via the Clever/Schoology App, a workaround would be to go to smcps.schoology.com and login from the web browser.

3. PRESENT vs EDIT mode in Google Slides. In many cases, students must be using PRESENT mode in order to fully engage with the lessons. There will also be times when students need to be in EDITING mode. It will depend on the assignment type.

4. Recording Schoology audio on an iPad: VIDEO

5. Slides that show how to set up and login to the iPad.

6. Recoding Audio Errors: For iOS users

The following browsers support the HTML5 A/V recorder:

• Chrome (web)
• Firefox (web)
• Edge (latest version based on Chromium)

If you attempt to use the HTML5 recorder on an unsupported web or mobile browser, the following message will be displayed: