Last year it was Edmodo. This year it’s Schoology. It seems that every year, there’s a new service Pine Crest uses to try to replace Blackboard.  Schoology and Edmodo show a growing trend in the education world to make education social. On its Wikipedia page, Schoology is defined as a social network first, and learning management system second.  Schoology, not coincidentally, looks a lot like Facebook. It has a news feed, notifications, messaging and groups. You don’t have “friends” on Schoology, but you have people. These new companies are trying to make our school life take up more of our free time. And, in my opinion, that is not a good thing.

School is school. It has defined times: 8:10 AM – 3:38 PM, and you have some time dedicated t7o homework when you get home. After that, the rest of the day is free to catch up with friends, watch TV, and unwind from a stressful day at school. Many students use Facebook during their downtime. Schoology seems to want to replace Facebook with a new social network that, in its words “connects students and parents to educators and learning resources anytime.”  It seems Schoology does not understand two things:

1. Facebook is used for education.
2. Students don’t want to be involved with school all the time, especially over social network.

Schoology might be much better than old, decrepit Blackboard, but it fails at its goal of bringing students and teachers together for a more round-the-clock school day. It fails not because it’s a bad service, but because students aren’t interested in using another social network when they already have a nice setup with Facebook. When I’m done with school, I’m done with school. When I get home, I check Blackboard, write down my homework assignments, and then close Blackboard. And now that some of my teachers use Schoology, I check Schoology and then close it. The split of classes between the two sites is especially inconvenient, and can be quite confusing.

This is the second year that my classes have had Facebook groups. Facebook came out with a new group page specifically targeted at classes; it understands its position of power in the education world. Facebook succeeded–without even trying–because it gathered students first, and then students decided to create groups, and then Facebook made a school product. This chronological order is tremendously important.  Schoology tries to take an organic process that only students can initiate and tries to force it to work. Teachers who don’t force students to use Schoology in a Facebook-style manner see their Schoology pages barren, and while teachers who force students to post updates on Schoology see increased, non-required, commenting, but students still go back to Facebook to ask questions about homework.

The problem with Schoology is it’s viewed as a school website.  Schoology can never be successful as an online gathering spot for students because teachers are monitoring Schoology. That’s not to say Facebook is used to badmouth teachers, but Facebook is an open environment where students are free to speak their minds, without feeling like their still in the classroom. You can’t go on Schoology and complain about the amount of homework you have, but you can on Facebook.

School is school, free time is free time. Let’s not try to mix the two.