Schoology Learning Release Notes: December 2024

Administrator and auto-generated passwords

Administrator and auto-generated passwords will now be temporary. Users created on or after December 18, 2024, will be required to update temporary passwords on the next login.

Elementary experience improvements

Course Admins will now be able to enable and disable the submission options for each assignment in elementary-themed courses.

Enforce sign-in on password change

Users who change their password from an activation link or Forgot Password workflow are now required to log in again after the password is updated.

Reminders will now show submissions that are marked as Missing or Absent

In the Reminder section, teachers can review submissions and resubmissions marked with 'Missing' or 'Absent' exceptions. This only applies to gradable Assignments and Discussions.

Note: This enhancement will be included in the next release as gaps are being addressed to ensure the best possible experience.

View User Management permission (controlled availability)

Administrators can now enable faculty to have view-only access to User Management, which offers more secure access controls to User Management for troubleshooting purposes. Users with this permission can review User Management without requiring full write access to these screens.

PowerBuddy for Learning (paid version with student chat assistant)  - Administrators

• Administrators now have access to PowerBuddy Settings in Schoology, giving them access to restrict users, enable PowerBuddy for students, and access student chat logs. Administrators can also set up administrator-level email notifications for flagged chats. The email service will begin notifying users of flagged chats in an upcoming release and will include, by default, course administrators of the assignment where the chat is enabled for students. 

PowerBuddy for Learning (paid version with student chat assistant)  - Teachers

• The Socratic mode setting in Assignments defaults to research mode, which is the current mode that provides information and answers to questions. Socratic mode helps to establish what the student already knows and provides questions and responses to guide them to the answers. 

• You can deactivate the option for students and parents/guardians to review chat logs for an assignment. This option is deactivated by default.  

PowerBuddy for Learning (paid version with student chat assistant)  - Students

• Students now have access to their PowerBuddy chat history. When the chat feature is in use, students can launch the chat history from inside the chat window. By default, the chat history is activated, but teachers can deactivate student access to chat history within the assignment as needed. Teachers can access chat logs from their home page in Schoology. 

• Guardians/Parents and students also have access to chat logs from the Schoology home page. Parents/Guardians use their Schoology login but can switch their account to their student’s account to review the chat logs from the home page. This provides transparency into the questions and assistance provided by PowerBuddy when enabled for student assignments. Flagged chats are not available for review. 

PowerBuddy for Learning (included free features and paid) - Teachers

• Within the Assignments and Discussions text box, clicking the PowerBuddy icon launches a list of content generation tools to choose from.   

• After selecting a tool, teachers can complete the tool-specific form fields and click ‘Generate’ to create content.  

• Content can be regenerated, copied to a clipboard, edited, and ultimately Inserted into their Schoology Assignment or Discussion. 

• Teachers can provide feedback on the content using the thumbs up / thumbs down icons.  

New Schoology apps in the App Center

Visible Body (LTI 1.3)
Interactive health and life science teaching made easy. Visible Body Courseware does the assignment and assessment work for you and gives students everything they need to succeed, all in one place. Pick from a huge collection of visual life science assignments and edit to suit your needs. Student access and progress tracking are simple within Schoology.

LifePrep Academy
The LifePrep Academy: College, Career and Life Planning curriculum helps families, schools and nonprofit organizations prepare youth for life after high school.

Edit Mentor 1.3
EditMentor is an online video editing training platform, where one can learn the secrets of video storytelling, the creative art of film editing, and the technical skills of video creation with a learn-by-doing approach.

Note: Currently this app works in Chrome only.

Grade Guardian (LTI 1.3)
Grade Guardian (aka Dropout Detective) provides reporting and analytics based on a daily data feed from Schoology. It offers the following:

• Automated identification of at-risk students.

• Personalized dashboards for guidance counselors, coaches, and other activity leaders, displaying just their assigned students.

• A centralized place for all school users to enter notes about a student.

• The ability for teachers, with the proper security/permissions, to review all of a student's classes and grades on one screen.

Instructor Insight (LTI 1.3)
Instructor Insight is a software solution that integrates with Schoology and summarizes the behaviors and performance of your instructors.  The LMS contains tons of data that help schools to identify strong and struggling students, right?  But the LMS also includes that same amount of data on how the instructor interacts with his or her students.  Frequency of course log-in, timeliness of grading, and grade distribution can help schools find their best instructors and offer coaching to all instructors.

Quizizz
Create and deliver instruction that’s relevant for every student right inside Schoology with the Quizizz LTI 1.3 App