Ms. Jenny Geesey

I have not actually tried to use this platform with students yet, and hope to never have to try! I was so excited about using this platform, but Pearson really dropped the ball. I am pretty tech savvy abut I could not figure out how to do ANYTHING without searching extensively through the Knowledge Base to get guidance- that is not my definition of intuitive. In the KB when you click on “Navigate OpenClass” there is no content…..I guess that means it is impossible??? To add content to your course, you have to go to the main course page, make a nested menu to organize your content, choose the type of content (upload, link, create your own content, etc.) and name it. THEN exit that menu, go to the content you just named and edit it to insert the one file you want to upload. Why can’t I do it all in one place????

Also, if you teach multiple section of a course you cannot copy content from one course to another- you can only copy an entire course. Not useful unless you are using an entire course built by someone else. The Community Support indicated they hope to add this crucial feature by the end of 2013 but it had not yet been planned or scheduled.

As for the iPad app, students cannot submit files from the iPad unless it is a picture. They can type their response, but since they have to go to a different area of the course to view the assignment this is not a practical solution.

This LMS probably has the potential to be really neat in the future, but it is not there yet…by a long shot. (To be fair it is still technically in Beta, but I was testing the brand new redesign.) I hate to leave a review without a single strength, but honestly there is not a single thing OpenClass does that Schoology does not do much, much better already. Maybe in a year or two I will try again….

My students use Notability to take notes and complete worksheet-type assignments as PDFs. We all love the ability to both write and type, a necessity for science class. When I have a diagram or image in a presentation I just say “Find one like this on Google images and insert it in your notes.” SO easy! For completing assignments students just open the PDF in Notability, write or type onto it, then submit it, email it, save it to Dropbox, or however you would like them to submit the assignment. I LOVE that they can sync with Dropbox so they never lose their notes! Also allows students to insert web links or web clips. Imagine that- their notes, images, and web resources all in one document! What more could you want???

Weakness: The shape insertion feature is not very easy to use, and you cannot insert a table. A table feature would be very useful, but I bet it will be there in a future update.

Overall: I would recommend this app to everyone with an iPad!!! It is by far the most useful app we have, even surpassing Evernote (which I never could figure out).