Archbishop of York Youth Trust

The Archbishop of York Youth Trust has been running social action awards for over 5 years throughout the north of the UK. However, our vision was to allow the award to run by any school internationally. After a comprehensive analysis of LMS and VLE platforms, we settled on Schoology. The platform we chose needed to allow for excellent communication, a superb facility to deliver excellent bespoke content and equally as important the facility to collect both teacher and student evidence. We needed a platform we could lock down where needed and open up if required. Schoology ticked all out specific boxes.

Pros:
+A huge community of teachers and learners looking to sharing their experience and support one another in the usage of the platform.
+A recognisable user interface which makes the learning curve for new users simple and intuitive.
+Superb flexibility to create bespoke learning environments for teachers and learners.

Cons:
– Some limitation of iframe embed due to the HTTPS protocol requirement. Use of HTML code editor often strips the inclusion of more advanced features such as Java functions.
– Limitation toe badge and gamification of learning.
– LTI integration not fully functional, relying on apps developers to plug the gaps.

Return on Investment
• Positive feedback from instructors who find the platform easy to use.
• Excellent feedback from stakeholder investors who are able to see transparent elements of the platform through unique profile settings.
• Positive feedback from Administrative staff who find the platform simple to use and yet complex enough to complete day to day tasks.

Alternatives Considered
• Campus and Blackboard

Schoology’s community of teachers is huge and built within the platform which means you feel supported from day one in the platform. The free ‘basic’ accounts also mean that you can experiment with the platform before signup to the enterprise version.

This tool stands out as one of the most innovative and flexible platforms for creating non-linear digital videos. Superb and confident interface.