Blackboard Learn by Anthology vs. PowerSchool Unified Classroom

A school with a well-established technology imprint with their students (for example, ours is a BYOB school where every student has their own laptop and must bring it to school every day and where over 99% of our families have reliable broadband at home) is a reasonable scenario for using The arrogance and intransigence of the sales force is quite disconcerting… They are no longer the only game in town and don't yet realize it. Less well-off schools/families may find it a challenge if students must be on campus or at a public library in order to use the technology. Obviously, during the pandemic, this became problematic for some districts.

Incentivized

We use PowerSchool Unified Classroom with our Teacher/Student work. Teachers can hand out assignments and have them edited and returned to the teacher in an organized folder, in which the teacher can review, grade, and send back to the student. Papers are never lost this way. Another way that PowerSchool Unified Classroom is used is to deliver assessments for district tests.

Incentivized

• Provides HTML quality course content that is easily retrievable and viewable.
• Provides multiple methods of communication: email, threaded discussions, real-time "live" online discussions, as well as grade portal.
• Allows facilitators multiple methods of grading or providing feedback: threaded discussions, rubric scoring, personal comments, inline viewer, or download/upload attachments.

Incentivized

• It easily makes calculations for you to come up with a mark easily.
• It allows me to put my comments on assignments into the grade so that students get feedback quickly and easily.
• It is easy to use.

Incentivized

• Although the current graphic user interface is easy to use, it can be improved with larger fonts, dynamic menus, and attractive graphics.
• The system does not include a module to pay the school fee.
• The roster tab lacks detailed information about students.

Incentivized

• I teach 15 different sections of classes and it is hard to view sections all at once to enter grades in
• Navigating through all of the tabs to know how to view grades is hard- whether it is Assignments view, or by students, etc.

Incentivized

There are several aspects of Desire2Learn that outweigh the benefits of using Blackboard. I find that the Desire2Learn system is a bit more user friendly and looks more up-to-date. However, the decision to renew systems is not up to me because the entire University uses the same system. Regardless, I think I would choose Desire2Learn over Blackboard because of its improved user interface.

It is very usable for both faculty and students. The interface is pretty intuitive and most students can use it without a lot of additional training. Faculty do need some training to effectively use the interface, but they usually get it pretty quickly. We have had to create some additional programming to give faculty a way to delve deeper into the content.

Itʻs a good platform for certain things such as tests. Blackboard may not be the most user friendly but there is always room for improvement in any website, business, etc. When used with other platforms such as Google Classroom, Blackboard can be more effective, but when used by itself I feel it is not as impactful from a student perspective.

They are very responsive to the issues that we have and follow through with their assistance. Having a live assist that is available when our teachers need it is essential too. They also seem to listen to suggestions on making improvements and have been transparent with us when renovations are done.

Incentivized

Blackboard's Managed Hosting was top-notch in getting us up and running quickly.

Incentivized

Blackboard is the all around better fit for our intuition. It provides the "bells and whistles" we require in having a diverse faculty and flexibility in course delivery. The "bells and whistles" aren't cheap, but we have found that budgeting for this large expense has been more than worth it for us.

Incentivized

PowerSchool is similar to Schoology but actually has one less component: assignment uploads. Schoology is very helpful because it also students to upload their assignments on dropbox, which syncs automatically to the grade book, which allows me to view who has submitted things on time and who hasn't. I'm able to create Rubrics in Schoology itself which also helps the grading process because it ties in directly to their overall grade after I submit their rubric scores. Powerschool is helpful because it allows for attendance and access across the board with all parties.

Incentivized

• It has answered all my needs for distance learning and met most of the objectives
• The only negative I can think of is not having access to the past course material and not being able to download the lectures
• Another positive is the zoom integration feature

Incentivized

• PowerSchool has successfully helped us create a database on our students and allow staff to quickly access student information.
• We have been able to coordinate the arrival of new students to multiple teams for student support.

Incentivized