SchoolLoop Offers Social Networking for Teachers, Parents, and Kids
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Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 10/23/2007
Social networking is a hit with tweens and teens—and now many teachers, parents, and students are taking advantage of these popular online communities within their own schools.
More than 200 schools in California, Georgia, Kansas, Massachusetts, and Utah have signed on to SchoolLoop.com, a site that connects almost everyone in a school through email, chat rooms, and electronic classroom assignments.
The site was founded by Mark Gross, a former social studies teacher who wanted to provide his students and their parents with immediate feedback and encouragement. “[There was] one teeny problem,” Gross says. “There were 155 of them and one of me.” So he set out to create a site that would solve his problem.
SchoolLoop opens up the lines of communication within a school, making everyday tasks like assigning and handing in homework a breeze. Teachers who sign up for the site can publish an assignment and have it automatically appear on a calendar, their own home page, on their students’ and parents’ home pages, or as part of a staff-accessible page of student work.
Students can hand in their homework electronically, and they can create a custom home page that shows all their classes, along with the deadlines for each assignment. They can also chat with other students who have the same classes or interests.
Parents have online access to homework and grades, helping them stay on top of their children’s schoolwork. The site also keeps administrators in the loop by making it easy for them to communicate with everyone in the school community.
Pleasant Grove High School in Elk Grove, CA, has about 1,900 school members who generate about 120,000 page views per month on SchoolLoop. Students use the site daily and 91 percent of its teachers publish weekly.
“SchoolLoop is quickly becoming invisible,” says Principal Ed van Brenk. “It’s just part of the school.”
SchoolLoop costs about $3.50 per student for the year. Other companies that offer similar services include Comunicado, Edline, InClass, and PowerSchool.
