Schoology (Deep Linking)

Why use PlayPosit in Schoology?

1. Single Sign-on: Instructors and learners are never prompted to enter a separate email, username or password to create or view content.
2. Auto-sync course data: PlayPosit manages learner-course relationships, eliminating the need to manually create courses or upload rosters.
3. Auto-sync grades: Learner grades are synced immediately with the Schoology gradebook at the end of a Bulb. As well, instructors can access the rich analytics from any PlayPosit link within Schoology. 
4. Course copy: Instructors have the ability to copy a course and maintain all of the assigned bulbs for a new version of their course. This can be a useful tool for a new semester with new students.

Terminology

This section outlines important terminology and definitions of the items that will be referenced throughout the help article.

1

Course - Schoology's term for a class.

2

Section - Schoology's term for a subdivision of a class.

3

Course copy - a feature of PlayPosit that allows an instructor to copy a course in their LMS (along with all linked PlayPosit bulbs) to a new course. This is particularly useful for:

• Instructors who teach the same class across different semesters or years,
• Instructors who need to transfer their course content to another instructor
• Centralized instructional design teams that design course curricula, but do not deliver the classes themselves.

In Schoology, it is possible to copy an entire course as well as to copy individual materials. The features of Schoology that allow a course-level copy are named:

• Save Course to Resources/Import from Resources
• Copy Section

The features of Schoology that allow individual material copies are:

• Save to Resources/Import from Resources
• Copy to Course

3

Parent course - the original course from which new copies will be made. Changes to the parent course may impact the child copies.

4

Child course - a copy of a parent course made through PlayPosit's course copy process. Changes to the child course may impact the parent course.

 

Launch PlayPosit in Schoology

PlayPosit is integrated into the Schoology environment by the administrator. Follow the steps below to add PlayPosit to a course and sync the student roster.

1. Login to Schoology and navigate to a course to connect to PlayPosit.
2. Click Add Materials and select PlayPosit from the drop-down menu on the right side.
3. A gray screen will load. Select SET LINK. 
4. Choose the bulb to assign and click the Schoology icon to set the bulb link (may also be a generic LMS icon).
5. Select the learner experience and click Link:
   • Self-paced - Choose this option for learners to take the bulb individually, on their own device, at a time of their choosing (most commonly used).
   • Broadcast - Choose this option for learners to complete the bulb synchronously in class. Learn more about using Broadcast for live engagement. 
6. After the bulb link is set, click on the gear icon next to the assignment that was just created and click Edit.
   Note: You must click edit and select ENABLE GRADING to sync this bulb to the Schoology Gradebook.

   

7. Update the Title of the assignment, check Enable Grading for PlayPosit to automatically sync learner grades to Schoology, and select a Category.

DO NOT CHANGE THE CONSUMER KEY, SHARED SECRET, CUSTOM PARAMETERS or the URL. Be aware that your browser may attempt to autofill the Consumer Key and Secret fields with your saved username and password for Schoology. If it does so, make sure to delete the auto-filled fields.



8. Click Save Changes to link your PlayPosit bulb directly to Schoology. Note: Do not copy and paste the URL. This will prevent the LTI integration from working properly. 

Monitor learner responses and sync grades to Schoology

Monitor to view analytics, discussion posts, and learner notes. To learn more about monitoring discussion posts, click here. To learn more about viewing learner notes, click here.

If the bulb only includes auto-graded questions, then grades will be automatically synced to the Schoology gradebook. However, if it included questions that are manually-graded, any auto-graded questions were edited, then updated grades will need to be manually synced to the Schoology

If there are graded free-response questions or edited grades for auto-graded questions, changes will need to be manually synced with Schoology. To do this:

1. From Schoology, click on the assignment to view data. This will open PlayPosit-Schoology Dashboard, with the bulb you have attached. 
2. Click Monitor to view learner analytics. Click here to learn more about PlayPosit Bulb analytics. Click here to learn more about PlayPosit Playlist analytics.  

   

1. On this page, view and score learner data and track progress. Some interactions may need to be manually graded in order for correct scores to be synced to Schoology's gradebook. Learn more about manual grading. Be sure to click Save Grades when done with manual grading.

2. To send the updated scores to the Schoology gradebook, click  Sync Grades. 

   1. Optionally, click Check Sync Status to see if all grades were pushed successfully, but note that it may take a few minutes to push all updated scores to the Schoology gradebook. 

      

Sync scores in Schoology Gradebook

If your bulb only includes auto-graded questions (multiple choice, check-all-that-apply, fill-in-the-blank), then grades will be automatically exported into the Schoology Gradebook. 

If you have graded free-response questions or edited grades for auto-graded questions, you will need to sync changes with Schoology. To do this:

1. From Schoology, navigate to the Monitor page of the assignment you want to grade. 

   

2. Here you'll be able to view and score learner data and track progress.

3. When you are ready to send updated scores to the Schoology gradebook, click  Sync Grades.   Grades can also be synced for individual students. Select the students on the left and click Sync Grades. 

4. Optionally, click Check Sync Status to check the status of grade sync, but note that it may take a few minutes to push all updated scores to the Schoology Gradebook. 

   

Course Copy

In Schoology, it is possible to copy an entire course as well as to copy individual materials. The features of Schoology that allow a course-level copy are named:

• Save Course to Resources/Import from Resources
• Copy Section

The features of Schoology that allow individual material copies are:

• Save to Resources/Import from Resources
• Copy to Course

Important information when using course copy:

• All parent and child courses in Schoology are linked to the same bulb, but when a course is copied, learner attempts will be saved in individual classes within PlayPosit and Schoology.
• Any instructor who launches a bulb linked in a copied course that they do not own will be given facilitator access to all the bulbs linked in that course. For more information on the roles and permissions of a facilitator, click here.
• Learners or instructors are able to launch a copied assignment first to trigger the copy process.
• Learners launching a PlayPosit bulb from a copied Schoology course for the first time will see a blue screen asking them to refresh the page. Refreshing the page will correctly launch the copied assignment. 
• Instructors will not see bulbs in the Classes tab of their PlayPosit dashboard for copied courses until either an instructor or learner launches the bulb from the copied course in Schoology.
• If a linked bulb is changed or deleted in the parent course, those changes are also made to bulbs linked in the child copied courses for that assignment, since all courses are linked to the same bulb.

Copying an entire course

Copy an entire course at once to seamlessly transfer all bulbs linked in a parent course to a new child course. This can be achieved with Schoology's Copy Section feature, as well as with Save Course to Resources.

Copy Section

To copy a course with your PlayPosit tools and assignments attached, follow the steps outlined below:

1. From the Schoology home page click on the Courses tab.
2. Click My Courses in the top right.
3. Find the course to copy and click the gear icon in its row.
4.  Select Copy Section from the drop-down menu.
5. Enter a new name for the copied section and select a Grading Period.
6. Click the Copy button.
7. The new section will now show up in the course row.
8. Any of the PlayPosit assignments can now be launched from the new section.

Save Course to Resources

Use Save Course to Resources and Import from Resources in order to easily save all folders and course materials to Schoology Resources.

1. Navigate to the Materials page of the course to save.
2. Click Options.
3. Select the option to Save Course to Resources.
4. Select the Resource Collection to house the course material. If a collection has not been created, one can be added the course to the Home collection.
5. Optional Select a folder within the collection to save the course material.
6. Click Submit to complete.
7. This will save the entire course as a new folder in the selected destination. Depending on the amount of materials in the course, it may take some time to save the course to Resources. Check the progress in your Transfer History.
8. To Import from Resources, navigate to the new course section you've created and click Add Materials.
9. Select the option to Import from Resources.
10. Select the collection in which you have saved your course.
11. Click on the folder in which the course content had been saved. The name of the folder should be the name of the course section you saved to resources.
12. Select all items by checking the box next to the Title heading. If you prefer to import only some material, select the checkboxes next to the items you'd like included in the new course section.
13. Click Import to complete. Depending on the amount of materials in the course, it may take some time to import content from Resources. Check the progress in your Transfer History.

Copying individual materials

The features of Schoology that allow individual material copies are:

• Save to Resources/Import from Resources
• Copy to Course

PlayPosit supports copying individual materials using these features, and the materials copied in these ways are subject to the same caveats listed above in the Important Information section. More information on these features can be found here.