Edgenuity

I WAS UNABLE TO REVIEW STUDENT WORK TO GRADE. AFTER I PERFORMED SOME TROUBLESHOOTING ON MY OWN, I CONTACTED MY IN-HOUSE ADMINISTRATION AND THEY FORWARDED THE ISSUE TO EDGENUITY. IT WAS RESOLVED IN ROUGHLY 6 HOURS.
THANK YOU

Edgenuity is the least engaging and least user-friendly cyber education platform imaginable. It is designed for exactly one type of learner (and even for them, it's poorly done). The platform is glitchy, the unskippable videos are long, boring and badly done. Short answer questions scan for keywords using an algorithm, so if your child writes 5 paragraphs but doesn't include just the right words, they fail. On the other hand, they can write nonsense sentences made up entirely of certain keywords and they'll get a 100%. My son is perpetually stressed out and behind because each course takes upwards of 2-3 hours a day to complete between the videos, the assignments, and the constant issues. It's a 0-star platform with absolutely no redeeming qualities. My son spent two years using another cyber platform that was absolutely fantastic- designed for multiple learning types. So it can absolutely be done. Thanks to Edgenuity, I am considering removing my son from his public school district and putting him back in a cyber program designed by actual educators who listen to feedback. Long story short- Edgenuity is awful. Skip it if you can.

Issues with being able to input data on assignments. Just give zero and keep moving. Techs are patient, but they don't have a clear system to address problems in systems, especially for iPads (which schools issue). It's guesstimating. It's a chaotic nightmare, calling half a dozen times in the few weeks school has been in, and the school system should choose another platform. A fourth or fifth grader on an iPad can't navigate through the many hiccups with adding data and submitting assignments in this system. We've done online schooling before, and with this one the pathway to locate email for teachers isn't simple, there is no clear instructions as to how to input info to admit assignments or what app to use. No clear tabs like-email teacher, etc. They expect 9 and 10 year olds to figure out how to turn a document into a document in which you can input data, submit it, use the right app to create a file and edit it. Half the apps are not accessible without some login info nobody has told us about. Complete nightmare for the child and the "coach" (parent, older sibling, grandparent, babysitter, neighbor etc.)

Where to start... I just watched it log my kid out for inactivity as she scrolled, immediately after she clicked several things. It also logs out for inactivity during most videos.

You can only full screen about half of the videos, but even when it doesn't work it tells you to use escape to return to normal. The videos themselves, especially in social studies, have bad sound and video quality, and seem to glorify slavery and genocide. They are clearly very old, based on the hair cuts of the speakers.

Then there are the log on issues. I can't access the parent portal since 2 days after I set it up. Even when I could, I could only use it if my kid wasn't using hers.

My kid gets a plain white screen, or logged in, with the dashboard showing through the tiny square of the login box most of the time. She has figured out a work around, but it takes several minutes. She probably spends 15 minutes a day on average dealing with login issues.

Too much of screen real estate is given to oversized and unnecessary navigation bars. The actual material is viewed through a narrow window, that leaves kids scrolling up and down to do imbeded activities.

Everything, literally everything, is wrong with this program. We were signed up through school for a flexible option during covid... whoever vetted this program and chose it should be fired. The curriculum is awful; it is inconsistent, and completely inadequate. For example, in the LA for this week we were working on frogs, then suddenly they through in a thing about butterflies. To teach linking and helping verbs I posted a picture to show how they taught it. The games suck, and do not teach or make learning fun. This is impossible. The only reason my kids are learning is because I am pretty smart and used to teach and tutor kids. Then there's the actual site. Instead of a full screen you have to continually scroll, and if you scroll too far you get the extra stuff at the bottom. My 7 year old can not get a handle on it, so I have to be there all the time just to use the site. Every single game is impossible for their little fingers to use the mouse or touch pad. It's difficult for me too. You have to click and drag, over and over, and it's extremely frustrating. Unlike i-Ready, which is so user friendly (not to mention teaches, and is fun). If you don't finish you can not easily get back to the page you left off on, you have to go back to the beginning and scroll down and click to the next page, scroll down and go to the next page. To sum up, do not purchase this program. ANYTHING IS BETTER THAN THIS.

The worst learning platform none of this is useful it is pointless to even have other students use this. If i could give it a negative rating i would.

It's terrible. I'm doing FLVS school online. I have 4 classes on that program and then for some odd reason they gave me 2 more classes on edgenuity. This is new because we've never used edgenuity the first 3 years of my online high school classes. I didn't even know I had classes on edgenuity until 2 months into the school year, so I have over 84 overdue assignments. They're assigning 8 assignments a day and expect you to complete all of those 3 hour lessons that are unskippable as well as assignments, projects, quizzes, and unit test all in ONE day. I am flooded with all of this work as well as my other high school classes on flvs that I need to do as well. I'm very behind in my flvs classes because I am trying to complete and catch up on my edgenuity work! This is extremely frustrating and unnecessary. I don't understand how they expect me or any other student to learn or get anything done, they have no consideration and it is extremely hard to stay on pace. I started working on those assignments trying to catch up from 11 in the morning until 9 at night! Just for me to behind again the next day. It's completely draining! I Do Not Recommend This Program At All.

I had a question about a virtual lab not being there for Biology.
They responded in a week which was I thought good timing, since they have a lot of students.

I needed help with a student that had completed an assignment, but was only showing 70% complete. The help department got back to me immediately with an answer to the problem.

I have been using Odysseyware for about 12 years as a teacher.
I appreciate that this program does not water down the content like some other online programs. I am sometimes frustrated that it is still very content-driven (is not really aligned to NGSS national science standards), but there are plenty of opportunities to do hands-on activities to get kids off the computer and learning by doing.

Learning online takes a specific type of learner. This program is not for everyone. But, it is tried and true. They are constantly improving it. It is one of the most stable platforms I have seen and is the easiest to navigate. They are very responsive if you need help or have feedback to improve a lesson.

I have found that it is important to understand how the program works so that you can use it to its full extent. For example, you need to do a test or quiz in one sitting. If you change tabs to look up the answer or leave it idle for more than 20 minutes because you took a lunch break or if you log out to finish it tomorrow, the test assumes you are cheating and grades the assessment. Whereas lessons and projects can be stopped and started as needed. Since the program assumes you will use your notes, the assessments can be challenging. So, those students (especially high school) who take notes should use them on the assessments. They are essentially open-book tests.

It is horrible,it does not let my son click the last option and he complains how boring it is do not buy

Edgenuity has some serious problems about it. First of all, it has plenty of outdated information in lessons. This makes it so that students may learn things that are long outdated and may be false today. They almost never update their courses, causing students to learn some false information. Being outdated in ancient history wouldn't be such a problem. Though with computer science and other stuff like that, is is almost always incorrect due to being 10 or so years outdated. For example, there are questions that can ask someone something like "what wired connection do most people?" and say FireWire is correct and ethernet is wrong. Also, instead of teachers grading writing assignments, they use system algorithms that look for specific keywords, causing some things that should have been correct are incorrect according to the algorithm. But it can also make students cheat by typing down something in a response to a question by cramming keywords in rather than actually putting in the correct thing. For example, if the question was "What makes plants green?", the student could just cram in something like "Chlorophyl stamen stem sun sunshine sunlight", rather than actually typing down the biological process and it would still count as correct. The only thing good about it is that it sorts lessons well, but that is not enough for me to rate it at even 2 stars. Plus, it counts a cumulative exam as the same as a summary in work, because both still count as 1 lesson. I have to rate it at 1 star.

This has been a horrible experience for my children and I. From day one just trying to access the program has been a nightmare. My kids are now almost through the first semester and are just as stressed out as I am. There are no Zoom classes, sessions, or any actual teaching instructions or guidance from the teachers. This program literally has these students self-teaching like college. I reached out to one of my childrens teachers for what was labeled as "tutoring" to attempt to get extra help. As my child was expressing his need for help on a specific assignment the teacher cut him off and told him that she is not there to teach him, she is only there to make sure he submits the work. If I was not next to him I would not have believed it. Not to mention, most of the assignments are from lessons they read week or months prior. Again my child reached out to his teacher letting her know he could not find the lesson that went with his assignment. Her response via email per her usual response was "it's in the module". She offered him no help as to where or which module it could be found nor any links to assist finding the actual lesson. After I sat with him looking for the lesson, it was found all the way back in a module from August! The assignment was given in November! So aside from the horrible nonteaching teachers and uninteractive virtual schooling, the set up, curriculum and layout of this program is beyond horrendous.

The Edgenuity team was right on my problem and resolved it in minutes. Thanks for the help! I was backing helping my students in a matter of a few minutes.