SchoolTown is widely used by students to access homework assignments, videos, and other class materials. However, a tool less widely used by students is the Cloud drive.

“SchoolTown is a Learning Management System used by teachers and students to share resources, assignments, discussions, announcements, etc.,” Instructional Technology Coordinator Donna Lusby said. “Filecloud gives you access to your district network drives anytime and anywhere when using a computer or mobile device with internet access.”

Logging into Filecloud is easier than most students would think, all students need to do is go to https://filecloud.lovejoyisd.net/ and log in using their school login. The Cloud drive is also helpful for teachers by allowing easier access to their files while away from school.

”For teachers, it allows us to work with our H drive, which before was not accessible to us from home,” Pre-Calculus teacher Andrew Stallings said. “Now, I can print things off from home and work on things at home that I couldn’t work at home on before unless I printed them off at school.”

Not only is it helpful for teachers, but also it is also beneficial for students.

“For the students it is really helpful because on the O drive there is a “Data Files For Students” [folder] that they can access,” Stallings said. “Everything that I put on SchoolTown, I also put on the O drive for them under “Data Files For Students”. That way, if SchoolTown goes down they have a backup.”

The Cloud provides advantages that SchoolTown does not have.

“I use SchoolTown to post keys, time lines, worksheets, and some videos,” AP Statistics teacher Darla Emerson said. “I use Filecloud to post videos that are too large for SchoolTown.”

Some teachers even believe the Cloud is better than using SchoolTown.

“They both have their uses but SchoolTown seems to be down a great deal and less reliable this year,” Emerson said.

SchoolTown has been troublesome for many students lately.

“SchoolTown is working diligently to ensure that all staff and students can access their account 24/7,” Lusby said. “They recommend that students do not use Internet Explorer, but instead use Firefox or Chrome as their internet browser. Students also need to use lisd.school.net instead of schootown.net.”

Most students are so used to SchoolTown, some teachers use both to ensure students can access what they need.

Do you use SchoolTown, FileCloud, or Google Drive more often?

• SchoolTown
• FileCloud
• What is FileCloud?
• Neither
• Google Drive

View Results

 Loading ...

“I think that the Cloud is easier to use honestly,” Stallings said. “Students are really used to using SchoolTown so I keep them both running.”

Because of SchoolTown’s recent problems, some teachers are turning their backs on it and looking to other ways to get information to students.

“The discussion board available on turnitin.com is better just because it has more features. You can reply to specific students and you have specific comments, whereas SchoolTown it is just a linear progression of responses and there is no discourse,” AP Lang teacher Jasen Eairheart said. “On turnitin.com I get to reply back to comments so I can show you how to fix things, show you what you missed or comment on it and other students can comment on it as well.”

In AP Lang classes, another site is being used for files as well.

“As far as documents, SchoolTown doesn’t let us organize in any way,” Eairheart said. “When you upload files they are chronological in how you uploaded them from day 1 up to day 180, whereas pbworks, which is what I have used in the past, I can organize by units, author, or however we are moving on so that works well.”

Another alternative some teachers are turning to is Google Drive, as all students already have a login for that site set by the school.

“The technology team is looking into alternatives to SchoolTown,” AP Psychology teacher Elyse Hall said. “I am currently testing Google Drive and Calendar to keep documents on while still keeping all of the files on SchoolTown so students can use either.”

Teachers straying away from SchoolTown and looking to alternatives is alright with administration as well.

“As far as teachers using other things, we certainly think that is a great thing to find new resources and new things to help student learning,” associate principal Chris Mayfield said. “We just have used SchoolTown as a home base just so students could go to one place so they could find all the information they needed in their classes.”