Sakai is Simple and Supportive
December 27, 2018
Sakai is Simple and Supportive
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Sakai
Both the school I was in from 2011 - 2015, which was Michigan Jewish Institute located in Detroit, MI, as well as the school that I am going to be in from 2017 - 2020, which is the University of Baltimore located in Baltimore, MD, use Sakai. Courses are organized into tabs. Teachers use the program to communicate and organize grades, assignments, tests, discussions, syllabi, and files with students.
- Sakai allows teachers to send messages to students and a checkbox, when checked, will forward the message to students so that they will get the message even if they don't check Sakai.
- Students can use Sakai to find students that they may wish to contact through each course's messages tab. There is an option to email every student or you can search through a list of the student's name in each course tab if you can't remember their name, but you don't want to email the entire class.
- Sakai makes it easy for students to keep track of when assignments that teachers have uploaded are due in the assignments tab, as well as keep track of their grades in the grades tab and the progress of the course in the syllabus tab.
- While the check box to send an email when you send a message is helpful, there have been times that teachers forgot to check that box, so students didn't get important assignments/announcements.
- Discussion forums can be fun, but it's annoying to read other people's comments since you have to click into each person's comment, & it always marks the comments as new, even if you've read them.
- I think it would be helpful if Sakai warned you before submitting an assignment how many submissions or when the assignment is due, before hitting submit.
- Sakai makes it easy for students to monitor grades which puts their minds at ease.
- Sakai makes it easy for teachers to assign and receive assignments from students.
- Communication is one of the most important and one of the most taxing parts of an educational system. Sakai makes this process just a little bit easier.
Courses are organized into tabs. Teachers use the program to list assignments with due dates for students in each course. Students use the program to upload assignments before they are due. Teachers upload syllabi along which the students can follow the progress of the semester. Teachers return assignments with grades and feedback. Grades are organized with weights/percentages for students to keep track of their progress in a course. Students use the program to contact their fellow classmates or teachers through messages on Sakai, or emails that are sent to their school account. When a teacher wants to send a message in Sakai, they can also check the email check box so that the students will receive the message in their school email in case they don't check Sakai. Teachers can upload files for students to use, such as PowerPoint Presentations or PDFs. Teachers can create discussion forums for students to communicate about class discussions. Teachers can create tests and quizzes in Sakai for students. Sakai is easy to use, whereas I personally have no idea how to use Blackboard because no educational system that I have been involved with has used it.