To start off the 2024-2025 school year, Blackbaud made a change to the assignment center on the MyGreenhill website. The assignment center was redesigned to be more customizable like a calendar, and students have given mixed reviews on the change.
Feedback from various teachers and administrators across schools that use Blackbaud kickstarted the assignment center change. The new assignment center has many features including the ability to color code classes, filter assignments, set tasks and more.
Last school year, Blackbaud gave students a four month period to explore and adjust to the new assignment center layout while still having access to the previous layout. Over the summer, Blackbaud decided to go forward with the changes without teacher or student consent.
The assignment center layout has not changed on teachers’ platforms, leaving many teachers unaware of the change for students. Upper School Math teacher Melissa Battis became aware of this change after hearing various comments and complaints from students.
“I think what I have noticed is that students are clearly indicating that they do not like change, and I think that they need to be willing to adjust to things,” Battis said. “Once you get used to it, people will actually see that it has a lot of benefits.”
Upper School English teacher Andrew Mercurio describes the new student assignment center as more compressed in comparison to the old assignment center.
“It seems to me that people just find it takes more time to navigate, to figure out, and that the information is not as readily apparent,” Mercurio said.
Problems and glitches have been found, including the assignment center not working on mobile devices, not being able to remove a task and having trouble reading longer text entries. Students have had other issues regarding accidentally turning in the wrong assignments and struggling to open a task.
Despite some criticism, there are students who prefer the new assignment center. Junior Soyam Mohammed says she likes the layout and organizational aspects of the update.
“I like the color code,” Mohammed said. “I think that helps me with my personal organization.”
Additionally, Mohammed says she has heard various complaints as well.
“I think the general consensus from people that I have talked to is that they do not like it,” Mohammed said.
Regardless of the mixed reactions, Blackbaud will continue to use this new assignment center layout. As familiarity increases, the improved usability of the new system may become more evident.
“I think it is just going to take time for people to get acclimated to something else,” Battis said. “The complaints will probably fade away because the usability of the new system is much higher.”
