Moodle launches a Tiktok-like service on their platform

*This article is part of The Ranchor, The Anchor’s biannual satire edition*

In recent years, every big video platform from Instagram to Netflix has been busy launching their own version of Tiktok. This week, Moodle has done the same with their new service: Scrollerly (pronounced like Scholarly). Like Tiktok, the platform will consist of feeds of short videos of user-created content and operate with an advanced algorithm to show you things you may be interested in. Instead of posting assignments, lectures, and grades in a clunky .docx or .mp4 file format, Hope College students can easily view all three in their class video feed.

Lectures will be boiled down to one minute clips released a few times during the class period. Students can show their appreciation or interest in a specific lesson by lip-synching to the lecture, or by choreographing new dances to the cadence of the professor’s voice. Additionally, if students are confused about anything, they can comment on the video and the professor can easily reply with another video referencing their question, eliminating the need for hand raising or asking a possibly embarrassing question publicly.

Assignment submission is also made easy with Scrollerly. After a professor posts their video describing the assignment, students can “duet” the professor with their submission. For example, if your history professor asks you for a summary of the Civil War, then you can use Scrollarly’s video editing software to put dates and events on the screen while you Renegade in the background, creating an educational, yet entertaining learning environment.

Grades on Scrollerly, like on Moodle, are simple to input and view at any point through the semester, meaning that you won’t have to wait until your transcript to know how you’re doing in a class. However, unlike Moodle, Scrollerly allows students to post their assignment scores and overall letter grade for others to see on the class feed. If a student is proud of a specific grade they received, then they can use the share feature to show it off in their video. Scrollerly also allows students to add popular music to these posts, so students can flaunt their bodacious test scores to their classmates with style. This part of Scrollerly addresses the need for students to have more Cerebral Confidence, as well as encourages them to show off their “Brain like Berkeley” to their classmates. Additionally, students who have received lower scores or are struggling in a class will see how well-endowed their fellow classmate’s marks are and be happy for them, which will motivate them to do better.

Frances Jermani, a junior at Hope College, says that Scrollerly has really helped her deal with her Cerebral Confidence issues, and now she feels that she can show off how smart she is without worrying about haters.

“I was really insecure about my grades at first, I thought that no matter how high my GPA was, I would never be enough for anybody to love me. But now that I get so much praise on Scrollerly, I know that I truly am loved as long as I keep my grades up.”

However, another student, Brittany Russiano, a sophomore at Hope, said that Scrollerly hasn’t been healthy for her.

“I always had problems with foreign languages, I have to study for hours a day to squeak out a B, so constantly seeing that Frances is doing so well without much effort is really really discouraging.

After the interview, we gently reminded Brittany that they are Frances’ grades, and so it’s up to her whether or not she wants to show them off, and if you don’t like it then you’re free to stop scrolling through her class feed and fail like she probably will anyway. We informed her that negativity has no place on Scrollerly, and it’s often a mark of insecurity. We asked her why she hated Frances and wondered if maybe she hated students as a whole. After calling her a failure and inferring that she probably had a short pencil, we told her that she will never get an A, and asked her if there was anything else she’d like to tell us about her experience with Moodle’s Scrollerly. Luckily for Frances and students everywhere, she didn’t have much to say after that.