What do you like best?
Often when I am building a novel study for one of my classes, Shmoop offers a good outline of the text, plot details, characters and chapter summaries. They also have a small, but good, selection of full-text e-books for teachers and students to use. This is a very helpful and timely resource, because of Covid-19 all my classes are now taught remotely without access to our books in school. These texts also align with Shmoop's Study Guides--also a helpful resource for students and teachers alike.
Offering free online access to ACT/SAT and English/Math skill building is especially helpful with most students home because of Covid-19, though I find them helpful throughout the year.
What do you dislike?
I only access the free materials because, well, you know, I am not in teaching for the money...So, I don't really have anything I dislike--since Shmoop offers a lot of free content for which I am grateful for, though I am curious as to all the resources available with a license. I teach 3-5th Enrichment RLA and Math, so having more resources for those grade levels would be great. I would like to be able to see the entire lesson guide prior to purchasing, perhaps with a watermark, just so I can make sure it is what I want before ordering.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
I definitely would check out all that Shmoop has to offer--they seem to be created by passionate educators and their lesson ideas are current and timely.
What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?
It is a good starting point for creating my class novel studies. I use the information they provide (free) and build upon that with other online resources. Shmoop is more user friendly than the Cliff Notes' website, it is more graphically pleasing and is better organized. I have also used this as a parent when looking for SAT/ACT and other study materials for my sons.
I also didn't realize that they have Math tutorials and skill-building resources--which is great for my middle school students and my son.
It also seems as Shmoop is upping its game, as their website looks newly updated from the last time I used it, and by just exploring I am seeing more resources that I didn't realize that they offer. I am
