Here is a site where you can create polls, quizzes and assignments. You can create a library of handouts accessible by the students, and students can turn in assignments. You can do all this in an environment that simulates that in which students spend much of their non-school time.
Edmodo has a “Facebook” look to it. It uses the Facebook colors, and layout. In addition it incorporates profile pictures, etc. However, I view it as primarily a class management tool. I’m also aware that the minute (second) you hear “facebook” red flags may go up. Let me assure you that the teacher is in control, and the real purpose is to facilitate classroom management and (if so desired) social interaction with an educational purpose.
When the teacher initially creates their account they begin by setting up a “group” or “groups”—I’m tempted to call them classes, but, you might use this capacity to set up reading groups, groups assigned to report on different subjects, etc. After this, students can log on and join the group by using the “group code” (no need to fear some child predator stalking the group.) Once all the students are enrolled, the teacher can lock the code so no one else can attempt to join. (Although you can arrange to have new students join at any time.) Additional settings available to the teacher include the ability to make all new members “read only” or to moderate all discussion. These policies can be set either by individual student or by the group—or some combination thereof. To put this into plain English, the teacher has about three layers of control here—at their option NO discussion can be posted, only approved discussion can be posted, or discussion can be posted without being previewed by the teacher—and these controls can be applied to the class as a whole, or to individual students. However, at no point can the students “message” individual students—they CAN send a private message to the class as a whole (if the teacher has enabled that option –in which case the teacher may still opt to approve or edit each individual comment or reply before they are posted). Students can also send a private comment to the teacher.
So, that sort of describes the Social Networking part of it….nothing for a teacher to panic over, students will not get involved in distracting private chats, bullying, etc…it just can’t happen.
But why SHOULD you use Edmodo? Well, here are some of the things you can do…
1.) Add Resources—you can add print documents, links, images, and videos available to students. --students can also add resources—they can attach them to wall postings, or add them to their “backpack.”
2.) Make and collect assignments—teachers can make assignments either as a wall post or on a pdf document which the student can open and read. Students can then turn in assignments by uploading a file, by selecting a file previously added to their backpack.
3.) Create and assign quizzes. Teachers can create quizzes at the Edmodo site. When the student goes to the site the “take quiz” post pops up and the student can then take a quiz on line—at the teacher’s option they may or may not see the result of that quiz upon completion.
4.) Grade the assignments, send comments on them privately to students, and have the grades attomatically recorded and averaged in an online gradebook—where grades can be weighted by point value, or all weighted the same.
5.) Create polls. Students can log on and see a question. After the student answers the a bar graph appears showing the results of the poll in real time.
6.) Parents can log on and see their students grades, see which assignments are missing, view the comments you have written about the various graded assignments, new assignments, upcoming events,. In addition they can exchange messages with the teacher. However they can not see the “wall” where the classroom interaction takes place.
7.) Above I mentioned “upcoming events”—a calendar is built into Edmodo and only the teacher can post events/due dates on the calendar.
8.) Above I mentioned “awards.” Edmodo makes it easy for the teacher to assign “award badges.”
To see an assortment of videos on Edmodo in action, go to their channel on SchoolTube.
To check out Edmodo for yourself, go to http://www.edmodo.com/
If you go to the Arcadia High School website, you’ll see a link to an online poll. From the polls results so far it looks like parents feel one area we are not doing an adequate job of is preparing our students for online classroom environments. Using Edmodo would help to address that deficiency.
To learn all of this, I’ve been experimenting with Edmodo. In so doing I’ve created a class called “make believe students.’ If you’d like to join the class and see how it looks, go to edmodo.com, click on “I’m a student” and use the group code “pcyo8f”
If I don't post anything more before the end of the year, have a nice summer.
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