Classroom or Edmodo

In the past I pushed to get teachers to adopt the use of Edmodo.  However, with the migration to Google accounts I chose not to actively recommend Edmodo this year.  Not only can Google Drive files be shared, they can be edited collaboratively.  In addition, at the end of school year 2014 Google was testing a beta version of a management site dubbed Google Classroom.  (Rather than calling it a classroom management system, or even a content management system, let's just call it a Google Drive management system.)

At the start of the year I figured teachers might feel a bit overwhelmed if I tried to get them to adopt booth Google Mail, Google Drive, Google Docs AND Google Classroom.  As a result, I mentioned Google Classroom to very few teachers.

In spite of all of the above  Emily Martin (AHS) made use of Edmodo this year, and Matt Gillis (CHS/CES) used Google Classroom.  So, I thought I'd ask the two of them to briefly describe their experiences with these sites and give teachers a chance to consider them for next year.

Here are some remarks directly from Emily ....

Generally, I will use Edmodo with my upper-level Spanish classes. I give them a situation, and they have to provide a comment. For example, I provided a question in Spanish from a Spanish advice column. Students had to use a particular verb tense that we were reviewing to provide an answer for that question. Then, we discussed phrases such as “I agree,” “That is a good idea,” “I disagree,” etc., and how to explain why. Then, they had to comment on another students´ comment, similar to a blog. I have also used Edmodo as a tool on which students can save Power Point presentations if they do not have a flash drive, or for peer-editing: Students may share sentences that they have written, and then comment upon grammatical errors in other students´ sentences. Then, I comment about whether or not it is correct.
Immediately my students enjoyed the set-up of Edmodo. It is easy to log into, and the fact that it looks like Facebook makes it attractive to them. They seemed disappointed that it does not have all of the Facebook features like “friending” their classmates, but this was the main complaint. It also seems to motivate them to write in Spanish. I have noticed that they may not write in perfect Spanish on Edmodo, but they try with what they know, and they use Spanish more frequently than they do during a normal lesson. In fact, sometimes I do not even have to remind them to use Spanish – it is almost as if they immediately know that they need to use it on Edmodo, and they love to send funny and sarcastic Spanish messages to one another! I love to read their comments.
Overall, I give Edmodo a very good review, and I would recommend it to any teacher who would like to use it as an interactive slightly conversational tool, especially if you struggle with getting all of your students to participate during oral discussions in the classroom.

and here is what Matt had to say about google classroom:

 I've used Google Classroom with my 7th Grade Chorus class, who did a research project on a favorite pop star. It was very easy to set up an assignment for them and set a due date. Since the 7th graders have Chromebooks and Google accounts, it took very little time to get them set up and working. Once they started working, I could monitor their progress from Google account, and I could give each student personalized feedback. Now that they have turned in their projects, I can give them a grade and return it to them. I distribute the assignment and rubric, they do their research, type their notes, create their slide presentation, and get their grade all without using a single sheet of paper.

I'm in a situation where my classroom gets used by others, and at certain times of the year I have to  hold class in different places throughout the school. The flexibility of being able to work on their projects anywhere without the hassle of walking around to each computer with a flash drive was an absolute God-send. There are other apps that can be integrated with Google Classroom to create a rubric and tally a score on the assignment as well. I haven't yet explored those options, because they seem pretty difficult to work with. I will just stick with Classroom for now.
Although Google Classroom just recently came out of Beta testing, I really like the features it has so far. I look forward to what new features will be added to classroom as time goes on.

The big advantage of google classroom is that it integrates well with Google drive --its'strong point is managing the flow of files. It also allows students to use a single log in  Edmodo, on the other hand, is aimed more at classroom management.  The difference can be seen by looking at some of classroom's limitations. According to Alice Keeler, Classroom will not:

Google Classroom does not handle course enrollments like you would find in an LMS or CMS.  Google Classroom does not have a gradebook.  Google Classroom does not track student participation. While students can comment in Google Classroom, there are not discussion boards.Google Classroom does not integrate quizzing features....Google Classroom does not allow teachers to create content within the system. Instead, teachers link to content they build in other places such as Google Docs.  Google Classroom assignments can not be organized into modules or units.

This is not to say that Alice Keeler doesn't think highly of Classroom, after all, she states,  "Since it is from Google, it integrates with Google Drive in amazing ways." and offers a list of 50 things you can do with classroom. In essence, Classroom allows you to set up an environment to both distribute and collect assignments. She offers an entire collection of posts on the use of Google Classroom.

You might consider adopting one of these two in the fall, however,  before making a decision, I'd recommend that you wait until August or September to do so because Google Classroom is evolving as I write and some of the things listed as limitations above, may have be available this fall.

Collaboration With Google Drive: Part Two

A Happy New Year to you all.
Continuing on with what I learned from a session entitled Collaboration with Google Drive,  by Andrea Jones of Franklin Middle School in Fairfax County. Let's get to the mechanics of Google Drive.

File Management  

First, one can very quickly accumulate an unwieldy number of files in one's drive.  Therefore, organization is critical.  Put some forethought into naming conventions.  That is to say, think about if you want students to turn in work with titles based on assignment number, subject, student name, date, class period, etc.  Next, realize that it is crucial to organize files into folders.  Every folder is going to be “owned” by someone--in this discussion, either the teacher or a student.  The owner houses the  folder on their “My Drive”.  A folder can then be shared with others who might be granted various levels of permission.  Any document placed in that folder by default “inherits” the permissions assigned to that folder.  If a teacher creates a folder and shares it with students, those students might be given the rights to edit or view documents in the folder.    

My false starts experiences suggest that I should have listened to Melissa in the first place and had teachers set up their own folders for lesson plans.  Applying this to the classroom, you might want to have students set up their own folders--so that they own them, and then have the students share the folders with you.  If you do that, you’d have one folder per student in your “shared with me” or "incoming" drive.  I’d suggest you group these as sub-folders by block (or by subject if you are an elementary teacher) and copy them to "my drive" (thanks Ms. Walker for that suggestion.) Students might want several folders--where they keep documents (files or assignments) which they are not ready to “hand in.”   Andrea pointed out that if the student “owns” the folder, the teacher can delete it at the end of the year and the student can keep it to accumulate a portfolio of work done over a number of school years.

File Types

Andrea pointed out the different types of files that can be created and shared--documents, spreadsheets, forms, presentations, and drawings.  She mentioned that some tools are only visible when an item on the page is selected--so students shouldn't panic if it at first appears that they can’t do something.  She suggested that “Chrome” is the best browser to use in conjunction with Google Drive.

Monitoring Tools

Andrea then spent quite a bit of time on the use of “revision history,” “comments,” and “notifications” which can be used as monitoring tools to allow the teacher to evaluate how much was contributed by individual group members.  To go into specifics here would make this entry far too long, but Melissa presented an overview in her post on May 7th (The Ultimate Workflow) and I’d be happy to work with anyone who might want to use these features but feels the need for some support in doing so. Needless to say, once the students realize that the teacher is monitoring who is doing what, the problem of one student doing all the work is greatly alleviated.

Management Tools

Before I conclude, let me mention a few management tools that might be helpful and may also become subjects of future blog posts.  Doctopus is an “add-on” available for Google Sheets (their spreadsheet program) that is designed to manage student group projects.  Doctopus is described as “An octopus for docs!  Teacher-built tool for scaffolding, managing, organizing, and assessing student projects in Google Drive.”  A second "add-on" is Gclassfolders  which “will automatically create and share student folders for a  teacher.”

Finally, since attending the conference, Google has come out with classroom.google.com a classroom management site offering some of the same features as Edmodo.  

Well, this posts seems very lengthy, if you’ve made it this far, thanks for sticking with it, I know that, as time passes, more and more of you will be using Google Drive with your students and I hope that this review will both encourage you to do so, and give you some insight into how to best manage that process. Some experienced teachers who would be good resources on the would be Amanda Mitchel, Amanda Hruska, and Kathy Evans (NHS), Melanie Walker (AHS) and Judy Fieth (CHS).
Next week we'll move on to the use of templates and contact lists in Google Drive.

eMediaVA.org

Now what does that title imply?  e for electronic, Media--makes you think of video files, audio files, interactive lessons, etc.  and VA leads you to believe that this is somehow special to Virginia.  If those are the things you'd assume from the name of the website, you would be correct   Putting all of this together you might get the idea that the site is something like Discovery Education (DEstreaming, unitedstreaming).  Once again, if that is what you would assume, you would be correct.  Indeed eMediaVA was created with the thought that one day DEstreaming would become cost-prohibitive for divisions to maintain their annual subscription. WHRO and the Hampton Roads Educational Technology Association (HRETA) began developing a product that could eventually fill in the void.  Indeed, Mathews County no longer subscribes to DE streaming as the cost became too much for a school system that has made drastic cuts in teacher positions.

eMediaVA is relatively new and is adding more content all the time.  They are underwritten, in part, by the Virginia Department of Education.  Therefore, the content is searchable by SOL rather than by the Common Core Standards.  At this point they have over 8000 videos, over 500 audios, and over 650 interactives, as well as links and documents (mostly background material supporting the videos, etc.)  Trying to determine which of the two services provides more content turns out to be no small tasks, and is not important for you to know.  What is important for you is; How much content do they provide in your field?  The answer seems to vary greatly depending on what field you are referring to.  I didn't find much for French, but I found a lot in other areas. I think you'll like the search engine. You can sort through their content based on specific SOLs, or other filters which include subject and grade level (which is done with a slide bar).

You may be aware that with Discovery Education you may download the videos (so that you don't need to use up bandwidth by streaming them), but you can not keep what you download for more than a year--you are supposed to do a fresh download with each school year.  One difficulty you will find with eMediaVA results from the fact that they have obtained their content from various sources, meaning that some you can download and show in perpetuity and others you cannot download at all (but will need to stream).  If you can't find the link that allows you to download, it is most likely because you can't.

eMediaVA has some features I'm not going to review today.  However, you can go to the site, log in, sample and download content, and explore the other features for yourself. As you do so, don't overlook the interactives. You have an account that has been set up for you (thanks to Melissa Rollosson).  Your login is your school email and your initial password is "welcome".  Your students also have accounts--although they probably aren't any more aware of that than you were until you read this.  Their login is their school id. and their password is their first name.  So, go have a look and you can comment below on what you find.

Class DoJo

I just looked it up and "DoJo" refers to a martial arts training place. What that has to do with this website--ClassDoJo.com, I'm not sure. I gather the reference is to teaching in a disciplined environment, which is the goal of ClassDoJo. DoJo is a classroom management tool which is free, easy to use, might work well with your current style, or might transform your class (as seems to have been the case in a number of the testimonials given at the DoJo site).

 

Speaking of testimonials, here is what Matt Gillis, the music teacher CES/CHS has to say about Class DoJo:

As a teacher who grades based on participation, I find Class Dojo a very handy tool to make quick assessments. Since it's customizable, I can change behavior assessments to something more appropriate for my class. I just leave the page open and make note of what I see without losing valuable teaching time.

 We all want to monitor student behavior, the trouble is documentation. I know who misbehaves and who is an exemplary student, however, actually tracking and documenting student behavior can be so much of a bother that it tends to be overlooked. Class DoJo can simplify this task. I've seen many a teacher use the chalk board to put slashes by student names to note positive or negative behaviors. DoJo is an online program designed to advance that practice into the technological age. Each student has an avatar (you know, a little symbol) with their name on it. If these are projected on a SMART Board, one simply has to click on the student’s avatar and a window pops up with a list of positive and negative behaviors, i.e. "talking out of turn", which can be clicked on and recorded. The settings can be adjusted so that the avatars display 1) only the student's name, 2) the name and the total of both the positive and negative points, or 3) a cumulative total of the positive and negative points added together.

 

At the end of the class period the teacher simply closes the class and the site keeps track of all of the points accumulated for each student that day. DoJo can be set to automatically send out emails to parents each week with a graphically appealing report on each individual student.

 

Whoever designed this program really put some thought into making it as simple as possible to use. For example you don't have to wait for a verification email once you sign up for an account. You don't have to enter each parent's email address (the parents go to Class DoJo and enter the code you give them, then their email address is automatically registered). You don't have to send out emails to the parent, the program does it automatically. You don't have to spend a lot of time learning the program, I simply experimented with it for a few minutes, but you can view a two minute tutorial to learn it as well.

 

There are some features of this program that the students might actually like. Students can go to the site, type in a code, and view graphical report on their behavior - it helps them to specifically see what their strengths are and where they can improve.   When they sign up, students can design their own avatar. One middle school teacher described how one class wanted to see the class report on one of her other classes, when she showed it to them she had an epiphany. She challenged her classes to have a DoJo war with her other classes, classes earned rewards for being the best class in specific areas. Her students seem to have responded with enthusiasm and they were somewhat excited about tracking their own improvement.

 

One reviewer seems to be appalled by the idea of using the projector to display student totals. However, he still recommends the program. He recommends it just because it does such a good job of streamlining the tracking of student behavior for the teacher's records. To read his review click here.

 

Before closing, let me note that there are both Apple and Android apps for DoJo which allow you to track behavior from your mobile device.  Finally, to get a better idea of how DoJo looks, her is the video which can beused to introduce it to students

 

Edmodo – Classroom Management under the guise of Social Networking

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.