Basically, Edmodo offers online tools to make it easy in creating an online community in and outside of the classroom. This social networking site enables students to post anything from general posts on the message board (Twitter-style), sharing ideas, classwork, and files, along with mobile access and messaging! The really cool thing about Edmodo is students can subscribe to RSS feeds to specific topics being discussed in the classroom, making this a true Web 2.0 tool. This not only automatically creates a community of engaged learners, but it encourages students to share with students, parents, and others with what is happening in school. And we all know that getting students to discuss what they are learning in school is never an easy task (no matter what age)!I actually plan to use Edmodo for part of my Action Research Project (ARP) in using a Web 2.0 tool to engage students of all multiple intelligences along with connecting and informing parents of events going on with my class. I seem to always run into the problem of engaging ALL of my students not only in class, but also when learning is extended at home. Whether that is in homework form, studying for a test, or creating groups to communicate about a project outside of school. My goal with using Edmodo is bringing all students to the same playing field when it comes to communicating and working together in teams. I teach at an elementary school to where students rotate classrooms in a sort of block schedule setting in hopes to prepare them for middle school, high school, and ideally college. I can use Edmodo to set up several classes that I associate with throughout my day. Edmodo makes it incredibly easy to do this and creates an environment of high media literacy among all of my students. To wrap all of this up nicely with my ARP, I plan on using Edmodo to keep all of my parents informed and create a
higher success rate with the triangle of communication between teacher, student and parent. There are many more attributes that you can do with Edmodo, but I will leave that for you to go and discover at http://www.edmodo.com So there you have it.... Edmodo is the ideal way to implement age-appropriate media literacy to connect, engage and inform within the elementary setting.
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CTJOnline
Cool find. A customizable Facebook-ish program is a great idea. So is the thinking that the original Facebook just has too many possible problems for young children? I don't actually use Facebook that much, but I can just imagine the dicey elements out there...
ReplyDeleteI went a similar route with my tool this week: a customizable version of something we use a lot (in my case, a message board). It's really cool to be able to create a version of something like Facebook or a message board and mold it to your liking and privacy wishes...
Yey, another great Web 2.0 tool that creates a more engaging learning experience for students, better communication with parents, and easily managed by teachers. After checking out Edmodo, I realized that it offers more great features than Twiducate, the Web 2.0 tool I discovered last week.
ReplyDeleteUnlike Twiducate, Edmodo allows the teachers to upload documents and pdf files, students can subscribe to RSS feeds, get notification messages via email or mobile phone, and offers more organization capabilities. Overall, this Web 2.0 tool is far more advanced than the one I found.
I think I will be switching to Edmodo, even though Twiducate serves the purpose of providing an engaging safe learning environment for students. But like you, I'm also looking for the best tools to use in the classroom. Thanks for sharing!
Hey Gregg,
ReplyDeleteWow! Great minds think alike…I was actually looking for a social networking tool such as this one to for my Action Research project. As a school librarian, I would use it to improve communication and collaboration with teachers, students and administrators. You’re right about Edmodo being more age appropriate than Facebook and Myspace. Plus our school district has a filter block on those sites so Edmodo would be a great alternative. Thanks for introducing this wonderful tool.