Social networking for schools: Edmodo

This blog is for everybody, obviously, but mostly for colleagues who work with students that go abroad or who are involved in distance education. Meet my new best friend: Edmodo!




What is Edmodo?

Edmodo is a safe place where teachers, students and even parents or coaches can collaborate. They can post and share material and educational applications and they have access to assignments, grades and group discussions. Edmodo's goal is 'to help educators harness the power of social media to customize the classroom for each and every learner'.
As you can see in the video, Edmodo offers many opportunities and I think it will appeal to students because it looks similar to Facebook, only especially  focused on education.




What do I like about Edmodo?

• I am so Dutch, it hurts so this obviously means I enjoy free stuff! Edmodo is free. 
• Edmodo contains a social aspect and therefore makes it easy for students to communicate with me and with the rest of the group. Improved communication means less confusion, which in turn means more time for students who have dificulties grasping a subject or students who are capable of taking it to the next level! You can provide students with badges for achievements and contributions. 
• You can create smaller groups within your groups, for example for students who work together on a project. 
• Teachers and students can post links to websites, documents, Youtube videos and so on and share them with each other. This enhances the feeling of learning together. 
• Teachers can post assignments (with a due date) that students can turn in via Edmodo. Students can keep track of their progress: they can see exactly which assignments they have already handed in and which they haven't handed in. 
• Teachers can grade work and provide students with feedback. All of this is recorded in Edmodo. 
• When a student has a question, it can be directed to the teacher or to the whole group. This makes learning possible for not only the student that asks the question, but for the rest of the group as well. I love that! 
• The teacher is in control of the online class rooms and can see all the messages their students post. This is possible because students have only two options when sending messages: to their teacher or to the group. There is no one-on-one interaction between students and therefore online bullying is pretty much impossible. 
• Teachers can disable and reset students' passwords (when they misbehave for example) and they can reset their group codes. 
• Edmodo has a schedule option which teachers can use and add to. 
• All files and links are saved in the Library so you can find them easily and use them again. 

Disadvantages?

• The badges may seem a bit childish, but as a teacher you can create your own badges so this is avoidable. 
• Edmodo does not offer the possibility to weigh your grades. It can be used as a nice overview to show you who needs to do some catching up and who you need to talk to. 

I have been working with Edmodo for about a month now and I am superexcited about it. I also get the feeling that my students enjoy it too, but they still have to get used to some of it. I will keep you posted! 

Do you want to give it a go? In that case I proudly present: 

A step by step guide to Edmodo! 

Step 1: visit www.edmodo.com and click the blue button that says 'I am a teacher'. 

Fill out the forms, click 'Sign Up' and voila, that's it! No e-mails with codes you need to verify, no junk mail, you just get an account !

If you want to, you can now create your profile (upload a photo, give information about yourself) but you don't have to do this right away. We are first going to create our first group, basically your own online class room.

Step 2: You can see a header called 'Groups' on the left side of your screen. You can click eiter join or create. We're trying to make a new group so we're going with Create. 

A pop-up appears and you can fill out the form. Choose the name of your group (Tourism, English Literature...), the level and the subject area. Click 'Create' to proceed.

This takes you to the next screen where you get your Group Code. This is the code that gives students access to your class room. 

Students do the same thing as you just did to create a profile, except they click 'I am a student'. They put in the Group Code, their name and a username and they are ready! Students can give their e-mail address but they don't have to do this, so again no junkmail! Easy as beans!

Possibly you have already noticed the icons in your screen: 

• The small house sends you to your home screen. This is similar to what you see when you log into Facebook, so the most recent activity is first in the list. 
• The calender icon sends you to your schedule. You can enter tests and due dates for example. 
• The folder with the V sign shows you the progress your students have made. You can see which assignments have been turned in and how you graded it. 
• The button next to it is the library. All your documents and links are saved here and you can rearrange them by group if you'd like.

Step 3: We're going to post a note now. To do this, go to the left side of your screen and click on the name of your group. You will see this in your screen: 

This bar will change slightly when you click the part that says 'type your note here...'

As you can see you can attach a file from your computer, a link to a website or a document from your Edmodo library.

The name of the group is now in the Send to bar. This means that the message you're about to send is going to be visible for the whole group. If you want to send a note to a specific student, click the x next to the group name and enter the name of your student. This obviously only works for students who have registered to your group.

The arrow is now on Note, but there are more options. If you click 'Alert' you will send a message similar to a Tweet on Twitter (max 140 characters), but you cannot attach anything. You can post a short announcement for example. You can send the message right away or you can schedule it for a later time so Edmodo can send it later. 

'Assignment' will let you post an assignment. Really? Yes, really... Choose a title, describe the assignment and choose a due date. You can attach a file and schedule a date to post the message. 

It is also possible to post a quiz which seems to be fairly easy. 

Would you rather create a poll? Sure you can! Again, this seems fairly easy to do... Type your question, choose two answer options (or more) and click send! 

Step 4: So, you have posted an assignment. Your students see it and do the assignment. When they're done, they can turn it in via the 'Turn in' button, which they will see in the middle of the post containing the assignment. Teachers will notice a 'Turned in' button in their assignment, which shows them the due date and the number of students that have turned their work in.

A short example: I did a writing assignment with a couple of students today. I have added a photo below with short instructions and the file containing the assignment. You can also see the due date and you can see that 7 students handed their work in. 

If I click on the 'Turned in' button, I can see who turned it in. I can click the student's name and open their work. This is where you can grade any work you would like to grade. I can do this in the top right corner of the screen, in the two squares divided by a slash. Put in the score, click 'Grade' and you're done. You can now choose an emoticon to show your student what you thought of their work.

For this assignment I chose to grade the work and to provide students with feedback. You can send your students a corrected version of their work with feedback via a note or via a reply to their assignment. 

Teachers can also award Badges. Edmodo provides you with 8 basic badges, but you can create your own badges too. It might seem a bit silly, but remember how badly you wanted a sticker on your work when you were younger? ;-)

Well, I think this is enough for today. I have to admit that I haven't tried all the options yet, but from what I have done and seen I can see that I really enjoy working with Edmodo. It is easy to use for me and students think it's easy and fun! Let me know what you think!

Oh and this might be a bonus:  Edmodo has an app for iPhone and iPad!  

Regards, Lotte