Edmodo Overview
Edmodo is a free social networking service designed especially for use in the educational setting. It allows teachers to tear down the traditional time/space barriers they face in classrooms. Teachers, students, and their parents can be connected wherever and whenever they have an Internet connection. It will be up to you to decide your level of comfort with this communication outside of school – in other words you set your available time and make it known to parents and students.
Essentially, edmodo is a “walled garden” social network. You will have total control as the administrator of your network. The only people that may connect with each other are those you allow. Random creeper man from down the street will not be able to converse with your students and vice versa. Your students will not be able to post anything that you can not see, they will not be able to ruin their digital footprint. They will be able to engage in more social constructivist approaches to learning – having conversations that extend beyond the school day and maybe even beyond the students in their section (depending on how you set it up).
Parents also can connect with you and their child using edmodo. This is really a game changer, in my opinion. You can generate a parent code so that a student’s parents or legal guardian can connect to the network. As a parent, they will only be able to converse with the teacher and their child. The parents are totally isolated from contacting the rest of the class. Parents can see when you assign something, when it is due, and their child’s grade (if you use the grade book feature). It is the perfect triangle of communication between school and home. By keeping the student in the loop we are forcing ownership of learning. The transparency means that the divide and conquer strategy employed by some students will become irrelevant.
The video below will walk you through the general steps for setting up an account, and how it works for students and parents (I recommend watching it in full screen).
Here is an example of how I employed edmodo earlier this year for one of my classes. I attempted to use it as a backchannel network while watching a movie in class. Although I would not recommend using edmodo as a backchannel, as that is not what it is meant to do, the video does show the potential of having increased student interaction. Students were communicating about the movie and negotiating meaning in ways that the traditional “pause and talk” method would not allow. If you ever do decide to use a backchannel in class, I would recommend either Poll Everywhere or TodaysMeet.
