Edmodo

What is it?

 Edmodo is an classroom social networking website that allows you to make a virtual online classroom network.

What's it for?

 This is a great website for creating a virtual classroom environment. Teachers and students can easily communicate, and the website allows for text message and email alerts to be established. The website also is a great way to post online assignments and quizzes.

How have I used it?

 This website has been an integral part of my Environmental Science and AP Environmental Science classes. Both of these classes have a weekly current events assignment that is enhanced by using Edmodo as an interactive discussion board. Every week, the students are assigned to find and summarize a recent news article that relates to Environmental Science. They post their summary (which includes at least one discussion question), and attach a link to the original news source, on their class Edmodo homepage. The second part of their assignment is to read the articles/summaries posted by 2 other students in their class and to answer the discussion questions written by their classmates. Finally, the students "turn in" their assignment using the Edmodo assignments tool. This way I can keep track of their grades on Edmodo, and the website alerts them when their assignment is due.

I have also used Edmodo for online "Web Quests," where I post many relevant links to a topic we are covering in class, and have the students complete an assignment related to exploring the web content. Edmodo easily facilitates this kind of online activity, because you can direct the students to their Edmodo accounts to find access to all of the websites, and the description of their assignment can be loaded using the Edmodo assignment tool.

Technical Stuff

 This is a web application, meaning that you may access it from any internet enabled computer. You must make an account as a teacher, and then establish an Edmodo "classroom" that will generate a user code that you then give to your students. When they make their student accounts, they will enter your classroom user code to "join" your virtual classroom.

Getting Started & Tutorials

Go to www.Edmodo.com and make your teacher account by filling out the required fields. For more information, go to http://help.edmodo.com/

Citations www.edmodo.com