I love Edmodo

Shortly after I began FLIPPING my math class, I began having my students use Edmodo as a means of commenting and leaving questions on what they were learning in the videos I post on youtube. Edmodo instantly became a class hit because to my fourth grade students, it looks like facebook. My students are at an age where they still have some play that imitates the adults around them, especially their parents. Before we became a 1:1 iPad classroom, students used to create their own paper iPads because I had one, paper laptops with brands based on the brand of laptop their parents owned, and paper smart phones. Since many parents are on facebook, the children have this natural attraction to it. Honestly, the mentioning of facebook can make a lesson more interesting. Take for example run-on sentences, I told my students that most of the posts my friends post on facebook are one long run-on sentence. On that specific day, we pretended that the sentences we were correcting were facebook posts.

Getting back to Edmodo, Edmodo was easy to setup, the children were able to register themselves (without an e-mail address), and with little help from me were able to easily navigate through the website. Like facebook, students may upload a profile picture, but since this is the first year I'm using Edmodo, I have limited my students to only using the clipart pictures found on the website already. You can use Edmodo for a variety of purposes: communication, polls, tests, etc.

I use Edmodo currently just for my FLIPPED math program. For homework, I post a video on youtube, that I link through my classroom website on the lesson we will cover the following school day. The students are expected to go home, watch the video, and then go on Edmodo to either post on my wall what they learned in the video or send a private message about what they did not understand. The following day in class, I will focus on reviewing (anonymously) the questions students sent me. Because the homework is as easy as watching a video, most of my students will watch it within the first hour of returning home and then post on Edmodo. When I arrive home I will take a quick five minutes, read the posts that students write and either tell them they did a great job or ask them to expand on what they posted by asking them a question. Before I go to bed, I will check Edmodo one more time, for any students who may have completed the homework later in the evening.

Although, I currently use Edmodo just for math, I do have plans to use it in a variety of other subjects. My next goal is to add Edmodo to my reading program to allow students to discuss the novel we are currently reading in class. The one thing I have found with my math program is that if a student posts onto my wall and I return back with a question, I will get a number of students responding to the question I posted, not just the student that I originally asked. So, I really feel that Edmodo will be a benefit in many different subject areas.

There are a few rules I put in place for my class when I started Edmodo, they are:

1. You must write in complete sentences.
2. You may not use acronyms, e.g. lol, jk, brb, etc. 
3. You may not post or send information that is not school related. 

How do you use Edmodo in your class? Are there any rules you have with using this website or iPad app?