Promoting Student Collaboration with Edmodo

A Social Network with a Purpose

What is a Social Network?

A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities.

Are you familiar with any of these Social Networks?

Why use a Social Network?

You can connect with friends, classmates, teachers and co-workers You can have live, remote discussions Provides a platform for working together without being together Provides a platform for sharing information and knowledge (both written and visual images)

Questions to think about

Could a social network platform alleviate lack of student involvement? Can a social network encourage more participation? Can students transfer the use of social websites from use in a social practice to that of an educational practice in a positive manner?

Problem-based Scenario
Many students live in situations that prohibit them from having access to fellow classmates outside the classroom setting. This prevents collaboration on class projects and other assignments. To prevent a faction of students from being excluded, the teacher may eliminate the assignment completely

Isolated but Connected

While most students are isolated (rurally), 80% of the students polled do have online access via the Internet or a Smart phone

What does the research say?

Social platforms gave the students a lifelike curriculum (Beane 2006, p. 10) Learners have turned to online distance learning as a reliable alternative to face-toface education (Brady, Holcomb, & Smith, 2010).

What does research say?

Social networking sites (SNS) have the potential to facilitate interaction, communication, collaboration, and as a result have been prominently featured in discussions centering on the use of technology to support and amplify educational endeavors (Greenhow, Robelia, & Hughes, 2009; Veletsianos, in press).

If students use social networks fluently, why not bring it into the classroom?
Facebook has 400+ million active users Twitter has 24+ million unique visitors per month, with 500 million tweets per day. The global average time spent per person on social networking sites is now nearly five and half hours per month Edmodo has 6.4 million registered teachers and students

Can Edmodo be a learning tool?

If students apply the social networking skills that they have acquired on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace to Edmodo for educational purposes and communication, the answer is YES!

Getting Started
Open a new browser window, type in address www.edmodo.com and hit enter After the link to the Edmodo site appears, click on it, this is the next screen you will see.

Click on Im a Teacher

Account Creation
Enter information and click sign up

The next screen will welcome you to Edmodo

You may now edit your profile

Ways you may edit your profile

Adding a personal picture Writing a brief description of yourself Selecting the school where you work Join a community based on your subject area

Why should you create a group?

Organize students by class period or subject matter
Easier to access and view created assignments for a particular subject or class

Easier to do a grade book if students are grouped

Create a Group
After creating your account, you will want to create a group

Group Code Issued

After group code is given, you will give code to all students that you want to join that particular group

By clicking on a particular group, you may view only those students who have joined that group

By clicking on a particular group, you may

View only those students in that group You can do a grade book for that particular group You can send messages just for that group

Nextstudents must create accounts

In order to keep abreast of classroom assignments and activities, they must have their own account

To communicate with each other and the teacher, students must have their own account To collaborate with each other and the teacher, students must have their own account

Student Account Creation

Click on Im a Student

After clicking Im a Student, the Student Sign Up box will appear

Students must have a group code from one of their teachers to initially join-their teacher will supply the code

Joining a teachers group

Students will enter the group code of the particular teachers group (the teacher must give the code to the student). Then, a username and password must be entered. An email address is optional.

After students have joined, what now?

You can create an assignment to post on the group page for them to complete You can assign one that is in the Edmodo library You can upload a video for them to watch and critique or comment on the content You can refer them to Digital Resources for practice on a concept

Assignment Creation
Click on Assignment and enter the appropriate information

Uploading Images and Videos

Click on Library and then select the image or video from your personal material and upload

After uploading, share the image or video with a group

They may use it as a reference tool
They may use it as a discussion starter It may just be something that you find interesting that you want to share with them

Digital Content Available

How to use digital content?

Content is available for all subject areas (teacher and student resources) You may link it to your personal library for easy accessibility Students may access digital content to play games or do practice exercises for subject matter

Example of Digital Content for Biology

After clicking on Khan, you may choose content-below is an instructional video clip of Mitosis

After locating the video, you may

Save it in your library for future use Upload it to a group page for them to view at a later time and ask questions about or answer questions about

Post it for students to use as a reference

Online Communities are available for each subject area

Why connect to a community?

Build a professional learning community through networking Build relationships outside of your building to increase professional awareness Share content knowledge with other professionals

After clicking on Language Arts on the online community page, it will take you to this page

On the Language Arts page, you can

Share a resource

Ask questions of fellow professionals Reply to fellow professionals

On Edmodo, help is always available The three areas I used most are Support Community, Mini-Lessons and Webinars

Features of the Support Community

Offers support 24 hours a day Allows you to post any question relating to Edmodo here

Should answer you within an hour

Features of the Mini-Lessons page

A link to a library full of short lessons that can be used as is or altered to fit your needs Can be used as unit activators

A short activity to engage your students in a topic

Samples of Mini-Lessons

Webinars
You may register for free upcoming webinars or view archived webinars with a click of your mouse

The next four slides illustrate an assignment I created

This assignment was designed to:
Incorporate student collaboration Incorporate student communication Promote critical/deeper thinking

Objectives
Create a student Edmodo account Explain in writing a test taking strategy that has been successful for you to your fellow classmates and discuss why it helps you Initiate dialogue with fellow classmates by making comments on the strategies that they have posted NETS Standards Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively Students understand and use technology systems

Test Taking Strategy Assignment

Students reply by clicking on reply or turn in

Benefits of Edmodo to Teachers

Allows for open communication with students

Encourages questioning and dialogue between students and teacher Allows for students to ask questions who would normally be apprehensive in an open classroom to ask questions
Allows for classrooms across the world to link together based on subject area

Students and teachers have 24 hour access with Internet and Smart phones

Possible Teacher Questions

How might you use Edmodo in your classroom?

May I assist you in designing some ways to use Edmodo in your class? Do you think that dialogue between the students and teacher can contribute to deeper, critical thinking?
Would the use of this Edmodo alleviate some of the alienation that some students feel by often being left out of group work that takes place outside the classroom?

I am connected to most all colleagues in my buildingare you connected to yours by a network other than email?

Will you let Edmodo connect you to your students, colleagues and the World?

References
Casey, G., Evans, T. (2011). Designing for learning: Online social networks as a classroom environment. International Review of Research in Open & Distance Learning, 12 (7), 1-26.

Greenhow, C. (2011). Online social networks and learning. On The Horizon, 19 (1), 4-12.
Veletsianso, G., Navarrete, C.C., (2012). Online social networks as formal learning environments: Learner experiences and activities. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 13 (1), 144-166.