Screencast: Edmodo

Have you heard about Edmodo?  Not sure how it works or whether it’s worth exploring another social media platform?  Give me five minutes to show you how I use Edmodo in my classroom.  We now use Edmodo for blogging-type out-of-class social interaction in grades six through twelve at my school.

A couple things I didn’t have time to talk about in this screencast- you can change the Edmodo language to Spanish, Portuguese, German, Greek, and French to further enhance the experience.  Also, you and students can post a variety of things, like a poll, comment, “blog”-type entry, or document from the “library.”  You can award “badges” you create (or ‘steal’ from other teachers) for things like commenting on someone else’s post, consistently turning assignments in on time, etc.  The badge isn’t really anything more than an “attaboy”- positive reinforcement instead of extrinsic reward (cf Punished by Rewards).  You can create subgroups, and students can join any number of groups (my students typically belong to 2 groups, one private class group, and the other a collaborative group we call AmigoWeb).