Follow-Up Friday (posted on Thursday)

Finally, we have come to another "Follow-Up Friday." Yesterday  Jennifer and Scott led a Thinking Thursday session over the Learning Management System (LMS) Edmodo.

Edmodo utilizes a design similar to Facebook, and provides teachers and students a secure place to connect, collaborate and share content. Teachers are also able to post assignments and quizzes to students. Quizzes are auto graded and you have the option to allow students to see their grade or not. Students can submit homework and view their grades and any comments the teacher may have posted about their assignment. Technically, you could go completely paperless as students can download documents, complete them, and then upload them back to you. Teachers can also create polls and post topics for discussion among the students. Teachers can differentiate and individualize learning through the creation of sub-groups within a course. After each course period is completed; the teacher closes out the network and creates a new one for the next course. Edmodo also has iOS and Android apps available through the Apple App Store and Google Play (respectively). These were made and published by Edmodo developers.

Update: Parents may go into their Account Settings and click the dial to determine which, if any, posts they wish to get an email notification. They would have to have joined the parent group associated with their child in order to activate that feature.

A major drawback to this program is our inability to have reliable Internet access at student homes. Between our two groups of six graders there are about 8 students that have to make use of print outs or other creative ways to get content. 

Edmodo session handout

If you are wanting to start your free account and take it for a drive, please use the following link as that will automatically put you in Discovery's network for Edmodo.

http://discoverymiddlein.edmodo.com/

Pics from Thinking Thursday

Pics by Tim B.

Come and join us in two weeks when we do it all again.

Your Discovery Literacy Leaders